‘Star Wars: Squadrons’ to Support PSVR & PC VR at Launch This Fall, Trailer Here

Play the entire game in VR

By
Scott Hayden
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46

Star Wars: Squadrons is an upcoming first-person dogfighter that’s set to release on PC and consoles this fall. As luck would have it, both PSVR and PC VR owners will also be able to play the game when it arrives.

The game was first discovered on Friday due to a leak by Xbox.com, and was later formally confirmed by EA a few hours later with the promise of a trailer reveal, scheduled for today. At the time, there was no indication that we’d be getting a full-fledged VR Star Wars game.

According to the game’s website, you can:

Compete in intense 5v5 dogfights, unite with your squadron to tip the scales in monumental fleet battles, and take off in a thrilling Star Wars™ single-player story. Immerse yourself in the pilot’s seat completely with the option to play the entirety of Star Wars™: Squadrons in virtual reality (VR) on PlayStation®4 and PC with cross-play support.

Created by EA’s Motive Studios, the Star Wars dogfighting game is said to take place after the events of Return of the Jedi (1983), letting you take part in both a campaign and multiplayer modes.

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Star Wars: Squadrons is set to launch on October 2nd for $39.99 across PS4, Xbox One, and PC via Origin, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Pre-orders are now available.

Although there’s no word on precisely which PC VR headsets it will support, it’s likely we’ll see the standard mix of SteamVR headsets.

This news is breaking. Check back for more soon.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Rudl Za Vedno

    Wow, X-wing VS Tie-fighter in VR! I can’t wait. You better not screw this one up EA!!!

  • Arcticu Kitsu

    Seems promising. I’ll keep this on my radar, especially with the news of VR with it.

  • Dream come true!

  • Red

    About. Bloody. Time.

  • DanDei

    This is a breakthrough moment for VR. First time a big publisher announces a AAA title to support VR from the get go. I hope this means EA, Ubisoft and others will now commit more to VR instead of those very shy first experiments in the past.

    • Agreed. At a minimum, this signals that VR isn’t going anywhere in the sim genre (Ironic considering what’s just happened with Elite Dangerous)

      • JDawg

        “VR isn’t going anywhere”
        Meaning it’s staying or it’s not progressing?

        • Anfronie

          In context he meant it is staying around and I agree wholeheartedly. The technology is finally here to finally have it take off.

      • I must have missed something. What just happened with E.D?

    • Alextended

      Er, how is this AAA? It’s from a dodgy team/studio, it uses existing Battlefront assets, it costs 40 or whatever at launch (without trying to hook you to a company’s ecosystem like Oculus own $40 flagship titles do) and it sounds super barebones with the focus on such small scale dog fighting (5 v 5, when a full squadron in Star Wars is meant to be a dozen ships). Medal of Honor (also from the same publisher, EA) has much higher chances of being a full price worthy title (and that remains to be seen) and it’s VR Only rather than have the VR Compatible crutch marginalizing the importance of VR support to the same level as racing games like DiRT Rally, Project Cars and Assetto Corsa. Derp.

      • fredzvt

        Can’t you just be happy about it? I’m SO excited with this!
        I don’t care if it has reused assets. If the studio can reuse assets and still allow me to play awesome polished games, I’m 100% in for it!
        You guys love to complain, don’t you?

        • Thank you !!

          I swear, the childish, entitled attitudes of the inter-webz never fails to surprise me. Given a wish list is it what we would ask for? No. (also considering no two people can ever agree on everything) What I would assume based on my desires and other comments over the past few years is we would all love a modern X-Wing series. Full story, full multiplayer, full VR.

          And I’m sure we may get that someday. And you know what one of the best ways to get there is? It’s to have a successful test product.

          If you REALLY want more X-wing VR flight sims, support what they offer and they will offer more.

          Cheers !

          • Alextended

            Yeah, it’s other people who feel different about a stupid low effort Electronic Arts game being childish, not you acting like they shit in your cereal over stating that fact. Grow up, enjoy the shit you do whether other people feel the same about it or not. They’re gonna lose the license anyway so it’s not up to them if you’ll get more X-Wing VR. And all the better other companies get a chance to do actually good Star Wars games when that finally happens.

          • fredzvt
        • Alextended

          Did I tell you to not be excited? Why do you tell me to be “happy”? What’s wrong with you? I just presented facts to show the opinion that this is an AAA project is wrong. Get over it.

      • brubble

        Yeah, you lost me at “lol”

        • Alextended

          Neat, you got the gist of it by that point, lol.

          • brubble

            Haha so it would seem.

      • B mill

        I’m sure it’s going to be ok. $40 for a game seems cheap to me. But I’ve been buying them since the mid 90s so that has always been around their range, in fact it was usually higher in 1990s money. VR games are incredibly cheap because they’re mostly indy titles. But $40 does not seem steep by any means to me for a studio release.

        • Alextended

          …Where did I say it’s steep, lol, I pretty much said the opposite, that costing just $40 at launch, from greedy EA at that, pretty much proves it’s not an AAA project…

      • brandon9271

        i depends what assets they reuse. If it’s something they’re just going to have to “draw” over again, why no just use one that already exists?

    • JesuSaveSouls

      Hope it has single player.

