STAR WARS™: Squadrons pairs a single-player story with 5v5 dogfights and cooperative fleet battles. If cockpit piloting appeals, it costs $3.99 from Steam; you can divert power between weapons, shields and engines and customize different starfighters. The Steam PC version supports full controller input. Its 66%% positive rating across 25,149 reviews offers one point of reference, best weighed alongside your interest in tactical space combat.At $3.99 from Steam, you can budget for the single-player story and cooperative fleet battles at the current offer price.
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated daily
Historical Low~ $1.992023-11Current Low Across Stores~ $3.99Steamvs. Historical Low+101%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About STAR WARS™: Squadrons
Climb into the cockpit of X-wings and TIE fighters, diverting power between weapons, shields and engines in first-person combat. Customize your starfighter and fly with a squadron in multiplayer battles or a story told from alternating New Republic and Imperial perspectives.Steam player reviews: 66%% positive from 25,149 reviews.Release date: October 1, 2020.
$1.992023-11-21 · EEA StoreBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.
Language support
Language
Interface
Subtitles
Audio
Simplified Chinese
Yes
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Traditional Chinese
Yes
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English
Yes
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Yes
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French
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Italian
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German
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Spanish
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Japanese
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Korean
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Polish
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Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-20
02Before you buy
Play modes
The Steam PC version includes a single-player story, multiplayer dogfights and cooperative fleet battles. Full controller support is listed.
Language support
Supported interface languages include English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, among others. English, German, French, Italian and Spanish have full audio.
03Frequently asked questions
Is there a single-player campaign?
Yes. The story alternates between the two factions and takes place after Return of the Jedi.
Which multiplayer modes are included?
It includes 5v5 dogfights and cooperative fleet battles.
Does it support VR?
The entire game can be played in VR.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviews
Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
First impressions after first 7hrs: Good game. Happy with purchase. Experience in the cockpit is really cool! Could use some more content but game is decent already, right from release! Glad it wasn't released broken!
Impressions after total playtime: If it doesn't make FIFA money, ♥♥♥♥ all the artists and designers who made something great, right? You can't find a single match and you can't complete challenges in solo modes, so ♥♥♥♥ the players and their progression too. After the two new ships, no new content was released. They sabotaged and stranded this great game, wasting it's potential and dashing any hopes of longevity. This could have been THE Star Wars starfighting game. More story campaigns? Multiplayer modes/events? Clone Wars DLC?? No says EA. We can't sell packs, so ditch it.
Things I Like:
+ Graphics are great.
+ The interior of the ships are extremely detailed and looks gorgeous. Going through every ship's cockpit and looking around is a Star Wars fan's dream.
Heres a quick tour https://youtu.be/EL6gMZ5HE2E
EDIT: They added two new ships too! Here's the interiors: https://youtu.be/w0DyrfOsjfg
+ Voice acting and faces are great so far.
+ Seeing both sides of the war is great. Rebels and Empire.
+ Controlling the ships felt good (using a PS4 controller). Was able to pick it up really easily after playing Battlefront 2 a lot.
+ Good amount of customization to unlock. Including pilot outfits, ship paint jobs and dashboard novelties.
+ The new Power system is actually impactful and adds a new layer to the fight, making it more engaging.
+ No microtransactions. No loot crates.
+ You hear from some familiar characters from the movies.
+ No Pay 2 win - it's primarily skill and teamwork that will make the dream work in this title.
+ There's a realistic setting where you can just use the ship's instruments, which is really immersive. I personally use it.
+ The propaganda style cutscenes are a great addition.
+ Sound design pretty good too.
Things I Don't Like:
- EA's ♥♥♥♥♥ support killing the game before it got a chance. ♥♥♥♥ it all if it doesn't make FIFA money. They'll throw all the artistry and hard work of the developers in the trash over it.
- It's hard to find a match now and there's no progression in offline modes. I'm sure you can find some dedicated fans in the forums and groups, but why do I have to reach out to strangers - I just want to play a 15 minute match and peace out.
- Progression is slow. Earning currency for unlocks is slow
- Not many modes to play. Story. Dogfight. Capital Ship.
- Spawns are messed up sometimes. You spawn on your carrier as it's being swarmed by enemies. Hate dying over and over again.
- Bashing into things and not exploding immediately. Instead, I kept getting kinda stuck or awkwardly bouncing off things.
- Seen the AI do the above too. Just slowly run into things. One time each other, on the first mission. AI in AI modes do weird stuff too, like going out of bounds and dying. It's like they're on strike.
- Components don't change ship appearance.
- No 3rd person view so you dont get to see that new ship shader you saved up for in battle.
