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Ronnie

Star Wars Squadrons

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:bouncy::bouncy::bouncy:

Paging @Julius...

Please please please let this be a good starfighter game.

I'm not expecting Rogue Leader or anything like that sort of quality, but anything similar at this point would be amazing.

I've not looked into leaks, but I'm going to sadly assume with this being EA that there's no single player campaign :( Still, better than nothing.

 

Edited by Ronnie
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Oh wow okay, this is earlier than I had been expecting for this. Guess the trailer on Monday means we're lined up to get a decent amount of gameplay shown off later in the week during EA Play? 

Thanks for paging me @Ronnie, to be honest I'm very nervous about this one. The few rumours I've read about it from a few months back suggested that it's being headed by Motive, online multiplayer-focused, and with a single player campaign.

At the launch of Battlefront II the Starfighter Assault mode was easily my favourite and though it takes some getting used to, I love how in control you can feel of those ships. I think the last update which included an update to that mode was actually the Crait DLC to tie into The Last Jedi at the end of 2017 (?), but don't think they've necessarily been working on this that whole time. Then again, if they started at that point that's a little over two and a half years of development time, so maybe? 

Based on the image alone my gut instinct would be a short campaign (like 5 hours long at a stretch?) which can be played through as either a Rebel and TIE Pilot. Same plot points, but from a different perspective? That'd be interesting. Probably through the major space/air battles of the original trilogy plus a little extra I'd imagine, based on the ships and art. 

Also, don't know why, but fully expecting it to be a budget title. I'm feeling like this is a £29.99 game. 

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I can see it being a budget title too, I think I read something about it being more "experimental", whatever that means. I just hope it isn't a free to play game, but it wouldn't surprise me at all tbh.

45 minutes ago, Julius said:

Then again, if they started at that point that's a little over two and a half years of development time, so maybe? 

Especially if it's based on the same systems and engine as Starfighter Assault. Relieved to hear rumours that single player campaign is in though, but not getting my hopes up until they announce it officially. Everything about this + EA + Motive seems to scream 20 v 20 online multiplayer or whatever. Could be fun, hopefully the quality is high.

We've had games about Jedis, we've had the Mandalorian and all the scum and villainy that goes with that, it's about time we get some Disney Star Wars content on the dogfighting and military side of things :grin:

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51 minutes ago, Julius said:

Based on the image alone my gut instinct would be a short campaign (like 5 hours long at a stretch?)

 

Edited by drahkon

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I want to believe after Fallen Order, but the space combat in Battlefront was mighty lousy. Dare I dream this won't be a multiplayer gambling platform?

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New promo image looks real nice:

Fingers crossed for a good showing in tomorrow's trailer. Hopefully it'll be more than just in-engine cinematics. 

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Ridiculously excited. 

There's a couple ships in the promo art at the top I don't recognise. Just above the red A-Wing, sort of looks like a Y-Wing but modified. Maybe hinting at ship customisation. EDIT: oops it's a U-Wing, official site shows more.

Also I don't recognise the transport type thing at the bottom of the image. Sort of looks like those escape pods from The Last Jedi, but with a Mon Cal fin sticking out the bottom :confused:

Edited by Ronnie

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29 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Ridiculously excited. 

There's a couple ships in the promo art at the top I don't recognise. Just above the red A-Wing, sort of looks like a Y-Wing but modified. Maybe hinting at ship customisation. EDIT: oops it's a U-Wing, official site shows more.

Also I don't recognise the transport type thing at the bottom of the image. Sort of looks like those escape pods from The Last Jedi, but with a Mon Cal fin sticking out the bottom :confused:

Yeah, the U-Wing, and there's also a TIE Reaper. Both are troop carriers, so wonder if that's hinting at the type of missions/strategies we could see (i.e. flying troops from A to B in the middle of a battle, etc.). It gives me hopes at least that we won't just be seeing space combat. Kind of hoping we see a B-Wing and TIE Defender too...

Scale threw me off a bit on the ship at the bottom, I feel like it could be an MC-75? Absolutely a Mon Cala ship, we saw one in Rogue One (Admiral Raddus's Profundity). 

