Electronic Arts announced its newest Star Wars title, Star Wars: Squadrons, that focuses mainly on multiplayer but will also include a single-player campaign. This is similar to EA DICE's Star Wars Battlefront 2 which offered players a single-player campaign but was developed with the multiplayer modes taking priority. Star Wars: Squadrons will feature aerial and space combat where players will pilot famous Star Vessels from the Star Wars franchise.
Star Wars: Squadrons was first leaked in March of 2020 on PlayStation Network under the title Star Wars: Project Maverick. Then it was leaked a second time on June 12, 2020 via Microsoft's Xbox website, this time using the game's legitimate title, Star Wars: Squadrons. After the second leak, EA officially announced the title and stated that a reveal trailer for the game would be released on Monday, June 15, at 8 a.m. PDT. They also sent us both versions of the official key art to share.
According to Venture Beat, an unnamed source who is familiar with the game's production stated that the game would be focused mainly on multiplayer combat, but would also offer a single-player campaign. Unlike the Star Wars Battlefront games, Star Wars: Squadrons is specifically about piloting spacecraft and engaging in interstellar combat. Players will not be able to run and gun, but they will be able to fly and shoot in starships, similar to the Starfighter Assault mode of Battlefront 2.
Official art for Star Wars: Squadrons was also released which features a number of ships that players will be able to pilot in-game. These ships include the A-Wing, Y-Wing, X-Wing, and U-Wing for the Rebel ships, along with a female Rebel pilot. And the TIE Bomber, Interceptor, Fighter, and Reaper are all pictured for the Imperial ships along with a masked Empire pilot. There may even be more ships within the game that are not pictured in the official artwork since the ships pictured are all from the Rebel/Empire era. Other popular spacecraft of the era, such as the Millennium Falcon and Rebel B-Wing bomber, were not pictured in the release artwork.
Star Wars: Squadrons will take the Star Wars games in a different direction than players are used to from EA's line-up of Star Wars titles and at a glance seems to be in the vein of the popular Rogue Squadron games from the Nintendo 64 and GameCube era. PC players would recall the wonderful X-Wing and TIE Fighter space sim games and their multiplayer followups X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance but those more detailed and complex games aren't likely what EA is going for in this game which is console-friendly (it was leaked by Xbox after all).
Venture Beat's article stated that Star Wars: Squadrons was the result EA wanting to push out another Star Wars title as soon as possible and if the single-player campaign isn't the focus, we fear it could be as lackluster as the tacked-on campaign of Battlefront 2.
Sources: EA, Venture Beat