- [Minor spoiler] Someone defects from the Empire and became a Rebel in the first intro mission. Risky considering the flak after Battlefront 2's story.
- Dialogue could be better. Heard one exchange that went: 'There's too many of them, this is unfair!' then 'Yes, they're fighting us! So it's unfair...for them!'. Thanks for explaining the quip, lieutenant jack-ass.Show moreShow less
14.7 hours at review1,427 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Good things about this game: It's Star Wars, has good graphics, and has a good (starfighter) customization system.
Bad things about this game: Oh boy.
1. Story is mediocre and predictable. Congratulations, another high-ranking soldier defects from the Empire. Only difference this time is it isn't the PC.
2. Sudden transitions from good to wonky gameplay with little to no explanation. I go from turning and flying smoothly to smacking into everything and not being able to turn while A: Not being shot at. B: Not changing speed or energy focus.
3. VR compatibility. This is an interesting reversal; instead of a game being poorly ported to VR, this is a VR game poorly ported to other consoles. You can tell the only reason this isn't VR-only was because of the inevitable backlash it would receive.
3a. To elaborate: You cannot walk around the hangar or briefing room, or the halls between them(the only places you're allowed to go. You have to teleport point-and-click style.
3b. Controls are difficult if not impossible to change and non-intuitive on keyboard; slightly better with a HOTAS. I still don't know how to communicate with my teammates.
4. Poorly explained mechanics: Why does being blasted with an ion weapon give me a message that says 'mash any key' and then select a specific one and not tell me which one it is? In practice I have managed to get lucky and have the 'F' key selected once. Every other time I mash half the keys on the board before dying.
5. Lack of content. There are two and a half modes of multiplayer and a lackluster six-hour story. Also, one of the multiplayer modes is always ranked, so it's impossible to PvP fleet battles without doing ranked.
6. Pilot customization is crap. The outfits are cool and all, but lack of being able to actually move around to show them off, as well as the fact it changes nothing as you don't ever see your character in-game, story or multiplayer, aside from victory screens.
7. Total lack of droid customization or actual participation. Droids are an integral part of flying X-wings and Y-wings, and we can't customize them nor interact with them except for one point in the story where we can look at a random r2 unit as it does one singular animation on repeat.
8. False advertising: The advertisements and descriptions for this game produced the false impression that your character would have some form of appearance or importance in the story; this is false. Your character never speaks aside from some cookie-cutter voice lines, and has no actual effect on the story.
9. Lack of at the very least some single player content. You'd think EA, Motive, and whoever else would have learned from Fallen Order and Battlefront 2. The entire single-player campaign sets up to be your own squad leader and actually have stuff to do after the campaign is over. False. Campaign over. Single-player over. Go enjoy (ha!) the content-less multiplayer modes.
Tl;dr, EA pulled another battlefront 2017 and made a crap game at launch. I'll revisit this in a month or so and see if it's any better; I can't refund it, unfortunately, or I would. At least they had customization out of the gate this time.
Edits: Those of you reading this again or now: I'm making (or have made) a discussion post in the Steam forums with this review included. I have not made any edits to this review; any additional anything from me will be contained in that forum post. Thanks to everyone who's read and commented; even if they weren't nice, they were entertaining to read. :DShow moreShow less
9.1 hours at review1,725 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I'll try to keep this simple, concise, and quick. I am reviewing this game from a NON-vr standpoint as I play the game on a monitor with M+KB.
IS THIS MULTIPLAYER OR SINGLE-PLAYER FOCUSED?
At it's core it is a multiplayer game, and the campaign does feel like an extended tutorial. I still enjoyed it, but that is subjective. It took me about 10 hours on the second hardest difficulty.
IS IT BUGGY?
Many people are leaving negative reviews for the VR component, but I will not comment on that. The most noticeable bug for me is an occasional problem where the game ignores my 60 FPS lock, goes into unlimited framerate, and my frames go up to 170-180 and my CPU is throttled. (This bug has since been patched) Only fix I have found is a game restart. Has happened to me twice in twelve hours, and I hope this is fixed. Only other bug/glitch I found was AI ships sometimes pulling some bull 180 turns, but this is a minor annoyance in the campaign at best.
IS THIS GAME MICROTRANSACTION RIDDLED/CONSUMER UNFRIENDLY?
In it's current state, not the slightest. This is EA though so as a wise man once said "they'll find a way to f@ck it up". I would love to support further development of this game but given this is EA, If I give an inch they will take a mile. I hope that if a way to financially further development is introduced, it won't be awful. I will update this review should it change.
IS IT FUN?
I love it. I am a fan of flight games and star wars, so this game was tailor made for me.
