Star Wars: Attack Squadrons Will Unleash Free-To-Play Space Combat In 2014
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A little over a year after Disney’s shocking purchase of Lucasfilm, and with it the Star Wars franchise, we’re finally seeing more specifics about the studio’s big plans for George Lucas’ fictional universe. We’ve known from the beginning that we’d be getting a new trilogy of movies, as well as standalone spinoff films, but in recent months we’ve gotten a glimpse at other projects across various media, including the new animated series Star Wars: Rebels. Now we can add another project to the slate: an upcoming free-to-play PC space shooter called Star Wars: Attack Squadrons.
Disney announced the game today with the above teaser, although the folks at IGN point out that the video is “not representative of gameplay.” In other words, the video was made specifically for this announcement, and isn’t made up of footage from the game itself. That could be good news or bad news depending on how enthused you are by the teaser, but either way we won’t have to wait long to see more. Developed by Area 52 Games, working with Disney Interactive and LucasArts, Attack Squadron will be launching a closed beta event early in 2014.
There are a few more concrete details. As suggested by the teaser, the game will give you a variety of iconic Star Wars ships to pilot, including X-wings and TIE fighters. It will support dogfights between as many as 16 players at a time, so the action should get appropriately frenetic. More info will be coming in future weeks, revealing other ships that will be available, as well as settings for the space battles. It’s probably a safe assumption that you’ll get to zip around the Death Star, or have tussles above such familiar Star Wars settings as Hoth or the forest moon of Endor. You can sign up for a chance to participate in the beta right here.
Attack Squadrons isn’t the only Star Wars video game in the works. In addition to the ongoing Old Republic MMO, a new Battlefront game was confirmed this past summer. There are also rumblings about an open-world Star Wars game being developed by EA Canada and an unidentified project from Dead Space developer Visceral.
