Gamers who love to complain about being nickel-and-dimed may want to be careful what they wish for. As promised, EA Motive has confirmed that Star Wars: Squadrons (which was heavily advertised as being microtransaction-free) is getting zero new content. That means no new game modes and DLC, such as additional pilots, starfighters, and paint jobs.
“Never say never, so to speak, but as far as our philosophy goes we’re not trying to treat the game as a live service,” Creative Director Ian Frazier said in an interview with UploadVR. “We don’t want to say, ‘It’s almost done!’ and then dribble out more of it over time, which to be honest is how most games work these days. So we’ve tried to treat it in kind of an old-school approach saying, ‘You’ve paid the $40, this is the game and it’s entirely self-contained. We’re not planning to add more content, this is the game, and we hope you understand the value proposition.’”
Frazier also had bad news for Star Wars fans who wanted to get more intimate with planets, à la No Man’s Sky. There are no plans to allow starfighters to breach atmospheres.
“From pretty early on we wanted to be a space combat game, emphasis on space,” Frazier continued. “So even though we do go into the outer atmosphere of Yavin Prime, we never go anywhere truly terrestrial because we wanted to separate the game in that flavor from something like Battlefront, which we already have. “
Frazier also confirmed that there are no plans to bring Star Wars: Squadrons to wireless Oculus Quest (Facebook’s all-in-one VR headset) setups. Quest users who want to put themselves into an X-Wing or TIE Fighter cockpit will need to link up to a PC. The game can also be enjoyed in VR on a Valve Index, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality headset, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Rift S.
“No plans at this time,” Frazier revealed. “Obviously if you have the Oculus Quest and Link with a PC that has sufficient requirements you can run a Quest off of your PC, but as a standalone thing, no plans at this time.”