For star wars fans, casual or die-hard, on the fence, I would strongly recommend it, but I will say that this is no arcade game, it can be very difficult and somebody with little to no flight game experience will more than likely struggle. What is here is very enjoyable once you "get it" IMO, and the star wars setting is very well done. The story alone is not really worth the 40$ tag but if you plan to make extensive use of the multiplayer, 40$ is a fair price.
For flight game players who are NOT star wars fans, I would suggest doing more research and watching gameplay videos. There is a solid dogfight game here, but the star wars universe is a major selling point of this game, so I would highly recommend considering it, but in the end it will be your call. Should it go on sale I would strongly recommend at least getting it and trying it out, and refunding if you don't like it.Show moreShow less
12.2 hours at review566 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
After 42 hours in this game, I can finally write a review I feel comfortable with.
It's not good.
On the surface, it appears to be the modern X-wing/TIE Fighter/Rogue Squadron that we've all wanted for so long. The game looks amazing, and the star wars ships we've grown to love are all intricately detailed down to the individual buttons on the X-Wing's console. Unfortunately, like most modern Star Wars, once the shiny new graphics and blinding rushes of action wear off, you find that the package given to you is little more than a bare minimum effort that feels cobbled together at best.
First, while the ships included are very well detailed and look the part, they have significant problems in practice. Balance is non-existent, and playing some ships (Such as the A-Wing in Dogfight and the TIE bomber in Fleet Battles) allow players to cheese the mechanics of the game in ludicrous ways. For instance, the aforementioned TIE Bomber can literally park next to a Rebel Frigate in Fleet Battles and single-handedly destroy it in a single life. This is a HUGE issue that, one month on from release, doesn't have an announced fix. Similarly, the A-Wing, with its shields and repair combined with a small hitbox, makes it a major pain in the ass in dogfight. After maining the TIE Interceptor in that mode, the A-Wing felt like I turned the difficulty notch down to novice.
Dogfight is also hampered by overpowered utilities. Instead of finding yourself in tense turning wars like you would in other flight sims, the highly accurate and low-cooldown seeker mine ability forces your adversary to break off or instantly die with little to no chance to hit their countermeasures. Dogfight also has no ranked mode or skill-based matchmaking, and it sometimes feels like kicking children in the teeth. As of this writing, I have a 3.37 KDR with an average of 15 kills per game. This is neither fun for me or the enemies.
The content provided is also incredibly light. Motive 's goal here was to release a complete game, and while that is a noble goal in the modern games industry, it's simply not enough when you have no plans for future content. There is a HUGE difference between complete and feature complete, and this game lands nowhere near the latter. Two modes, one of which has no actual ranked mode, plus a short campaign with generally uninteresting characters make this feel like an alpha rather than the final product.
That feeling is also supported by the bugs. My GOD, the bugs. If you've ever wanted your campaign to completely break (either refusing to load or having the mission-critical AI fly around in circles), then this is the game for you. The cosmetics, which are the main reason to keep playing, often break and remove themselves from your fighter or pilot after every match. The framerate has a habit of doing whatever the hell it wants and the game is most definitely prone to crashes.
On top of all of that, there are also uncountable mild annoyances; One player being able to hold up an entire match of 10 people for 2 minutes is absurd and a fine example for my point. Sometimes, games lag out JUST enough to screw with your aim, but not disconnect you. The Galitan map exists. Countermeasures sometimes don't deploy correctly. A whole bunch of little things.
Overall, this will be my last purchase of a Star Wars video game. I got burned with Battlefront 2, but this game gave me a glimmer of hope that post-LucasArts Star Wars games could be something special. That glimmer was promptly snuffed out like the last brain cell in Rian Johnson's head when writing The Last Jedi.
Don't buy it. Use your money on better games. You can buy Among us for yourself and 7 friends for the same price, for a far more fun and substantive gaming experience. What's here in Squadrons is lacking, and with nothing planned on the horizon, you'd be wise to spend your money elsewhere.Show moreShow less
42.3 hours at review1,699 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
$40, crossplay, no microtransactions, mechanics to filter casuals, fun multiplayer, pretty good.Show moreShow less
5.5 hours at review501 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
As a preface, i'm going to say that this is my opinion and has nothing to do with the SJW showdown going on with the game. I don't care about the characters or story, what I DO care about is what you spend 90% of your time doing. Piloting. I mean the actual flight mechanics and model based off of one of my favorite franchise and childhood memories, Xwing and Tie Fighter from the early 90's. Those games were one of the reasons I got into simming in the first place (outside of Janes series, Microprose, etc) so my judgement is based on full immersive gameplay utilizing the Valve INDEX, TM Warthog HOTAS & Saitek/Logi Pedals on an i9-9900k/2080ti 100-150% supersampling.
