2 Attachment(s)
Star Wars: Squadrons Only Allows For A First-Person View
Star Wars: Squadrons creative director Ian Frazier has confirmed that the upcoming dogfighting sim will only be playable in first-person. That’s likely to be a controversial move, especially for players who were looking for a followup to the Rogue Squadron series, which allowed both first-person and third-person perspectives.
EA Motive, the studio behind Star Wars Battlefront 2, announced Star Wars: Squadrons last week, shortly after a leak revealed the game’s existence. Since then, a cinematic trailer and an extended gameplay preview for Star Wars: Squadrons have also surfaced, giving fans a good look at what to expect from the game. As confirmed in the gameplay preview, Star Wars: Squadrons will feature evolving multi-stage multiplayer Fleet Battles, 5v5 dogfights in Squadron mode, and a singleplayer campaign.
While it seems like there will be a lot to look forward to when Star Wars: Squadrons is released on October 2, it will be missing one feature that many players expect from space sims. In an interview with GameSpot, creative director Ian Frazier revealed that Star Wars: Squadrons won’t feature a third-person mode, instead sticking solely to first-person combat. The only time players will actually be able to view the action in third-person will be in spectator mode. According to Frazier, Motive made that decision to help level the playing field for pilots, saying that those playing in third-person mode would have had an unfair advantage over those in first-person due to the expanded field of view.
Although that may be disappointing for some players, Star Wars: Squadrons’ focus on the first-person perspective may come with some advantages as well. Frazier says that every important piece of information in the game’s HUD will also be viewable on the instrument panels in each ship’s cockpit, meaning that players can turn off the UI entirely and live out their fully immersive X-Wing pilot dreams. It also means that VR players will get the same experience as all other players, which is an important consideration since Motive confirms that the game will feature full cross-platform support for current-gen platforms, even for players using VR.
It remains to be seen whether Star Wars: Squadrons is the definitive Star Wars dogfighting experience that fans have been waiting for, but early signs are extremely promising. Even just the first look at the game has revealed a wealth of classic Star Wars ships to pilot and some very intense looking space combat. Add to that groundbreaking support for cross-play that includes VR players and Star Wars: Squadrons seems worth getting excited for, even without third-person support.
Star Wars: Squadrons is set to launch on October 2, 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
