While its core gameplay and stunning visuals make Squadrons fun in short bursts, a paltry offering of content for its online multiplayer means it grows old fast, and when combined with a stiflingly mediocre story mode, the game is left in a precarious situation with little to no potential for longevity without some major post-launch content updates.

It’s safe to say that EA hasn’t been held in the highest esteem by Star Wars fans after the controversial release of 2017’s Battlefront II, even if I personally enjoyed the game, sinking a great many hours into it these last few years. Still, they managed to take a step in the right direction with the surprisingly good Jedi: Fallen Order from Respawn Entertainment last year (you can read my review here), and they’re back again this year with Motive Studios’ Star Wars: Squadrons, a first person space combat game. As a big fan of Battlefront II‘s Starfighter Assault mode, it seemed like it might be a promising endeavour, but with its launch version promising little in the way of content, I’ve kept my expectations tempered.

Minor spoilers ahead!

So, getting stuck into it, Squadrons at its core is built entirely around ship combat, with four classes of ship for each faction: Fighters, Interceptors, Bombers, and Support, with the game offering a meagre choice of two factions; The Galactic Empire, fitted with the TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber and TIE Reaper, whilst the New Republic (essentially just the Original Trilogy’s rebels in all but name) are kitted out with the X-Wing, A-Wing, Y-Wing and U-Wing. You’re unfortunately locked into a first-person mode (good luck checking out your hard-earned cosmetics!), but the dashboard of your cockpit provides you with all the important information about your ship during gameplay. One of the key new elements that Squadrons introduces is a power distribution system; requiring you to think tactically about which components you want to divert your precious energy to, between Shields, Engines and Weapons, or in the case of the Imperial starfighters that lack shielding, solely Engines and Weapons – a nice attention to detail regarding Star Wars lore. You’re also offered a decent choice of weaponry and upgrades to equip to your ships that allow you to drastically alter or fine tune your playstyle to your liking, or as I did, tune up each class of ship to fit a specific need. With a refined control scheme, the combat is a little hard to master, and certainly nowhere near as easy as Starfighter Assault, but with a little time and effort put into learning the ropes, it quickly becomes fun, fluid and fast-paced; offering an unrivalled experience that absorbs you into the feeling of classic Star Wars space battles.

For most players, Squadrons‘ first port of call will be its single-player campaign mode, beginning after Episode IV as you step into the role of Lindon Javes, an Imperial starfighter Captain tasked with hunting down refugee ships by Darth Vader. It feels a little too uninspired in the wake of Battlefront II‘s single-player campaign to see Javes defecting from the Empire at the tail end of the first mission, and the second half of the prologue puts you into the shoes of a customisable Rebel pilot who flies out to defend the refugees. The story skips ahead a few years, now post-Return of the Jedi, and centres around the construction of a powerful New Republic flagship, the Starhawk, and the remnants of the Empire trying to sabotage it’s development, as you jump between both sides of the narrative playing as both the Republic’s Vanguard Squadron and the Imperial Titan Squadron. Even with short segments between missions that allow you to interact with its characters for a little extra dialogue, none of the cast are all that memorable outside of a few that crossover from other areas of Star Wars media such as Rebels‘ Hera Syndulla, and even then that’s solely because you know them from elsewhere. The missions themselves are pretty so-so, with increasingly repetitive objectives dressed up in the game’s beautiful space environments, but it’s short enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, so as much as it might not be anything to write home about, Squadrons‘ campaign still proves to be an effective way of easing you into its core gameplay.

From there, you can take the basic skills you’ve picked up and brave Squadrons‘ multiplayer mode, consisting of a meagre duology of game types; Dogfight and Fleet Battles. Dogfight is your bog standard team deathmatch mode, with two teams of five players going head to head to see who can reach a combined kill-count of thirty within a 15 minute round. That’s pretty much all there is to say about it, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with its simplicity; it’s a perfectly adequate environment for training your skills and refining your playstyle, and if bare-bones player-versus-player combat what you’re looking for, then Dogfight is all you need. I for one spent the vast majority of my multiplayer playtime in the Fleet Battles mode – again comprised of two, five-player squadrons, but this time with an objective-based focus that pits you against an enemy Capital Ship while simultaneously protecting your own. Additional AI ships and starfighter detachments fill out the mode’s larger maps, making it a far more lively experience than Dogfights, while offering a wider berth for you to focus on your choice of objectives or enemy players. Between your level, rank, and weekly challenges, a multi-faceted progression system awaits you as you get stuck into the multiplayer, as well as a host of cosmetic rewards you can unlock for your ships and character, but it fails to mask the pitiful amount of content the game actually has on offer. Without some major updates in the months to come – at the very least some new game modes – to keep its multiplayer component afloat, Squadrons will inevitably suffer an unceremonious death at the hands of a rapidly declining playerbase.

One of the only things that keeps the already sparse Squadrons from plunging into the depths of disappointment is its stunning visual quality; courtesy of EA’s Frostbite Engine. If you’re at all familiar with the engine, then you know that a high level of graphical fidelity is a given, but Squadrons‘ developers have taken full advantage of what it offers, and nothing makes this clearer than the game’s environments. Although the multiplayer cannibalises all of its maps from the campaign mode, they remained beautiful and distinct arenas, full of so much colour and detail that I was quite happy to cruise around them while neglecting the plight of my teammates, and the same can be said for the levels designed specifically for the campaign as well. The designers have done well to incorporate cover around the maps, disguised as asteroids, floating space debris or the structures of a space station, and it goes a long way in making them feel both authentic and suitable for gameplay. Another highlight of the game’s design obviously stems from its ships; considering you spend the majority of the game sat inside a cockpit, I’m glad to say the interiors are incredibly detailed and true to the designs of the Original Trilogy, and the same can obviously be said for the exteriors too – you’ll even the hulking capital ships are exceptionally designed when you go for a close enough fly-by! It’s a nice touch to watch your squadron forming up at the start of every multiplayer match, and with a lot of its soundtrack lifted from the films, Squadrons certainly helps build a cinematic atmosphere to complement its gameplay.

I will say, as much as it didn’t amaze me, Squadrons still proved to be enjoyable thanks to its fun, yet sufficiently challenging core gameplay, and remarkable visuals and attention to detail in its design. Even the campaign, devoid of excitement and utterly inconsequential, was hardly the worst thing I’ve ever sat through and could certainly be appreciated for what it offers from a gameplay perspective. Nevertheless, given that after about twenty hours I had exhausted just about everything that the game had to offer, its clear that in its current form, Squadrons is severely lacking for content, especially on a multiplayer front, and without a swift course correction post-release, it will ultimately prove to be its undoing.

5/10