Star Wars: Battlefront's Fighter Squadron Mode is the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter Comeback We've Been Waiting For

Star Wars: Battlefront's Fighter Squadron Mode is the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter Comeback We've Been Waiting For

16
Richard Walker

To this day, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is one of the most fondly remembered Star Wars games, and soon its spirit will live on in Star Wars: Battlefront's Fighter Squadron mode. It's all fairly self-explanatory stuff, as the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire do battle in the skies above Battlefront's multitude of planets, reliving all of your favourite Star Wars dogfighting moments, even if these don't happen to take place among the stars. You'll soon find that this really doesn't matter.

Piloting an X-wing or a TIE fighter can take a little getting used to at first, thanks to what initially seems like a slightly unorthodox control system, but in no time you'll be flying like a seasoned member of Rogue Squadron. Taking the action to the clouds above the lava planet of Sullust (mentioned in Return of the Jedi, but never seen before), the sky is filled with TIE fighters, TIE interceptors, X-wings and A-wings, with player-controlled units joined by AI pilots. Shoot down AI-controlled enemies, and you'll score less than you would for shooting down an actual human player, but with the score limit set to 200, every little helps.

Dogfights generally consist of tailing an enemy, lining them up in your crosshairs and doling out some damage with your laser cannons, before establishing a lock-on to unleash your torpedoes. You can switch between cockpit and outside views on-the-fly, while the left stick controls the ratio of weapon power to thrust, meaning the slower you go, the greater the impact of your cannon fire and torpedoes, while travelling at full speed dampens your weapons' efficacy.

Each ship has its own unique ability too, with Rebel fighters able to deploy a shield when things get a little too heated, whereas Imperial ships can outrun and outmanoeuvre opponents with a handy speed boost. Both ships can also make evasive manoeuvres in an effort to shake tailing enemies or a torpedo lock, tapping in the corresponding direction on the d-pad.

Like Battlefront's ground-based skirmishes, you'll find pickups in Fighter Squadron too, with one shortening the cooldown on your missiles and the other repairing any damage to your ship. Most of these pickups are fairly close to the ground though, so swooping in to collect one, especially in the heat of battle, can be a risky move. Often, this would see us attempting to grab a pickup in a small ravine, only to hit the walls on the way out, making us deader than Dak. Oops.

Grab the Hero pickup, meanwhile, and a Rebel player can punch it with Chewie in the Millennium Falcon or go bounty hunting from the cockpit of Boba Fett's Slave-1 ship. These Hero starfighters are particularly useful when objectives come into play, like having to escort or destroy an Imperial shuttle or Rebel transport as it strives to make its way from one point to another.

Successfully protect or blast the vessel to smithereens (depending on which team you're fighting for), and you'll earn a hefty sum of points towards reaching that winning score of 200, so it's worth making a beeline for the objective when it pops up during a match.

Boasting support for 20 players, Fighter Squadron's dogfighting action is so fast and frenetic that 10 v 10 seems like the perfect number to be inhabiting the same airspace at once, with AI ships on either side providing a bit of cannon fodder for the less seasoned pilots, who can still make a difference to the overall score as a result.

It seems like a perfectly pitched balance that embraces players of all skill levels while ensuring the skies are constantly bristling with activity, which is nice. Star Destroyers loitering menacingly amid the clouds also helps in adding a sense of scale and atmosphere to proceedings too.

Adding Fighter Squadron to the list of previously revealed modes like the large-scale 40-player combat of Walker Assault, the Conquest-style 20 v 20 fight for control points in Supremacy, 10 v 10 team deathmatches in Blast mode, as well as the yet to be detailed Survival, Cargo and Drop Zone modes, Star Wars: Battlefront is set to be a package that'll be impossible to resist. Search your feelings, you know it to be true. This is the Star Wars game you're looking for.

Star Wars: Battlefront launches on 17th November 2015.

Comments
16
  • Why is this only mp?! That kind of turns me off. I don't play mp that much. Should have been a single player campaign to play through.
  • @1 I heard whoever at EA said people don't play single player campaigns anymore, but then goes on about some other single player game being one of the best selling of 2015. Sorry can't remember the guys name or the single player games name because I don't pay that much attention when it comes to anything EA.
  • @2 Thanks for the info. This was a dumb move by EA. It can effect it sales. Like Titanfall and such.
  • So...air superiority with star wars skins.....got it.
  • @#1-3 It actually makes total sense. People don't hold on to SP games like they do to MP games. SP games quite often you are done and you trade it in, cutting into profit of publisher. Even if you do decide to get it again, you are most likely going to get second hand copy. MP games have more staying power, because you keep coming back to them or you can play with friends or there is some new update to check out, etc, etc... This sounds all awesome to me. Though I always sucked at flying in BF games, so I doubt it will be any different here.. At least I have tons of good ol FPS MP goodness for me to get lost in=)
  • This is the Star Wars game I'm looking for.
  • @ Comment #1 by Rafie It's my understanding you can play offline with bots taking the place of online gamers. Campaigns would be cool, but at least this way nobody has to endure death after death with random people with more time to perfect the game online like the other popular shooters such as call if duty and bf4/hardline.
  • Why can't they just give us a SP Campaign of a few space missions based on the films. Death Star trench Run, Battle of Hoth, Battle of Endor etc etc. I'd happily buy it day one, instead i have to dig out my Gamecube to play Rogue Squadron.
  • @5 what you say is true for most; I recognize that, but I'm the opposite. After I've killed and died on every map and tried every mode, I'm done with multi-player. I've got more than 100 single-player titles upstairs though, that I've gone back to numerous times and will play again in time. No single-player was a huge disappointment to me on Titanfall and EA gutted me with MP-only Star Wars. Huge missed opportunity. I trust EA will make a SW campaign in a game at some point; maybe I 'll keep that one.
  • @#9 For what it's worth, I am same way, I just don't care if it's MP or SP. I am decent at some games, good at others, and totally sucks at yet different kinds. I collect them all, but I bet if someone compiled a list of SP against MP games that were traded in in the past 5 years, SP would win out in the end. There are some truly amazing SP only games out there, but it's also true for MP only games (Titanfall not being one of them, on that much we can agree hahaha). I think perfect package has it all, fun SP, co-op and MP, which is why CoD has been so popular year in and year out;-)
  • The only thing im not liking or should I say think appears to be missing is battles in space.....maybe they are being held back but I hope there's at least 1 space battle in the vanilla game
  • @3 hahaha
  • wait, wait wait...this game has no SP campaing??? I didn't know that. So...this is like Destiny????
  • @11 Space battles would get boring pretty fast. You're just flying around an empty unrestricted area. No scenery, no crash risk. Doesn't sound very exciting.
  • @14 You have never played X-Wing, Tie Fighter or any of the Wing Commander games I assume?
  • @ 13 More like Battlefield 4 without the shitty SP campaign...
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