Star Wars: Squadrons

Elite Dangerous would like to have a word with you...

There are others of various degrees of quality and gameplay focus as well, the X series, Avorion, Rebel Galaxy, everspace, etc.

This isn't a dying genre, but it is on the back burner for triple a developers as they are fad chasers. Which is why this game is ultimately hollow, it isn't a space flight sim so much as a multiplayer team death match/arena fighter, probably made in such a way to bolt on mods like battle royal.

You gotta dig into indie titles (and deal with indie issues) to get genre's off the beaten path.
 
There are others of various degrees of quality and gameplay focus as well, the X series, Avorion, Rebel Galaxy, everspace, etc.

This isn't a dying genre, but it is on the back burner for triple a developers as they are fad chasers. Which is why this game is ultimately hollow, it isn't a space flight sim so much as a multiplayer team death match/arena fighter, probably made in such a way to bolt on mods like battle royal.

You gotta dig into indie titles (and deal with indie issues) to get genre's off the beaten path.

Problem with most of those games you listed is they are trading/RPGs which happen to be set in space and not a space sim/shooter. Essentially, Skyrim in space.

All I want is a good space sim/shooter, not a damn RPG. Not that I oppose those, but seemingly every game set in space has to be one.
 
Rebel galaxy outlaw gets a lot right to be honest...if they could just copy those gamepad controls over as is I think this game would be the better for it
 
Warning: The following is merely my opinion and is not meant to be a judgement upon anyone else or their gaming preferences.

I discovered way back in the days of Ye Olde DOS that their were two very different varieties of space sims for joystick aficionados to latch on to (ruling out the space RTS, 4x, and Strategy games), and their does not seem to be a lot of crossover between the two - people mostly prefer one or the other, and games that try hard to do both tend to appeal strongly to neither.

1) The Space Combat Sim. You are in a military force, you go on a series of scripted missions and a detailed tightly integrated story line unfolds through these missions. These games tend to be purely linear (where you have to beat a mission to continue on) or branching path, where missing objectives allows you to move on, but may have repercussions in the game's story line/mission objectives going forward. A joystick is pretty much required equipment to play enjoyably. Games of this type include titles such as Wing Commander 1-5, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, FreeSpace 1-2, StarLancer, and (perhaps one day before I, and my SideWinder Force Feedback Pro 2, die of old age) Squadron 42. There is even a "hardcore" sub-genre of this type that includes games like Independence War 1-2, and arguably Tachyon: The Fringe.

2) The Space "RPG" Sim. Sure, there's usually combat, but it is not necessarily the thrust of this type of game. These games tend to have kind of a loose set up where you can do things like fly military missions on a contract basis, bounty hunt, trade, mine asteroids, make bases, craft items, explore, etc. Some games of this type don't even really benefit all that much from a joystick though most will let you use one. There may or may not be a story line after the initial set up. Games of this type include the X series, Elite, Elite Dangerous, Wing Commander Privateer 1-2, No Man's Sky, and FreeLancer. If I'm gonna mention Squadron 42 above, I guess I need to include Star Citizen as an eventual maybe here as well.

Like I said in the beginning, there are some that try to appeal to both types. I consider X-Wing: Alliance to be one of these. XWA was a game that I eventually beat, but I never came back to it whereas I play through X-Wing and Tie Fighter again from time to time.

There are also games that lean heavily on a multiplayer premise such as X-Wing vs Tie Fighter (though a single-player campaign expansion, Balance of Power, was eventually made for even this game). Star Citizen and (theoretically to a lesser extent) Elite Dangerous play here as does the new Star Wars Squadrons.

Personally, I am heavily invested in the first type of game. That's what I like, and they just don't really make new games like this anymore. "They" being defined as the major AAA publishers. Fortunately for me, as I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, FreeSpace 2 Open is the gift that keeps giving (and Elite Dangerous just doesn't really scratch this itch for me).
 
The multiplayer is fun with a few friends on voice and no the ships don't fly the same. Pip management matters a lot though. Max out engines whenever you can afford to, it's night and day.

