EA’s upcoming Star Wars: Squadrons is shaping up to be exactly the kind of dogfighting title Star Wars fans have longed to see for so long. Sure, we’ve gotten to take to space in certain modes in games like Star Wars Battlefront II, but Sqaudrons will take place entirely in space and will presumably be built from the ground up to ensure it successfully grants players a unique and authentic experience across its campaign and multiplayer modes.
There’s plenty of good news for those anxiously waiting to get their hands on the game, too. For instance, Squadrons will offer cross-play for PS4, Xbox One, PC and VR users so that no pilot gets left behind, and it’ll do so while also only costing $39.99 when it launches in October. Perhaps most exciting, however, is that Squadrons won’t feature microtransactions or be a live-service game, so everything is included in the box despite its budget price tag.
That’s not to say it’s all good news, though. Case in point: Squadrons‘ creative director Ian S. Frazier recently opened up about the fact that the game is releasing so close to the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and claims that there currently aren’t plans for a full-fledged next-gen version of the title, though he says we should expect backwards compatibility to allow us to play it on the new hardware.
Of course, this means that next-gen versions of Squadrons will sadly be missing any visual or performance upgrades that other major games are expected to receive when they get their PS5 and Series X versions later this year. This is obviously disappointing news for fans looking to get the absolute most out of their new console purchases, but if the game does exceptionally well on current-gen hardware, there’s always the possibility that EA will reconsider their choice.
Star Wars: Squadrons launches on PS4, Xbox One, PC and VR headsets on October 2nd.