      • DanDei

        Campaigns for both sides are confirmed. More infos to come on thursday’s EA Play stream

    • Ben Van Deventer

      Aside from being the most likely cause of VR motion sickness, flying games seem like one of the easiest ways to successfully implement VR, since you’re pretty much just a head inside a cockpit. Air Taxi is amazingly immersive, but again, easy to make yourself nauseated if you do certain ‘rollercoaster’ type maneuvers.

      • B mill

        DCS World put me through 3 days of vertigo hell after a 3 hour session in vr, but it cured my VR sickness going forward.

        • Ben Van Deventer

          Interesting… trial by fire. Might have to give it a go. Thankfully my favorite VR genre, racing games, don’t give me any kind of motion sickness.

    • B mill

      No, Valve beat them to it with Half Life Alyx. But it’s good to see more VR coming from the studios, it means they aren’t convinced they won’t get their investment back any longer.

    • harvey37

      capcom doesn’t count with RE7?

  • blue5peed

    I feel silly for expecting a gameplay trailer.

    • Sven Viking

      Apparently “Star Wars™: Squadrons full gameplay reveal @ EA Play Live, June 18, 4pm PDT”.

  • Kirk Johnston

    OK, since it’s in VR I’m interested.

  • gacl

    The game looks amazing!! However, I want a PS5 version, not a PS4 version. This game is launching around the PS5 launch, and appetite for PS4 games is going to be low. Also, the graphics look better than what PS4+PSVR can do.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Let’s first wait until we see actual gameplay footage.. there wasn’t any in this trailer, it was all cinematic ingame footage.

      • Adrian Meredith

        “In engine” footage, which considering game engines are starting to be used in films and TV means absolutely nothing

  • 3872Orcs

    Very cool news! Now hopefully it’s a good experience in VR and not some shit thrown together that is frustrating to play and super uncomfortable! Worst examples of this I’ve played is: EVE Valkyrie, Everspace and No Man’s Sky. Best includes Elite Dangerous and House of the Dying Sun.

  • Alextended

    Real shame it’s not trying to be like X-Wing & TIE Fighter games (even that fabled series faltered when it went PVP focused with X-Wing vs TIE Fighter) with a focus on varied campaigns and missions. PVP dogfighting gets old fast if they don’t do something in depth & strategic like Allegiance.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      And that’s what I’m also afraid of, never really liked the X-wing vs Tie fighter multiplayer dogfights. But for me, too much strategy is also boring, I’m more of a fighter.. But I’ll doubt it will have a decent campaign-mode.

      • Alextended

        You can be a fighter pilot (or scout or whatever) in Allegiance, not everyone is a commander. But being a fighter in that kind of in depth set up gets you much more variety than 5 v 5 dogfights as you’re directed to attack, defend or escort important targets in the ways you do in solo campaigns.

  • Nothing to see here

    Super excited until the very last moment when it turned out to be a PvP kill match. Meh. Was hoping for X-Wing vs Tie Fighter.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    If only they completely remastered the x-wing/t-fighter collection with all its missions. But there are fans busy doing sort of remaster using the original gamefiles:
    https://www.moddb.com/mods/xwvm/videos/introducing-xwvm-virtual-reality-support

    I hope Squadrons will have a decent long campaign mode as I’m not really fond of playing these type of games in multiplayer..

  • Gonzax

    Judging by the price it doesn’t look like a full-fledged game, to be honest, more like a multiplayer game with a short solo campaign which probably won’t be longer than 2-3 hours.

    The lack of VR controllers support is a bit annoying, too. Only gamepad and kb+mouse.

    I’m still looking forward to it, though and it’s a good thing the game has VR support from day 1, it might be a sign of things to come so let’s hope it will be good.

  • Adam Broadhurst

    I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best but i suspect EA with balls it up some how.
    Trying to be positive,the short Battlefront X-Wing demo showed the potential of a Star Wars space sim but im thinking this will be MP focused and the single player story will be very short.
    But its better than nothing i suppose.

    As other have suggested,a remake of the ald X-Wing games with updated graphics(space sim gfx really arent that difficult to do) and VR would more than suffice for most people.

  • JesuSaveSouls

    I remember in around 1999 on GameCube they came out with rogue squadron.This is twenty years later in vr a new era.

    • Alextended

      GameCube came out in 2001, first Rogue Squadron was on N64 and PC in 98. There were great Star Wars combat flight games before then too, less arcadey but still fun as hell light “sims” like X-Wing in 1993 and its sequels. Nothing about this, other than the name including the common word Squadrons, says it will be like the past Squadron series by Factor 5.

  • bud01

    I’m sure there are going to be a lot of ready and able pilots :-)
    That trailer is a real pleasure to watch,

    Any one needing to calm those pilots down today? don’t forget the Wonderful star wars Mandalorian series, I believe able to be streamed online.

    Amazing work, really really nice.

  • Adam Kapraun

    One would have to be a moron to think that VR will not be a massively profitable investment. These publishers are total pussies. People watch the movies that they like because they’re interested in the world that the story takes place in. A lot of people watch those said movies with, often, the desire to experience a fraction of what it would be like to live in that world. This is one of those, ‘no-shit’ moments.