Star Wars: Squadrons doesn't have microtransactions, isn't a live-service game
"Our mindset has been very old-school."
Star Wars: Squadrons does not have microtransactions and is not a live service game, EA has said.
Speaking to Game Informer, Motive Studios' creative director Ian Frazier confirmed the promising-looking Star Wars space battle game is "complete and great in its own right".
"Our mindset has been very old-school," he said.
"We're trying to say with this game that we have a $40 price point, we want to feel generous to players, and we want it to feel like a complete experience. Like, 'You gave us your $40. Here's a game that you will love. Thank you.' That's it. This isn't something we are building around a live-service strategy. It's built around a game that is complete and great in its own right. That's not to say we will never add anything, I guess we could, but it's not presented as a live service."
Of course, EA may end up releasing DLC for Star Wars: Squadrons, but it sounds like the single-player story and multiplayer included at launch are the focus. There's a huge amount to unlock for pilot and star fighter customisation, as EA revealed in the gameplay video below, but you won't be able to pay your way through the grind, at least. There are cosmetics (the Ewok bobblehead looks cool!) and over 50 components that make up your ship's loadout, but none are for sale.
This isn't the kind of approach we're used to seeing from triple-A publishers, nor from EA itself (this is the company behind the pay-to-win FIFA Ultimate Team, after all). So it comes as something of a welcome surprise, a sort of throwback to a bygone era when what you saw was what you got. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, perhaps...
But then, EA suffered one of the biggest PR disasters in video game history when it launched Star Wars Battlefront 2, which generated mainstream headlines around the world for its egregious loot boxes and progression systems. After that debacle, EA released Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as a single-player story game with no multiplayer and no microtransactions - to critical and commercial acclaim. Star Wars: Squadrons, then, is following suit.
Star Wars Squadrons launches 2nd October and has cross-play between all of its platforms: PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.