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Yeah, I've got fingers crossed for customisation too. Would love if we had a variety of Need for Speed-style upgrades, paints, and decals for the ships. 

As an aside, still a bit disappointed that they seem to only be going in on the original trilogy era stuff, judging from the promo art, at least to begin with (assuming a heavy multiplayer focus means updates will presumably be aplenty). I get it, it sells well, but in terms of their main visual and interactive entertainment, since Disney bought Star Wars we've had: a Battlefront game which was OT-era only; a second Battlefront game which shows the end of/deals with the aftermath of the OT, and at launch was still heavily OT focused; Jedi Fallen Order, which deals with the Empire heavily and feels very much an OT era game, even if it's set 14 years prior to ANH and RO; two of two Star Wars Story films taking place in the OT era; and an animated show in the OT era. Prequel era content has been thin up until the last year or so with Battlefront II updates and the final season of The Clone Wars in this regard, and even the sequel trilogy and The Mandalorian very, very heavily harken back to the OT and are almost overwhelmingly filled to the brim with OT-era ship designs. 

I know EA is likely pushing this out as quickly as they can, and likely a Fallen Order sequel and potentially a Battlefront III too before their Star Wars deal finishes (thank the Force), but it still blows that we haven't seen much representation of other eras of the franchise which quite frankly have just as many fans as the original trilogy. Hope we see some more diversity in the when and where of it all when it comes to Star Wars content moving forwards. 

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If this turns out to be Rogue Squadron IV then... I'm interested.

But I just don't see how it can be, though it's a nice thought to hang onto until the reveal tomorrow.

I think the appeal for me with the Rogue Squadron series, wasn't so much in the fact that it's a "Star Wars" IP but more in the flight mechanics.

Star Wars as a brand, doesn't really mean that much to me... but make a game which is essentially the same as those brilliant games from Factor 5 but better in some way, then I'd likely be interested in it; I really can't see that happening though. I'd love to be proven wrong.

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Thinking about the campaign some more, a length of say 4 hours would be pretty similar to the old Factor 5 games anyway. It's hard to make long single player content with arcadey shooters. Look at Starfox. Hopefully they'll give you reasons to run it multiple times maybe, slightly tweaked objectives, lots of customisation and cosmetic unlocks etc. That'd be cool. Let Sabine loose and give our ships paint jobs :laughing:

4 hours ago, Julius said:

Scale threw me off a bit on the ship at the bottom, I feel like it could be an MC-75? Absolutely a Mon Cala ship, we saw one in Rogue One (Admiral Raddus's Profundity). 

Of course it is! Scale threw me off as well. I should have known, must have watched Raddus' ship drop out of hyperspace two or three dozens times since Rogue One came out :D

4 hours ago, Julius said:

I know EA is likely pushing this out as quickly as they can, and likely a Fallen Order sequel and potentially a Battlefront III too before their Star Wars deal finishes (thank the Force), but it still blows that we haven't seen much representation of other eras of the franchise which quite frankly have just as many fans as the original trilogy. Hope we see some more diversity in the when and where of it all when it comes to Star Wars content moving forwards. 

I agree the OT is getting serious representation, but I think they're just catering to what people love most and I'd say 4 out of 5 will say the OT.

In Squadrons case, the trouble is I wouldn't say the prequels have a ton of iconic ship designs and the sequel starfighters are just upgraded OT ships. But yeah if it is OT only at release I'm sure there'll be PT and ST content updates down the line. Keeps people coming back etc

More artwork

 

Edited by Ronnie

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Damn they got me having chills with the music and some of those shots, that's cheating :cry: cool, post-Return of the Jedi but presumably long before The Force Awakens, guess we have got a 30 year gap to start filling in a bit more so why not? A lot of cinematics and story focus for what I imagine is a very short campaign though, perhaps a misleading amount of it. There really wasn't much to suggest multiplayer if we're being honest here, even that shot of the squads felt like a campaign cinematic. Seems like I could be right about a replayable campaign from both sides - that'd be cool, guess we'll have to wait and see. 

Releasing 2nd October. Cool. Not much else to say until we see some gameplay on Thursday really! 

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Excellent trailer, gameplay will be on Thursday presumably. 