PROS
1. Beautiful Graphics in Pancake mode (as is all EA Star Wars games really)
2. Audio is nice, feeds into the cinematic feel, etc.
3. Customizable classic flyable fighters that bring back memories for older gen pilots
4. Crossplay (always nice to have, but clearly that means mechanics are dumbed down)
5. Explosions are phenomenal (reminds me of the anticipation of watching a Star Destroyer implode in Xwing)
CONS
1. The game has some severe launch issues that idk how got past QA such as the following bugs.
----- AI Ships are really dumb. They constantly crash into debris, or your ship, bouncing off like pinballs and switching directions 180 degrees in an instant.
----- Flight Formations are silly, your wingmen basically just lock onto your ships orientation and statically remain in position going as fast as you or turning with you. There is no freeform flight mechanics or formation flying here.
----- VR is atrocious. Game is kicking off ASW on the Valve Index at 100% resolution on a 2080ti with Graphics preset on High. I even switched to medium and custom, turning off AO, lowering PP, and other heavy graphic features. There is a lot of desync and stuttering going on.
----- VR feels tacky. For performance, the devs lowered the starfields to a very very low resolution so the feeling of depth is completely lost in the stars. It feels like you're rendering Starships on a blurry star background so the sense of a vast space is completely lost.
----- VR crashes often, black screens, and a SteamVR error/crash upon exit.
2. HOTAS support is VERY minimal. Prepare to spend a few hours configuring bindings for the lack of presets. In addition, there are no HOTAS curve adjustments (you have to counter in your HOTAS SW) and the game utilizes a VERY non linear exponential curve despite deadzone + sensitivity adjustments. This leads to severe over turns and aim compensation. The bindings are also very tacked on to a very basic flight model.
3. STICKY FLIGHT MODEL- the flight model is very sticky. Ships turn on a dime, its very snappy (not smooth) and lends itself to a very fast paced arcade like experience. In most sims, you need to use HOTAS to compensate for speed, energy, weight, and the likes because of physics. There are literally no physics in Squadrons flight model. I thought at least with the drift mechanics there would be a sense of newtonian physics, but sadly its not. Feels like a hard bank rollercoaster.
To put it simply, if you enjoyed the flight mechanics in deeper sim experiences such as Elite or SC, you will be severely disappointed with what Squadrons has to offer. It's a very low ceiling in terms of flight mechanics.
4. SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT - This was the staple of Xwing and Tie fighter which I adored, so naturally was completely excited for Squadrons. Sadly...SQUADRONS IS SO FAST PACED THAT SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT IS ANNOYING. Don't bother rolling for advanced control over pips, just hotkey or combo for MAX PIP on each system during the FAST PACED FRENETIC ship battles.
----The reason why Systems management was so well done in XwA/Tie/Xwing CE is that the game was a slower, much more unchoreographed dance in space as fighters fought to yaw, roll, bank and dodge in order to fend off a chase or get on an opponents six all while utilizing the systems to your advantage.
In Squadrons, Systems Management is more of a twitch based REACTION to the onslought of AI locking on to you. Want to pip rear shields? No point, you can turn in fraction of a second and lock on to an enemy. Want to boost speed? No point, you feel like you're not putting distance between yourself and the enemy like in Xwing/Tie. Everything feels like a jumbled up toybox with all the ships bouncing off eachother in no sensible fashion.
5. MASHING KEYS is silly. In any game. If your systems get knocked out, you have to mash keys. (or a convenient option to HOLD one key in gameplay to boot back up) Elite had a cool mechanic where you can reboot one of your subsystems if went offline. I loved that feature, Squadrons is just a frenetic smash to "wake" back up.
All in all, I just simply can't recommend the game because it doesn't lend itself to the feeling of deep space flight or simulation. There is no exploration, its all cut scenes, loading screens, and very small box battles with a low resolution starfield backdrop that has zero depth. The Sense of Scale has been robbed in Squadrons and you don't feel like an ant compared to a Star Destroyer like in Xwing/Tie, you feel more like a pinball, flying around bouncing around everywhere and large capital ships just simply become an obstacle.
If you're an old school xwing/tie pilot looking for a true successor. This aint it chief. This is a VERY minimal arcade flight shooter with crossplay designed for fast, frenetic gameplay. Not my cup of tea.Show moreShow less
4 hours at review1,660 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Free at Epic Game Store 25th november 2022 TILL 2 December 2022.Show moreShow less
12.8 hours at review496 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
To everyone who is hoping for a modern TIE fighter or X-Wing game, this isn't it.
