Star Wars: Squadrons will be an exclusively first-person game

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Because third-person would be too overpowered.

(Image credit: EA)

First-person cockpits are the best. Not only can you see all the switches and doo-dads that make a complicated feat of technology fly through air (or space), but it's even cooler if your pilot manually reaches over to turn a knob. Yet, cockpit views are often trivialized by the clearly superior wide-angle of third-person view. That's why I'm glad that Star Wars: Squadrons will be played exclusively in first-person, according to a recent Gamespot interview with creative director Ian Frazier.

"The whole game is designed from the ground up to be first-person all the way through," Frazier told Gamespot. "You are the pilot. All the diegetic information is built into the hud, so you could turn off all the game layer UI if you want and rely entirely on your instruments. We want that to be the core experience."

Frazier also explained that the first-person lock comes down to multiplayer balance. If anyone could fly around in third-person, it'd be the obvious preference to maximize your field-of-view in combat. This has been the pattern of every recent Battlefield game with planes and even Battlefront 2's space battles. Frazier clarified that you can see ships in third-person when spectating, at least.

Recently, we also learned that Star Wars: Squadrons will have zero microtransactions and isn't designed with a "live-service strategy". It'll also be $40, which is less than $60 and therefore cool. Samuel also shared his thoughts on why Star Wars: Squadrons is so exciting for PC gamers.

Morgan Park
Morgan Park
Staff Writer

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.