Geoff Keighley shared some more information about it, dunno if you've read the press release @Julius but yeah set after Return of the Jedi during the formation of the New Republic (hence the NR logos on the X-Wings), I wouldn't be surprised to see the final mission be the Battle of Jakku, that'd be pretty awesome.

The single player campaign will be told from an alternating viewpoint between two characters, one Rebel one Empire. Sounds pretty cool.

Focus is on 5 v 5 multiplayer gameplay though.

The only worrying thing I heard from the press release that Geoff was reading was that it was first person. I hope I'm reading too much into that but I would hate to be confined to the cockpit. That's my only real worry atm. 

Edit: Also, did I spot Wedge at one point during the trailer?! The release said cameos from familiar characters so he would surely show up.

Edited by Ronnie

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Ooh and Hera too!! Awesome, wonder if they'll use the same voice actress.

 

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Description for the trailer: 

Quote

Buckle up, take full control of starfighters such as the X-wing and TIE fighter, and feel the adrenaline of strategic first-person 5v5 multiplayer dogfights alongside your squadron. 

In a fateful campaign set near the conclusion of the Galactic Civil War, learn what it means to be a pilot in a thrilling STAR WARS™ single-player story. The New Republic fights for freedom. The Empire demands order. 

Yeah, didn't do a great job in my opinion of conveying that this is an online multiplayer game. If we just had the trailer to go off I think it could easily be mistaken for a single player adventure. 

6 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Excellent trailer, gameplay will be on Thursday presumably. 

Geoff Keighley shared some more information about it, dunno if you've read the press release @Julius but yeah set after Return of the Jedi during the formation of the New Republic (hence the NR logos on the X-Wings), I wouldn't be surprised to see the final mission be the Battle of Jakku, that'd be pretty awesome.

The single player campaign will be told from an alternating viewpoint between two characters, one Rebel one Empire. Sounds pretty cool.

Focus is on 5 v 5 multiplayer gameplay though.

The only worrying thing I heard from the press release that Geoff was reading was that it was first person. I hope I'm reading too much into that but I would hate to be confined to the cockpit. That's my only real worry atm. 

Edit: Also, did I spot Wedge at one point during the trailer?! The release said cameos from familiar characters so he would surely show up.

Nope, missed Geoff's talk about it but I think most of it (minus the multiplayer) aspect could be taken from the trailer. Also there were definitely some tactical moves on show in the trailer, would love if we could direct our squadron in this like in Republic Commando during the campaign (i.e. need to destroy a bridge so we target it up, press Up, and now it's "All fighters, focus on taking that bridge!", or the enemy launch a surprise attack so we press Down and the squadron scrambles). 

Not surprised by the alternating story perspective, think it's the best option here. 

And yeah, screamed first-person to me from the initial shots, unfortunately. Hope it's not just first-person, but wouldn't surprise me if they just focused on that. But that does mean a VR component coming to PS4 and PC...

7QeVxPB.jpg

5 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Ooh and Hera too!! Awesome, wonder if they'll use the same voice actress.

Yep, caught Wedge, didn't notice Hera though! Makes sense, always cool to see it bleed over like this. 

Also going from the price on Steam, does appear to be a budget title, which I'm happy about:

35c4ih6tb3551.jpg

Also the pre-order bonus content seems to be hinting at the wider customisation options available: flight suits, starfighter skins, and decals. 

gaz7mkync3551.png

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The only shot in the trailer that suggested multiplayer was the 5 v 5 pilots walking towards the camera. But yeah, not very clear. If I hadn't read the rumours beforehand of what the game is going to be about, I'd have assumed this was single player focused.

9 minutes ago, Julius said:

And yeah, screamed first-person to me from the initial shots, unfortunately. Hope it's not just first-person, but wouldn't surprise me if they just focused on that.

Maybe they lock it to first person for the multiplayer modes to keep things fair so that everyone's on the same view, and maybe you can switch to third for the solo campaign. That'd be an ok compromise.

9 minutes ago, Julius said:

But that does mean a VR component coming to PS4 and PC...

That's pretty awesome though, wasn't expecting VR support. Might have to finally get a rig.