It is the typical EA effort to cash in on a beloved property.
While there are many details that I appreciate (the cockpits are great,) The gameplay feels like a mediocre arcade.
All a developer needs to do is remake TIE Fighter/ or X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, but with modern graphics.
Don't make it into a Michael Bay film. The slow methodical nature of those games was a feature, not a bug.
There was the opportunity for dogfights, but there was also the opportunity for wide open space flight, and missions that seemed boring, but ended up being fun and hard.
I dunno, maybe I'm an old coot who just misses "the old days."
Either way, EA is definitely not LucasArts. They seem to take no joy from the material, or have no love for it.Show moreShow less
5.8 hours at review1,115 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
So far so good, great fun, multiplayer works well,
matchmaking is not a problem, leveling is smooth and fun so far.
Single player campaign is a bonus. Very nice detail.
A must own for anyone who loves Star Wars.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update at 50 hours in game. Still enjoying the crap out of it.
I understand it's not for everyone, and I think it's a (not super)
niche group of people that would/will absolutely eat this game up.
If it's not your thing then skip and move on.
However, I think you need more than a couple hours in game to
really appreciate the depth and high skill cap that the developers
were going for here. Also most of the people reviewing this game
probably never learned all the mechanics before posting a review.
(such as myself)
Things most beginners over look are
-The "Boost and Drift" mechanic add a very interesting and not to
mention BLAST of a mechanic into "advanced flying".
-"Overcharging" Shields, Engines and Blasters, when you fully fill
the power meter in a category you will essentially double the amount
it originally had.
Engines: will allow you to "Boost and Drift".
Blasters: will allow you to shoot for TWICE as long without over heating.
Shields : will take TWICE as much damage when fully charged.
Speaking of shields, an additional ability that people may not realize they
have is to direct your shields forwards or backwards. Making it much easier
to assault flagships.
For example:
While assaulting a flag ship, you have shields fully charged
(essentially 200% shields) while diving the flagship it eats
through your forward shields, yet you haven't reached your
target yet, (no problem) transfer your rear shields to forward
shields and reach your target with ease.
Targeting is very unique as well, you can choose what targets will be
selected such as Enemy player ships, Enemy AI ships, Capital Ships,
Subsystems, etc. ON THE FLY.
I recommend that people who think they might learn to enjoy the
game to stick with it and learn all of the systems, subsystems and controls.
If it's not for you, it's for others like me.
P.S. I can "Boost and Drift" all day alone!!!
Feel free to add me on to play. TheRiinzlerShow moreShow less
8.6 hours at review447 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Played 2 hours: "I do not have fun yet. Should I refund? Nah, it has X-Wings and Tie Fighters, and the campaign started yet, and there is still multiplayer, etc ..."
3 hours later: "I should have refunded :-("
Why?
- The "campaign" is nothing more than a long tutorial. Do not fall for the advertisement to have any real story mode / campaign. The story is short, not special and just a long tutorial (for example, in one later mission you are instructed to learn a drift maneuver and you will not be able to continue the mission or the story as long as you do not succeed this particular maneuver with your figher). There is no immersion into the story or the characters (between the missions you can go to them and they will give you some story exposition). Jumping from one faction to the other is also breaking the immersion (after several empire missions I was so focused on shooting any X-Wing on sight, that after jumping to the rebels side it took some time for me to switch my mindset as well). There was sooo much potential about a really immersive and thrilling story about two fighter squadrons on each side of a large conflict, which could have been told by interesting missions only (like for example Freespace 2 did). But the game falls flat here.
- Many of the advertised key features of the game are not as deep as they looked like in the previews and gameplay trailers. The power management, for example, is not as sophisticated as you would think (most times you just put all energy in one system, and switch from time to time to another system … if you are fast enough that it actually matters). The “signature mode” of the game, the fleet battles, is also not as epic as the trailers might have showed you. Yes, capital ships are deadly if you are too close and unprepared. But most games I was in, it was a complete chaos. Maybe that will change over time. Long dog fights, in which your setup, your power management and your flight skills matter, just didn’t happen at all.
TL;DR If it is fine for you to pay 40 bucks on a story-based tutorial (expect just a few hours) and then play multiplayer all day long (in which you keep killing each other in quick succession, wait a few seconds until respawn, and then repeat), then this game might be right for you. If you are looking for a good Star Wars story about two fighter squadrons on empire and rebel side, and thrilling dog fights where skill and setup matter, then you will not find it here (in my opinion).Show moreShow less
4.5 hours at review884 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.
