Star Wars: Squadrons review – expect big, slack-jawed smiles

Since Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise in 2012, tales from the galaxy far far away have felt very templated: a twisted family dynamic here, the clanging of lightsabers there, insert some talk about light and dark sides of the force. The first Star Wars production in god knows how long to deliver a genuine feeling of wonder—the kind of buzz that comes not just from what is realised on screen but what is possible—isn’t a movie or a TV show: it’s Star Wars: Squadrons on PSVR. 

In this exhilarating game the player—alternating between fighting for the New Republic and the Empire—plonks their butt into the virtual cockpit of an X-Wing or TIE fighter, as well as a number of other snazzy ships, and whooshes around participating in dogfights and various missions.

The story begins immediately after events depicted in A New Hope—most significantly the destruction of Princess Leia’s home planet of Alderaan. Darth Vader orders his troops to track down and kill all remaining Alderaanians, who are “refugees from a world we destroyed,” as Lindon Javes (voiced by Phil Morris) puts it. The task proves too much for Javes, who defects mid-mission and joins the Rebels, making a sworn enemy of his colleague Terisa Kerrill (Peta Sergeant).

Their rivalry and eventual confrontation is the primary arc that stretches over a 10 or so hour story campaign, though individual missions (which include destroying particular ships and escorting convoys) aren’t necessarily related. The player is an observer rather than an agent in the narrative, passively absorbing exposition and backstory, primarily delivered by characters who talk to each other during missions. The essential story beats are easy to grasp, though the plot feels a little derivative, and I never felt a strong emotional connection.

The crux of the experience’s appeal rests on a common fantasy. Who of us watched Star Wars and didn’t want to pilot a TIE fighter or an X-Wing? Inside the cockpit the player is surrounded by all sorts of buttons, dials and screens, and a range of striking outer space tableaus wrap around us, from clouds tinged in the glow of orange suns to planets with bright electric green atmospheres. Controlling the various ships isn’t easy and requires a pretty steep learning curve, but once I got there my face formed a big, stupid, slack-jawed smile as my head tilted and rolled along with the ship. It’s a lot of fun. 

There’s a core paradox to space simulators that’s also a core paradox of virtual reality: that of constant movement—the feeling of being able to go anywhere—contrasted with a rigidly fixed playing space. Characters in Squadrons are as bound to their immediate environment, cockpits, as the VR player is to their headset; in a sense we’re a human joystick, tethered to the machine. 

Is it a historical accident  that flight simulators have been so fundamental in the evolution of VR? First produced in the 1930s, The Link Trainer flight simulator—essentially a cockpit mounted on a moveable platform, which was used to train World War II era pilots—became, to borrow the words of author Howard Rheingold (from his 1991 book Virtual Reality), “one of the key historical antecedents of VR.” There are many other interesting connections between flight simulations and virtual reality—tech pioneer Ivan Sutherland for instance being a huge force behind modern flight simulators, and also the co-creator of one of the first head mounted VR display systems. 

But that’s a big, meaty subject; a conversation for another time. For now, jump into a Squadrons cockpit, if you can, and take one of the ships for a spin. In true VR style, you’ll go everywhere and you’ll go nowhere.