Lower price makes sense, hard to compare this kind of game with the usual AAA releases these days.

9 minutes ago, Julius said:

Also the pre-order bonus content seems to be hinting at the wider customisation options available: flight suits, starfighter skins, and decals. 

If it's first person only there better be a way to walk around the hangar and view all your ships, otherwise what's the point of all the customisation!

Edited by Ronnie

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sws-screenshot-reveal-7.jpg

sws-screenshot-reveal-6.jpg

screenshot-5.jpg

They've obviously included the TIE Reaper to match up with the U-Wing.

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Well, it was nice to have some kind of vague hope that this might turn out to be Rogue Squadron IV, at least it's something closer to that series.

But a 5 versus 5 online dogfighting game? Eh, it is cool... it's just that, I can remember back to the Rogue Squadron games, thinking that the co-op campaign was cool at the time.

Something like that would be great to have now, especially as it's possible with where online gaming is.

A bit like with Perfect Dark, when that came out, the multiplayer was incredible, the only thing it was missing was online, and we got that with the XBLA release.

I think I'm just too invested in how it used to feel when playing those old Star Wars: Rogue Squadron games, this probably isn't for me but I'll follow it with vague interest.

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Some extra details:

Quote

While EA is officially announcing the game today, the company is holding back the first gameplay footage until EA Play 2020 on June 18. Squadrons is developed by Motive Studios in association with Lucasfilm, and it will feature a dedicated single-player mode, and multiple multiplayer modes with no microtransactions.

Players will unlock new weapons, hulls, engines, and shields as they rank up. The cosmetic items, meanwhile, can be applied to your cockpit and ship exterior, while you can also change the look of your fighter pilot. Squadrons will take players to "never-before-seen" parts of the Star Wars galaxy, including Yavin Prime and Galitan.

Squadrons features cross-play between PS4, Xbox One, PC, and VR, so you can play with friends no matter what platform they are on. It marks another cross-play game for EA, following the recent addition of the feature to Need for Speed Heat.

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Gameplay reveal midnight UK time. Watching the reveal trailer again, it's seriously hype.

:bouncy::bouncy::bouncy::bouncy:

That is all.

 

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2 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Gameplay reveal midnight UK time. Watching the reveal trailer again, it's seriously hype.

:bouncy::bouncy::bouncy::bouncy:

That is all.

 

You planning on staying up for the EA event Ronnie? I have work tomorrow, but honestly even if I didn't, I don't know if I'd be ready to stay up so late considering how middle of the road I've felt their last few E3's were.

Besides wanting to know more about this game and Hazelight's next project I don't think there's much else I'd be tuning in for, unfortunately. 

Hope there are some welcome surprises in store for you if you are staying up for it! 

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1 hour ago, Julius said:

You planning on staying up for the EA event Ronnie? I have work tomorrow, but honestly even if I didn't, I don't know if I'd be ready to stay up so late considering how middle of the road I've felt their last few E3's were.

Besides wanting to know more about this game and Hazelight's next project I don't think there's much else I'd be tuning in for, unfortunately. 

Hope there are some welcome surprises in store for you if you are staying up for it! 

I've been going back and forth, I actually have some work I need to finish tonight, so I think I'll avoid social media and spoilers, and watch the replay tomorrow morning. It'll be better quality than the steam too I assume so there's that.

Really hoping EA FINALLY announce a Mass Effect trilogy remaster. Not sure they'd do it on a livestream but here's hoping...

As for Squadrons, I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's not easy. Hope it delivers. Catch you on here tomorrow for the debrief then I guess! 

Edited by Ronnie

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This EA Play is already much better than any of the E3 conferences I've seen of theirs. Not having a live audience component definitely benefits them but they seem to have finally learned some lessons too. 

EDIT:

EZA seem pretty down on it, I didn't give it my whole attention but it seemed like it was better than usual but the end of the presentation was definitely super weird and underwhelming. 

Edited by killthenet

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It does look good but, I couldn't even watch all of that barely five minute trailer once I learned that the entire game is all purely cockpit view.

Ah well, there will always be the original Rogue Squadron games, I really do think that those are enough for me, but it's cool that this new game exists.

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