But once you start modding the engines you can make the difference between the different crafts really stark too. The interceptor can be modded to go from zero to 100 or 100 to zero instantly for example, but try that same engine mod on the support craft and it doesn't scale well at all because of its terrible base stats. Same with the bombers, you can mod their engines however you want they'll still remain sluggish.

It is no Elite Dangerous by any means, it's quite accessible and the physics are really simple. But it's got some depth and flavour and a lot of different builds to play around with. If you're not playing alone it opens up even more possibilities because you can make builds that complete each other.
 
Just played about 2 hours of my 10 hour trial and its fun so far, its not the most amazing game ever but tis entertaining and interesting in my Rift S. I was extremely happy with how easy it was to jump in the VR mode through origin, had 0 issues doing it.
Ten hour trial?
 
I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Tried on KBM on an ultrawide, moved to controller, might go back still trying to figure that out... then I'll look into the VR.

It plays well, it's fun, exactly what I thought it would be as well. Combat is a blast, and there's a solid difference on all the ships. Good times!
Ten hour trial?

If you buy something on steam you get X hours where you can return it, no questions.
 
Ten hour trial?
I'm enjoying the hell out of it. Tried on KBM on an ultrawide, moved to controller, might go back still trying to figure that out... then I'll look into the VR.

It plays well, it's fun, exactly what I thought it would be as well. Combat is a blast, and there's a solid difference on all the ships. Good times!


If you buy something on steam you get X hours where you can return it, no questions.
I have ea play so I get a 10 hour trial to the game off origin
 
I like the game a lot. It's a good spiritual successor to the X-Wing/Tie-Fighter series. Also, I played it in VR, and while I suck with the VR headset on, it's an absolute amazing experience as a Star Wars fan.
 
Playing a bit more. Mouse keyboard just seems unplayable, managing a throttle with a keyboard just doesn't work and the mouse seems too slow even after upping sensitivity. Will see what I can do with an Xbox controller when it comes to re-assigning controls.
 
I didn't say you did. You claimed the developers were incompetent because YOU didn't like something about it. I stated otherwise.
The developers are incompetent because of the objective issues like for example the dead zone with sticks, and because we have a template of how power management can be done better, not because of the subjective things I dislike.
You or anyone else not caring about these issues doesn't make them non-existent. It just makes me sad that this is the state of gaming today that developers are left to get away with half assing things like this, and even get defended when called out.
Again, you are allowed to enjoy the game despite these, just please don't deny that these issues are present.
 
My Thrustmaster HOTAS X is working great for this game. I have been able to map everything I have required so far to buttons, hat switch (POV) for power management, 5th axis for left/right auxiliary, on the HOTAS.
 
The developers are incompetent because of the objective issues like for example the dead zone with sticks, and because we have a template of how power management can be done better, not because of the subjective things I dislike.
You or anyone else not caring about these issues doesn't make them non-existent. It just makes me sad that this is the state of gaming today that developers are left to get away with half assing things like this, and even get defended when called out.
Again, you are allowed to enjoy the game despite these, just please don't deny that these issues are present.


Again, I'm having no issues and neither are many others, if the power management is too complex and you can't get over the deadzone then maybe you should find another game to play but claiming incompetence on the part of the developer because you can't get passed something is pretentious and ignorant. Again, no issues here which make these non-issues, which in-turn translates to them being "non-existent" for me and many others. The controls work for me and the power management, while maybe being a bit overly simplified, works just fine for this game. I'm not saying you have to like it just that maybe it's time to learn that your opinion isn't universal nor does it indicate "incompetence" in others... in reality, more often than not, your opinion, like most peoples, is irrelevant. Maybe keep this in mind the next time you want to share your opinion so you stop acting like it's some kind of litmus test for competency.
 
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I have a lower end Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS that I picked up last year for ~$45. I've found that it works wonders with this over KB/M or controller. The nuance with throttle control makes a huge difference. It's got a bit of a "notch" at 50% so I can quickly snap it in place for max turn-in.
 
