Iconic Fighters Spearhead EA Star Wars Announcement

Tweets on the official EA Star Wars Twitter account have teased a space-flight based Star Wars game which will be revealed tomorrow.

The announcement on Twitter comes after rumours earlier last week that EA was working on a space combat game after a listing accidentally went live on Xbox under codename “Project Maverick” – presumably referencing the Top Gun protagonist. EA has its conference tomorrow and more is expected to be revealed then.

So far, only the name of the game and the artwork, most likely the eventual cover art for the game, has been revealed, along with the tagline ‘Pilots wanted’ on images of both the X-Wing and TIE Fighter, pictured below.

There are suggestions that this game will be the spiritual successor of X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, a game that was hugely successful in the early 90s and a game that Criterion had always wanted to make post the Starfighter Assault mode for Battlefront 2.

Speaking to Criterion General Manager Matt Webster back in 2017, he confirmed that there was so much more the studio wanted to do with the game, especially after the hugely successful PSVR addition. There is no feeling like jumping into an X-Wing, looking behind you and seeing R2 in his little seat.

Unfortunately there is no indication Criterion has been involved in the development; instead it’s believed that Star Wars Squadrons will be the first new game from EA Motive, the studio set up by Jade Raymond (who has since left).

Whether this is part of a wider Star Wars announcement is still to be seen, but EA had secured a 10 year license deal with LucasArts and Disney back in 2013. Among other issues internally with the license and multiple scrapped games since the acquisition, as well as reports that EA CEO Andrew Wilson (appointed months after the license agreement) has never been happy with the deal, it’s been a turbulent time for the franchise.
It’s also a pattern of EA to pump out a load of sub-standard games in the last years of a license to monetise on the IP (Lord of the Rings as an example).

It’s hoped this isn’t some just some afterthought and cobbled together in order to honour the license deal and a real successor to one of the most iconic games of the 90s.