[Editor’s Note: This review is just for Star Wars: Squadrons’ PvP multiplayer. For our full thoughts on the campaign, read our Star Wars: Squadrons single-player review.]
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While the immaculately detailed ship interiors and charming characters may have been what hooked me into the Star Wars: Squadrons campaign, its light but fun PvP multiplayer is exciting for a more unexpected reason: its terrain. The accessible but nuanced flight controls and systems management still stand strong, but facing off against human pilots shows just how much room there is for making tricky maneuvers around asteroids or through tight corridors. The letdown is that there isn’t more of it here in terms of modes, maps, or progression.
Squadrons has just two modes: Dogfight, which is a straight-up 5v5 slugfest where you race to 30 kills; and Fleet Battles, which instead gives each squad a large capital ship that must be dismantled and destroyed by the opposing team through a game of starship tug o’ war. Both share the same six maps, none of which alter a mode’s objective or general strategy but do vary in both gorgeous visuals and clever obstacle layouts. The exception there is Yavin, which might have the prettiest skyline of the bunch but pays for it by being a completely empty area with nothing to maneuver or hide behind, making it a total killjoy whenever it comes up in matchmaking.
Both modes are made fun simply by the fact that Squadrons’ flying mechanics are a blast. As I said in my campaign review, it’s fairly easy to just jump in and start flying, but here your skill is much more important and there are lots of little choices to make that will surely be reflected on the scoreboard. Knowing when to shift your ship power from shields to weapons for a boost of extra damage, or from weapons to engines when you need to make a quick getaway, can make all the difference during a fight. Subtle throttle control also let me pull off exciting moves that felt straight out of a Star Wars movie, such as speeding away from an attacker to hide behind an object only to cut the gas and flip around to catch them unaware.
Don’t Get Cocky, Kid
In a big open space, the Dogfight mode could easily fall into the flight game doldrums of fights devolving into mindlessly spinning in circles around your opponent – and that can certainly still happen at times. But (with the exception of stupid, empty Yavin) Squadrons gives you plenty of opportunities to cleverly use the level layout to your advantage and break out of those knots. I absolutely loved flying close to walls, through space stations, or around objects to throw off enemy missile locks or get the jump on another ship from an unexpected angle. Juggling power management while pulling near the terrain and being rewarded with a kill for your efforts feels fantastic, sometimes making me laugh or shout excitedly like I’ve seen Star Wars pilots do themselves so many times on the big screen. (Note: I have never exclaimed and will never exclaim “Now this is podracing!”)
The Fleet Battle mode can have a similar appeal, but I found I actually enjoyed it less than the Dogfights despite its grander objective and greater depth. While it’s most similar to a regular objective-based shooter mode, it has some clearly MOBA-inspired elements too: weak AI fighters will periodically head toward the enemy side, and two medium-sized ships need to be taken down (like League of Legends’ towers) before the other team’s main capital ship can even be attacked. Grabbing kills will change the balance of a bar at the top of the screen, and that needs to be filled before your team can go on the offensive at all. It’s an interesting structure that prevents blind rushing, and I seriously appreciated that taking down a capital ship is more than just repetitively pumping lasers into it until you win: there are spots where specific systems like shields or turret targeting can be strategically focused to disable them.
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That said, these matches will sometimes drag a bit as that tug o’ war bar shifts back and forth, and a bit too much time can be spent flying toward an objective rather than in the action. Additionally, since the larger target ships are controlled by AI and are generally more out in the open, there’s little opportunity for those intense outplay maneuvers that take advantage of the terrain while trying to damage them. There’s a meta strategy to Fleet Battles that could be fun to explore with a full squad of friends, but the focus on static objectives over dynamic chases dilutes what excites me most about Squadrons’ combat somewhat regardless.
Instead, the focus is put more on bigger-picture strategy. While I’d almost always just lock in one of the four ship classes – Fighter, Bomber, Interceptor, or Support – and stick with it for a whole Dogfight match, Fleet Battles had me actively swapping based on the situation. On the defensive? Take a Fighter or an Interceptor to quickly clear out nearby enemies. Reached the capital ship? Switch to a more durable Bomber to withstand its turrets and deal some big structural damage. Weapon loadout choices became more nuanced too, as many of the auxiliary options are designed specifically for capital ship assaults, making them pretty much useless in a one-on-one dogfight – things like a temporary forward shield to ward off their fire or a sustained laser that kills your mobility but deals massive damage straight forward.
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All that is to say there’s certainly something interesting here, it just doesn’t thrill me as much. Coordinated squads will likely be able to find impressive strategies and team compositions, much in the same way as its MOBA inspirations do – the fact that Fleet Battle is actually a Ranked mode will help with that, as well – but the experience I’ve had playing with and against randoms players is far messier than that ideal. Still entertaining, mind you, thanks to the flying itself and the impeccably detailed Star Wars fantasy around it, just not as instantly gratifying as the Dogfight mode’s more intimate and nuanced duels.
Unfortunately, Squadrons’ Ranked mode seems to have a pretty frustrating “leaver” problem at the moment, too. In my experience, only about half of the matches I queued into would stay an even 5v5 all the way to the end, and that really sucked. Sometimes someone would leave early on and it would let everyone leave and requeue without a penalty, but I also had times where members of my team would bail deeper into a game and my only options were to leave and suffer a penalty for doing so or play out a clearly doomed match – similarly, I’ve also been on the flipside, and begrudgingly finishing a 5v2 stomp isn’t exactly an exciting way to win.
All Dressed up and Nowhere to Go
EA has apparently learned a lesson or two in recent years, so Squadrons has managed to avoid the massive progression woes Star Wars Battlefront 2 faced at launch – but its own systems are just a little too thin to keep me invested in them for very long. First off, many of you will be happy to hear that there are no microtransactions whatsoever here, with unlocks coming from two different currencies earned exclusively by playing matches: one is used to unlock new ship loadout pieces like weapons or engine modifications, while the other is used on cosmetics that range from swanky ship skins to flashy pilot outfits and adorable dashboard toys.