I'm disappointed to hear the craft all seem to fly very similarly - that's a major departure from the old Xwing / TIE Fighter days when each craft was entirely different feeling. This wasn't just between "classes" but individual craft - a TIE Bomber and Y-Wing functioned and felt completely differently! That's really too bad if its not the case here.

I'm even more concerned if the missions all seem too straight forward and simple - be they single player or campaign. One of the great things (as aforementioned) about the older titles was that things would get hectic, there would be secondary, tertiary, and even secret objectives (the latter unlocked usually by doing something in mission that spawns the new objective, labeled or otherwise) and these would impact your mission path. Sure, you could do the basic primary or maybe secondary objectives, but you could also hang around in certain missions fighting against waves of increasing difficulty, detect a hidden cargo element and escort it safely, or go up against enemy aces ; often deciding when to retreat vs pushing the envelope was part of the fun! The rewards of these meant unlocking in-game medals and special story path elements - even special missions! I can remember unlocking special missions and getting into the "Emperor's Hand" back in the TIE Fighter games because of my prowess.

I'm glad Squadrons is present , but I really hope they don't miss what made the older titles great and then assume "nobody wants to buy this kind of game anymore, so we will just make lootbox garbage". It seems like they shouldn't have leaned too hard on the multiplayer side and/or treating single player fun like a tutorial at best.
This!

It reminds me of how EA treated the unexpected success that was Dragon Age: Origin, where everyone had just assumed that isometric RPGs was something that people just didn't want anymore. DA:2 changed the formula for some reason, probably to get more console players, DA:I even further to the point it seemed to me to be just a console game without any dept.
I have tried to like DA:I, but my heart just drops when I see all the PEW!PEW!PEW!PEW! action in the first combat you encounter and I just can't get past that. 3D isometric RPGs are like chess, a strategic and tactical game as much as an adventure and role playing game.

So if EA once again has dumbed down something to get even MOAR monies, then they can fuck right off.
 
This!

It reminds me of how EA treated the unexpected success that was Dragon Age: Origin, where everyone had just assumed that isometric RPGs was something that people just didn't want anymore. DA:2 changed the formula for some reason, probably to get more console players, DA:I even further to the point it seemed to me to be just a console game without any dept.
I have tried to like DA:I, but my heart just drops when I see all the PEW!PEW!PEW!PEW! action in the first combat you encounter and I just can't get past that. 3D isometric RPGs are like chess, a strategic and tactical game as much as an adventure and role playing game.

So if EA once again has dumbed down something to get even MOAR monies, then they can fuck right off.

DA:I could have worked, the combat system isn't terrible, but it has one of the worst opening few hours of any RPG of the past decade. The first open-world area is absolutely abysmal.
 
DA:I could have worked, the combat system isn't terrible, but it has one of the worst opening few hours of any RPG of the past decade. The first open-world area is absolutely abysmal.

I liked DA:I generally. The biggest issue with the Hinterlands is that everyone tries to complete it before moving on. If you jump out as soon as a quest pushes to one of the other areas, it is a much better experience.

Unfortunately Bioware expected the player to figure it out on their own, instead of holding thier hand like most games do quest/area wise.
 
I liked DA:I generally. The biggest issue with the Hinterlands is that everyone tries to complete it before moving on. If you jump out as soon as a quest pushes to one of the other areas, it is a much better experience.

Unfortunately Bioware expected the player to figure it out on their own, instead of holding thier hand like most games do quest/area wise.

They just needed to actually design it better. You can't blame the player for playing a RPG like...A RPG.
 
I may pick this game up. From what I have seen so far, it looks fun.

It brings back memories of when I used to play Star Wars Galaxies and they added the Space stuff. I spent hours playing that and had a great time.
 
I liked DA:I generally. The biggest issue with the Hinterlands is that everyone tries to complete it before moving on. If you jump out as soon as a quest pushes to one of the other areas, it is a much better experience.

