It seems that Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Project Maverick has leaked again. This time, it’s a listing that appeared on the Xbox homepage teasing a game called Star Wars Squadrons that seems to focus on X-wing vs. TIE fighter dogfights. EA will reportedly officially announce the game at next week’s EA Play conference.
Here’s a screengrab of the listing, courtesy of Eurogamer:
The game is said to be in development at Motive Studios, the team that worked on the single-player campaign for Star Wars Battlefront II and provided support for BioWare’s Anthem.
While at former Kotaku news editor Jason Schreier broke the story that game studio EA Motive was working on a “smaller, more unusual Star Wars project” codenamed Project Maverick, the game seemed to be confirmed back in March when a listing for the game was leaked on the PlayStation Network.
In May, Schreier teased that Project Maverick might finally be officially unveiled by EA after Motive Studios launched its own Twitter handle just weeks before the publisher’s big EA Play showcase where it will announce all of its upcoming projects.
“Looks like someone’s getting ready to announce a new game,” Schreier wrote on Twitter above a message from Motive announcing its new presence on the social media platform: “We’re here! The Motive family is excited to be joining on social platforms to share on who we are, and the work we do. Really, we couldn’t imagine a better time to start connecting with everyone online. Let’s go.”
After the massive success of Respawn Entertainment’s Jedi: Fallen Order, which is also reportedly getting a sequel, it’s not all that surprising that EA is ready to announce another Star Wars game.
The teaser image for Project Maverick that leaked in March also featured a squadron of X-wings zooming towards an Imperial Star Destroyer. This has led some to speculate that the new title is a spiritual successor to the Rogue Squadron space combat series that saw players pilot Rebel fighters against the Imperial fleet. Many fans have been asking for a new Rogue Squadron title for years. The last installment came out in 2003 and series developer Factor 5 closed its doors in 2009. Rebel Galaxy developer Double Damage famously pitched a Star Wars space shooter in the spirit of the old X-wing and Rogue Squadron games, but EA turned it down.
Since EA has yet to confirm the existence of Star Wars Squadrons, we don’t know when it might release or what consoles the game will support. The timing of the announcement makes it likely that the game will release on both current-gen and next-gen consoles.
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.