Stay On Target: Enter The Cockpit Of Star Wars Battlefront’s Fighter Squadron Mode

Though the epic struggle between the light and the dark side of the Force is often at the heart of Star Wars’ stories, the best and most fondly remembered Star Wars games tend not to paint you as a Jedi or a Sith. Across the diverse spread of games set in the universe, some of the most memorable games have put you in the cockpit of a TIE Fighter or an X-wing, and now EA is looking to do the same in Star Wars Battlefront.

Though the larger of the online game modes like Walker Assault include the use of starfighters and bombers to help support your team’s ground forces, Fighter Squadron strips that away for a purer dogfighting experience.

It feels like an odd move initially, but Fighter Squadron actually features ten human and ten AI players on each side of the fight, in a set up that is similar to that seen in Titanfall. It means that there’s some more accessible opponents for those who maybe aren’t as good at the game, allowing them to hop in and still contribute by taking out the more predictable AI pilots, as well as helping to ensure that dogfights are always stocked with enemies to shoot in what will be more of a niche game mode than Walker Assault.

Essentially, it’s a straight up Team Deathmatch mode, with one point for each AI enemy killed and three points for each human – who can be identified by an ID popping up above their ship. However, the race to the 200 points score can quickly be swung in the favour of one side by taking out the transport ships that try to take off and escape the battlezone. Though it’s easy to just keep on dogfighting and ignore them, if you can take out the opposing transport before they flee, there’s an easy 20 points to be added to your tally.

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As well as having to concentrate on the deadly dance in the skies packed with enemies, there’s a quite fascinating system where you’re constantly balancing your engine’s output between forward thrust and power to your ship’s guns that quickly becomes quite instinctive to manage. Getting in behind an opponent and then slowing down to start dealing more damage with your shots will be an early skill to learn, and it’s nice and satisfying to knock your opponents out of the sky in a shower of sparks, explosions and debris.

Your natural abilities will be aided by the rather generous lock on system and the ability to fire homing torpedos that deal a lot of damage in one go. On the other hand, this is balanced out by starships that can take a fair few hits before going down. If you’re quick enough when you realise that someone’s right behind you or get a big target lock alert, a quick press on the D-pad will let you pull a grand evasive manoeuvre and try to shake them off or turn the tables on your opponent. Just be careful not to waste them, as they are on a cooldown along with your other abilities.

Not all starfighters are created equal. The TIE Fighter feels like it’s the more nimble craft, with its speed boost ability letting it race through the sky, while the X-wing’s multi-role design is represented by a shield ability that can add to your chances of your survival. Yet, it certainly felt to me as though the TIE Fighter held the advantage here, with better manoeuvrability and an uncharacteristic toughness.

I’m certainly not expecting the TIE Fighters to have the resilience of a balloon with giant cheese crackers stuck on the side, as the Star Wars lore would suggest, but there’s a balance to be struck between the canon and having fun gameplay for both sides. Having a TIE Fighter survive a torpedo hit doesn’t make canonical sense, but it does in terms of having a fun game. Of course, there are plenty more fighters in the game, with A-Wings, TIE Interceptors and plenty more besides set to be included in this mode at release, and the varying strengths and weaknesses that they will all have.

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Whatever you play as, you’ll be encouraged to get close to the ground on occasion, and pull of some daring moves through tight spaces in order to grab some of the pick ups on the surface. They’ll be things like a full ship repair or removing the cooldowns on your fighter’s abilities and torpedos, but the battle on Sullust also features the appearance of hero character ships, as the Millenium Falcon or Slave I can be brought in to bolster your side’s firepower.

Where the game has often looked simply phenomenal throughout what EA have shown over the last few months, playing Fighter Squadron over the molten rivers and installations of Sullust lacked a certain spark. Naturally, the action is all in the air, and the skies are packed with fighters in an endless dogfight, darting in and out of some excellent looking low-hanging clouds, but the ground itself looked a little less inspiring than what we’ve seen of the gorgeous Endor and Hoth settings. Fighter Squadron itself will take place over Sullust, Hoth and Tatooine.

Having said that, there are still several months before release, and DICE are now very experienced with the Frostbite 3 engine on the latest generation of console. Similarly, it’s interesting to note that Battlefront has a lower player count than Battlefield 4 and Hardline, with 40 players at most rather than 64, and a lesser emphasis on destruction, which is certainly helping them push new boundaries graphically with advanced techniques such as photogrammetry.

Yet I came away from Fighter Squadron feeling a little underwhelmed. There’s still plenty of time for DICE to fine-tune their game, tweak the balance and polish it to a fine sheen that is befitting of the license. Quibbles aside, there are some clever ideas, from fighter control to the use of AI that help to keep the action fast paced but also accessible, and let’s not forget that I didn’t get the opportunity to spend time with the ground-based multiplayer modes at Gamescom, which will be the bread and butter of this Battlefront game.

6 Comments

  1. Great article. I think you nailed it early on in the article when you mentioned that this mode will not be the core more, it may be a little niche. When I look at BF4 the air vehicle only game modes have been the more niche area and they have focussed solely upon player vs player, at least in Battlefront there will be other targets such as the transport ships.
    I reckon there will surely be a Death Star version of the ship battles with the ultimate goal of blowing up the Death Star, maybe after a few other objectives have been taken out.

    • It could lend itself quite well to something a little more objective oriented, but right now it’s just a TDM mode with a few clever twists.

      A Death Star run would be neat, but would need a little ingenuity to figure out how to stop everyone just gunning for the vent right away. Perhaps that’s an escort mission for the actual players, or a hero ship event, or something.

  2. I would like Fighter Squadron as a stand alone space shooter.

  3. Is quite a bit like BF3’s space battles mode where you could play either just concentrating solely on getting the 200 points from kills, or also attempting to take down the bigger ships (capital ships in that game’s case). I think it looks fun, and I really like the physics and visuals that really reflect the films.

  4. Great article! Not being familiar with many online shooty games all similarities will go way over my head, as long as Squadron Mode is like Rogue Squadron then I’ll be a like a wamp rat in bantha shit.

  5. Watched the video and my wife already got pissed off with the sound effects, haha! Not even a huge Star Wars fan really, but this has gotta be my most anticipated 2015 release. BRING IT ON!!

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