Lucasfilm and EA Games are set to release a new video game in a short couple of weeks: Star Wars: Squadrons, which puts you in the cockpit of both X-Wing and TIE Fighters in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi.
The game looks excellent, and rekindles our love of the older TIE Fighter and X-Wing games—and to get fans hyped for its release, EA Games released a short film called Hunted, which has all the elements of the project I most want to see from Lucasfilm: An X-Wing TV series.
According to StarWars.com, the film is a collaboration between ILM special effects supervisor and Rogue One creator John Knoll, Lucasfilm, Electronic Arts and Motive Studios.
The story, which is meant to serve as setup to the game, is set shortly after the Battle of Endor over Var-Shaa’s Imperial Dockyards. The Imperial garrison there is working to fend off a Rebel Alliance attack fleet, and we follow pilot Varko Grey, who’s helping lead the planet’s defense in a TIE Interceptor. He’s ordered to pull back his forces as the Empire decides to cut its losses and run. His commanding officer tells him that they’re not going to lose another destroyer to the Alliance, and that they’re headed out—if he and his fellow pilots aren’t back on the Overseer, they’ll be left behind.
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While protecting a TIE Bomber pilot, his fighter is damaged and Grey is left behind. His ride out of the system jumps to light speed just as he’s about to enter the hanger. Left in the wreckage, he has to figure out how to survive as Alliance forces comb through to look for survivors.
It’s a tense short film, and has all the elements that I’ve been wanting to see for years now: some sort of series that’s based on or takes inspiration from Michael A. Stackpole’s fantastic X-Wing series. We’ve got pilots engaged in some pretty excellent dog fights as the Empire and Rebellion duke it out in the aftermath of Endor, something we’ve seen a bit of in Alexander Freed’s recent novels Alphabet Squadron and Shadow Fall. This feels exactly like such a series should look like.
StarWars.com has a longer look at what went into the project—the team had to figure out the right story as to not glorify the Empire, but figure out how to tell a sympathetic story for an Imperial pilot. According to Lucasfilm VP of content and strategy James Waugh:
“Varko is still a committed idealist and someone who you think is probably a pretty dangerous individual and has done some terrible things. But his entire galaxy has just flipped on its head. All context of order and what will come next is suddenly in chaos and shambles. Seeing that, and seeing that flip, and seeing his reaction to the fact that what he cherished and believed in may be lost, is as human an experience as you can get. It’s part of the power of the storytelling of the game and the short.”
Knoll explained that they worked to adhere to the same film language that they used with their feature films, meaning that this short film feels very much like part of the cinematic side of the universe. But the digital nature of the film meant that they got to experiment a bit: They got “to do shot designs that wouldn’t really fit into the cinematic design of the feature films. Go-Pro mounts and that kind of thing. It was really fun to get into.”
Star Wars: Squadrons is set to be released on October 2nd on Play Station 4, Xbox One, and PC. Maybe we’ll get a longer version or project somewhere down the line.
This looks amazing. Love the short. I want more content like this! Also I am afraid my laptop won’t be able to handle this game, so not sure if I’ll be able to play anytime soon…but boy do I want to.
I just finished re-reading the X-Wing series (some of my fav SW books, period) and so this couldn’t come at a better time for me. Also – one note. At least in my opinion, the best X-Wing books are by Allston, not Stackpole. YMMV…
@@@@@#1: Sir, in fact my mileage does not vary! I love Wraith Squadron, and adore Starfighters of Adumar. Conversely, while Stackpole’s books 1-4 tell a good story, his #8 seems like a comic book tie-in that spends an inordinate time retconning so he can have Isard back. I’d say she should have been a specter lifted by a canny Imperial trying to make them jump in wrong directions, but that might have detracted from the Hand of Thrawn twinset. So, may your mileage vary less than it properly should :-)
Edit: All that being said, #9-Adumar was kind of retconning Kevin J Anderson’s Wedge storyline, but KJA had to be retconned by Stackpole’s I, Jedi to cover the numerous odd plotholes KJA left in the Exar Kun storyline.
Not that it matters, since they retconned the entire universe into “popularized dramas” for the “actual” inhabitants of the SW universe to watch about their heroes!
This was awesome. I really want to see a Star Wars fighter squadron show on Disney+. Using new characters, like on the Mandolorian, so it isn’t bogged down by continuity. The CGI today is at the level where the space battles would be epic.
So what is the Empire these days? I mean it doesn’t appear to be the same old stodgy club for white male fascists seen in the original trilogy. Is it just the other side with cool looking ships? Do they still look down on non-humans? How am I supposed to take a pilot’s determination to keep an empire going? Make the galaxy great again?
@@.-@, I’m pretty sure the Empire is canonically human supremacist, yes. And then there’s the whole authoritarianism/fascism thing in terms of how they govern.
Reminds me a bit of Otaking’s animated short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU
Some of the remasters are quite good too.