Ever since Star Wars first came out, video game developers have been trying to capture the experience of piloting X-Wings and Tie Fighters. The first such attempt was a bootleg cassette tape game for the Apple II, followed in 1983 with Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle. My first experience in the cockpit was with LucasArt’s 1993 classic X-Wing, which was the first of many games I developed an unhealthy obsession for.
When Electronic Arts bought the rights to make Star Wars games for console and PC, many hoped that a new addition to the X-Wing series would be on the way. And now it sounds like we’re going to get a similar experience that’s designed for VR. Tucked into EA’s E3 video teasing future Star Wars games was this shot of someone wearing a Playstation VR headset that puts them in an X-Wing.
What this is from is unclear. Does it signal the addition of spaceship dogfights in Star Wars: Battlefront? Is it a part of one of the other announced Star Wars games EA is working on? Or is it something else?
The company has a bunch of their studios working hard on Star Wars titles, so it could be part of the new DICE Battlefront game, the Visceral Games action-adventure we’re all hoping will be a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic, or the mysterious game being developed by Respawn, the guys behind Titanfall.
All I know is Electronic Arts better deliver on this or my inner 13-year-old is going to flip out. No amount of season pass silliness would stop me from giving them all my money. Heck, they could ask me to encase my entire family in carbonite for beta access and I’d figure ‘Great, more time to play the game this way.’