In Squadrons they take on a very different role, providing fire support to lock down certain sections of the map and helping to repair friendly ships. Both are relatively new ships featured in Rogue One, and both were used in that film to transport troops into ground combat. The most curious ships by far are the support-class ships, which include the New Republic U-Wing and the TIE Reaper. Look for them to excel in Squadron’s Fleet Battles mode, but only when supported by fighters manned by attentive pilots. Both have fairly powerful forward guns, but lining up a shot on smaller, faster ships is nearly impossible. Neither of them stands up well in a dogfight, mainly because they lack speed and maneuverability. Meanwhile, both the Y-Wing and the TIE bombers feel like more purpose-built attack ships designed for a single mode of play. It will take more time to get my feet under me as an attacker inside these ships, but on the defensive they’re tons of fun to fly. Outrunning enemy missiles or confusing their tracking by slipping behind cover was a breeze. Both were lightly armored, but incredibly fast. My favorite ships by far were the TIE Interceptor and the A-Wing. It’s a multi-role ship, however, and performs well in a dogfight and as a fast-moving bomber, but it lacked the speed and maneuverability of the TIE. Compared to the nimble Imperial TIEs it felt slow and awkward. My least favorite starship to fly was the New Republic’s X-Wing. While they’re grouped together into four classes - fighter, interceptor, bomber, and support - their capabilities aren’t the same within each class. Each side, Imperials and Rebels, gets four unique starships to choose from. The big differentiator for Squadrons, however, is the diversity of its ships. I can see these interior spaces being used as chokepoints, something similar to the narrow passageways common in competitive first-person shooters like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. I could just as easily put on the brakes, pull up on the stick, and change direction without bumping into the wall. I was able to open the throttle wide, racing down long corridors or banking into curved sections. It’s easy to get lost inside the starbase, and skilled pilots will be able to use these passageways for cover and concealment as they maneuver around the enemy.įlying inside Esseles is a far cry from the cramped, claustrophobic spaces in Battlefront 2. In between is a labyrinthine network of tunnels and little bits of superstructure.

The theater of combat is divided in half, with furballs happening both on the top of and below the massive disk-shaped facility. The installation at Esseles is wide and flat - much like the Imperial base in orbit around Scarif in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Image: Motive Studios, Lucasfilm/Electronic Arts

X wing front view