Unfortunately Bioware expected the player to figure it out on their own, instead of holding thier hand like most games do quest/area wise.
That's just a convenient excuse someone came up with, it holds no water. DAI wasn't bad because players tried to complete the hinterlands before visiting other areas. If a game presents you a quest you can't blame the player for trying to complete it anyway. But even if you move to the next area immediately that won't make the game any better. You still have to do the same chores on every map, the main storyline is still obscured by all the collecting of garbage and fetch quests. The maps except for a few are still worthless to explore. The loot is still garbage, the bugs still exist, the combat is still what it is.
 
I may pick this game up. From what I have seen so far, it looks fun.

It brings back memories of when I used to play Star Wars Galaxies and they added the Space stuff. I spent hours playing that and had a great time.

Jump to lightspeed was the last good thing that SWG did before it imploded.
 
Played around some more. Using a HOTAS. Going to say that power is a bit low. I know they added this whole power thing as a way to balance things, but it seems like your ships simply run out of energy very fast. Even with power diverted to weapons, I've fired until I ran out of power and still can't take down some ships. Yes, they likely hit their shields/repair auxiliary thing, but getting 80% or so hits and having them just boost away is a bit annoying.

They need some good default profiles for most popular HOTAS or sticks. Because for the X52 Pro everything was pretty much unmapped. I have most of the things set up, but need something for the quick boost which has become apparent that it is very much needed. However, even with sensitivity to 80%, the stick is just too slow. The Xbox controller is better for turning around quickly but with a clunky yaw (which is very much needed in this game) I find the controller isn't practical. Mouse/keyboard is impossible to properly navigate and use your throttle for. Which is why Squadrons finds itself in an awkward position. All input devices don't work optimally.

Other thing I'll notice is every game I get into is very lopsided. Typically 30 to 10 kills in team death match. Maybe in time it will equalize more.

Feeling mixed about this game. The gameplay isn't complex, but the control setup and implementation is fairly horrible. I kind of expected better from a AAA game.
 
Played around some more. Using a HOTAS. Going to say that power is a bit low. I know they added this whole power thing as a way to balance things, but it seems like your ships simply run out of energy very fast. Even with power diverted to weapons, I've fired until I ran out of power and still can't take down some ships. Yes, they likely hit their shields/repair auxiliary thing, but getting 80% or so hits and having them just boost away is a bit annoying.

They need some good default profiles for most popular HOTAS or sticks. Because for the X52 Pro everything was pretty much unmapped. I have most of the things set up, but need something for the quick boost which has become apparent that it is very much needed. However, even with sensitivity to 80%, the stick is just too slow. The Xbox controller is better for turning around quickly but with a clunky yaw (which is very much needed in this game) I find the controller isn't practical. Mouse/keyboard is impossible to properly navigate and use your throttle for. Which is why Squadrons finds itself in an awkward position. All input devices don't work optimally.

Other thing I'll notice is every game I get into is very lopsided. Typically 30 to 10 kills in team death match. Maybe in time it will equalize more.

Feeling mixed about this game. The gameplay isn't complex, but the control setup and implementation is fairly horrible. I kind of expected better from a AAA game.

I wonder if this really is a AAA title. You don't generally see AAA titles given a budget price on release, even in cases where they're outright bad games or the publisher has no faith in them. All the issues remind me of the days when we still had publishers releasing a lot of AA budget priced titles. They usually lacked a lot of the polish expected of bigger titles and often had a lot of weird issues.
 
Impressive 60 fps performance on the current consoles:


Mostly 4k on OneX, 1440-1520p on Pro, 1080p mostly on PS4, and average closer to 900p on XB1.
 
I wonder if this really is a AAA title. You don't generally see AAA titles given a budget price on release, even in cases where they're outright bad games or the publisher has no faith in them. All the issues remind me of the days when we still had publishers releasing a lot of AA budget priced titles. They usually lacked a lot of the polish expected of bigger titles and often had a lot of weird issues.

Truthfully this does feel more like an AA game. The graphics don't look quite that good. Just look at the asteroids on some maps. Lighting and detail, even on the ships, is just not there graphically.
 
