Following months of rumors and speculation, including a leak on the PlayStation Store back in March, EA has finally confirmed that it and Motive Studio are working on a flight-action game set in the Star Wars universe with Star Wars: Squadron. Better yet, the publisher has teased that they will be revealing it very soon. In fact, even earlier than its planned EA Play event next Thursday, June 19th.
The flight-action game first leaked in the form of a listing found on the PlayStation Store, where it was codenamed “Star Wars: Project Maverick.” Soon after, industry insider and Bloomberg writer Jason Schreier confirmed that the game is being developed at EA’s Motive Studio in Montreal, a studio that has yet to release its own title, instead assisting with titles such as Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Anthem since its founding in 2015.
In 2018, however, the studio made a huge move forward when EA opened a secondary Motive studio in Vancouver, which lends credence to the Project Maverick rumor, as Schreier also claimed that the project is a smaller title than the likes of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Rumors began to appear just recently when VentureBeat writer and reporter Jeff Grubb started listing the title in his “Summer Game Mess” series of tweets which teased upcoming game announcements, teasing the game as “Mel Gibson Picture/Tom Cruise Shirtless Volleyball,” referencing the 1994 Mel Gibson film Maverick as well as Tom Cruise’s character from the 1986 film Top Gun. While Grubb originally teased that the announcement would be made on June 9th, many game announcements were pushed back to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Finally, today, after appearing briefly on Xbox’s website, EA has finally revealed Star Wars: Project Maverick officially as Star Wars: Squadron, with the teaser “Pilots Wanted.” The reveal trailer will be released on Monday, June 15th at 8 am PT. EA also released a teaser image, showcasing pilots from the most recent Star Wars sequel trilogy’s Resistance and First Order, along with ships including the iconic X-wings, TIE fighters and Star Destroyers.
While this teaser only shows content from the sequel trilogy, the original Project Maverick teaser image showcased a Star Destroyer flying above a planet resembling Revenge of the Sith’s Mustafar. Given the title and focus on flight-action, fans of the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series will be happy to hear that Squadron harkens back to the old arcade-style aerial combat titles, a genre that has not seen a Star Wars console title since 2002’s Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Star Wars Squadron will be revealed on June 15th at 8 am PT.
