Star Wars: Squadrons' HUD and customisation options are entirely optional, says EA
Creative director says "we totally get" it if you want "hide everybody else's cosmetics".
EA has confirmed that Star Wars: Squadrons will permit players to decide if they want to see other people's customisation options in their games, as well as revealing that the flight mechanics and HUD elements will be entirely changeable and optional, too.
"Some players aren't going to want to see any of [other player's customisation choices]," creative director Ian S. Frazier told IGN. "It won't matter how plausible it is, they just want to keep it to exactly what we've seen in the films, no more and no less, and we totally get that. And so we have an option in the game to hide everybody else's cosmetics. So if you flip that on, then all of a sudden, if you want to put a racing stripe or whatever on your own TIE Fighter, you'll see it, but everybody else's is just going to look like a normal boilerplate TIE Fighter for you."
This also applies to your own cockpit experience, too; you can decide to have the information that's usually fed to your HUD display only available via cockpit instruments, for instance, or decorate the cockpit with your own good luck charms.
"When you start the story," explains Frazier, "we ask if you want the standard experience - which we'd expect most players to take - or a hardcore mode, which gets rid of a bunch of UI that helps you localize yourself in space, and makes you rely entirely on the readouts in the cockpit. So for the folks that are newer to the genre, I'd expect them to play standard, and for the folks that have tonnes of flight experience, they might want to try that out.
"By default, we keep that relatively basic," added Frazier, talking in detail about Squadrons power management system which helps players decide "how best to utilise their starship's engines, weapons and shields". "If I hit a button, I will instantly max a given system. Our more advanced players could turn that into advanced power management, and they're individually managing pips of power from one system to another. But that's not the experience that we give to an average new user."
As Tom explained when the game was revealed, Star Wars: Squadrons is set in the years after Return of the Jedi and puts you in the boots of both New Republic and Empire pilots, as you dogfight in space battles from within the cockpit of various famous ships.
Star Wars Squadrons launches 2nd October and has cross-play between all of its platforms: PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and will be completely playable in VR.
