Star Wars: Attack Squadrons Cancelled

If you were hoping that space-dogfighter Star Wars: Attack Squadrons would become a great game after playing the closed beta, I have some bad news. It seems that Area 52 and Disney Mobile  pulled the plug on this one, cancelling the game before it got out into the open via an open beta.

If you haven’t heard about the game yet, it was supposed to be a dogfighting game set in the Star Wars universe (doh!). It should’ve been the spiritual successor to X-Wing and Tie Fighter, and would be absolutely free. Of course free doesn’t really mean free nowadays, so the free-to-play elements would have you buy in-game items with real cash. The premise was good enough to catch some air, and the Star Wars licence would’ve granted some fans of the movie license, but it seems that the effort was not worth it.

Players who were accepted to beta test the game were greeted with this message upon loging in:

“We want to thank all of the fans who participated in the closed beta of Star Wars: Attack Squadrons. After much consideration, we have decided to cease development so that we can focus on other Star Wars game experiences. We truly appreciate the time you spent engaging in the beta.”

It seems that players were not so happy with the game, saying that the controls were too clunky, the gameplay was too arcadey and it should’ve been developed and launched as a full release as opposed to free-to-play. It seems that old fans of X-Wing and Tie Fighter wanted more of that and less of the “game for the masses”.

With the Star Wars license in the hands of EA Games for the next ten years, it would seem that we will see a game featuring space dog fights in George Lucas’ universe sooner rather than later. Probably the next game to feature the iconic fighter ships will be Star Wars Battlefront, in development at EA DICE.