Truthfully this does feel more like an AA game. The graphics don't look quite that good. Just look at the asteroids on some maps. Lighting and detail, even on the ships, is just not there graphically.

Using an old Frostbite Engine, it's understood that it is not exactly AAA. Still, a game doesn't need to be AAA in order for it to be good and it sounds like it plays very well, at least on console.

The fact that it is cheaper than most games doesn't make it less premium by itself imho.
 
Why cant we just get a modern xwing and tie fighter :(

Ill take a super reremaster on them

Sadly there is no money in it. This one looks like more of an Arcade experience, which is ok I guess.
 
Sadly there is no money in it. This one looks like more of an Arcade experience, which is ok I guess.
Honestly, there is not so much difference. If they sorted the controls out, removed the idiotic boost mechanic, re-balanced the ships to be more in line with what we know to be true (Tie more manuverable but fragile), used the energy management from Tie Fighter / XWA, and quit the hand holding in missions this would be as good as it gets. These are all minor things, but they are enough to get the game from "awesome" to "meh I don't even want to play this" for me.
 
Patch/update inbound Thursday morning. 8am EDT

They better fix rudder pedals dangit.
 
Got some more time in this and I have to say, it just isn't up to par. It fails as a flight game on most levels (yes I realize it is set in space, but it works mostly the same). They just failed at making three control input types work properly. I was hoping for a better Battlefront II star fighter assault. Instead we get an awkward controlling game that somehow looks uglier.

The balancing and feel is just so off as well. If you can empty an entire burst of lasers and still not kill another fighter (regardless of what shield they have active) in one go the game is just a failure. You're telling me the ships can't even sustain enough energy to down a single fighter? Please. The whole diverting power from engines to weapons is moronic in the first place, but I can understand needing some type of gameplay mechanism for the sake of not being too simplistic. But this game just utterly fails at its implementation.

I'm not saying they can't fix the game, but this feels more like an early beta. They're past alpha builds and have the main features in, they just need to figure out how they want the gameplay to work and refine it from there. Make sensible controls for all three input devices out of the box, polish up the graphics and other quality of life stuff. But they have a long way to go to get there.

Strictly speaking of the MP. SP I haven't touched yet.
 
so what's the verdict on this game (both single player and multiplayer)?...a bigger and better version of Battlefront 2's Starfighter Assault mode?
 
I like Battlefront 2 better but I’m only a few hours into Squadrons. I thought Starfighter Assault in BF2 was epic.
 
I'm going to say I am pretty disappointed in this game. The more I play it, the more it feels like a budget title in perpetual early access rather than a finished product. The sounds seemingly become faint after a match or two, and you mainly hear music and voice comms. The sound affects become so quiet yet everything else is still just as loud as before. The damage and ship graphical affects too bad. I can't tell what my affect on target is. Are they deploying counter measures? Is their ship weak? Ships look like they're in a ball of glitter while at the same time have a massive blur effect on them. Add in the dead silent sounds and you have no connection to what is happening around you.

The menu sucks. The wait between each match sucks (2 minutes is too long). The controls suck. The balancing sucks. Ships regenerate too much shields/HP too quickly. You can empty all your rounds and get 80% hits then your ship runs out of power, while the enemy rounds an asteroid regaining full health while you still haven't regained energy to fire off more than 2-3 laser shots. Why are the ships so strapped for power that they can't shoot a burst with enough lasers to take out one fighter? It makes no sense, and it makes for horrid gameplay. The targetting system sucks, and doesn't properly prioritize the target you're flying towards or pointing at. Instead, it targets your team member's ship, further away off to the side of your screen. The graphics, save for the cockpit, are downright ugly.

This seems like a 4-5 / 10 game at best. I recently went through Just Cause 4 again with all the updates and while playable, it was still subpar. Squadrons feels about the same quality level as JC4. Which is not a good standard to be compared to...
 
So the patch added the ability to fuck with the deadline settings for a flight stick, anybody messed around with it?
 
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