Developed by Motive Studio (which is working on a new Iron Man game with Marvel), Star Wars: Squadrons is a space combat title with a campaign that alternates between Vanguard Squadron of the New Republic and Titan Squadron of the Galactic Empire. It also features multiplayer modes like Dogfight where two teams of five players each battle it out; and Fleet Battles, where two teams fight to destroy the other’s Capital Ship.

For more details on Star Wars: Squadrons, check out our review here. The next two games that will be free on the Epic Games Store on December 8th are Fort Triumph and RPG in a Box. The former is a strategy title with XCOM-style combat while the latter is a toolset for creating grid-based voxel games. Stay tuned for more details when they go live.

We’ve been seeing quite a few games launching with PlayStation Plus at launch, including the likes of Bugsnax, Destruction AllStars, and Oddworld: Soulstorm. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan confirmed not too long ago that we’d be seeing more games following suit, and with the PS Plus lineup for June 2021 now confirmed, two of those have been unveiled.

The recently announced Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown was leaked as a June PS Plus game before it was even announced, and it’s now been confirmed. The game is launching on June 1, and will be available via PS Plus right at launch- not just through all of June, but for the following month as well, right up until August 2.

Meanwhile, upcoming co-op spy adventure title Operation: Tango will also be available for PlayStation Plus subscribers when it launches on June 1. It will be available until July 5- though only the PS5 version of the game is going to be available.

Finally, the third game for the month is not a new release, but it’s a pretty big title. Last year’s excellent space shooter Star Wars: Squadrons will be available via PS Plus all the way up until July 5. Considering the game’s excellent VR support (which is exclusive to PS4, incidentally), that’s a solid addition to the lineup.

Even after adding 20 Bethesda titles to the service, Microsoft has even more games coming to Xbox Game Pass. It announced that Empire of Sin would be available for Xbox consoles, PC and Android devices via the cloud on Mach 18th along with NieR: Automata and Torchlight 3 on PC and Star Wars: Squadrons on consoles.

Next week is even more interesting as Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler arrives for Xbox consoles and PC on March 25th. This will mark the RPG’s debut on Xbox One after previously releasing for Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia and PC over the years. Galactic-scale adventure title Genesis Noir will also be available on console and PC along with Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition and Supraland for PC on the same day.

But that’s not all as Sega’s Yakuza 6: The Song of Life also comes to Xbox, PC and cloud on March 25th, followed by pixel platformer Narita Boy on March 30th for the same. As announced yesterday, next month’s Game Pass offerings begins with People Can Fly’s Outriders coming to Xbox and cloud (but not PC) on April 1st. Stay tuned for more details on other titles in the meantime.

Microsoft has announced its first wave of titles coming to Xbox Game Pass subscribers in March. Available now is Madden NFL 21, which is technically a part of EA Play (and limited to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members). On March 4th, Football Manager 2021 comes to PC and consoles, providing avenues for players to create their own professional teams.

NBA 2K21 arrives on the same day for consoles and the cloud. Later this month, Star Wars: Squadrons will become available for consoles via EA Play. Considering the critical acclaim that it’s received, it may be worth checking out for those on the fence till now. NHL 21, meanwhile, is set to join the service in April.

More Xbox Game Pass titles will be revealed later this month so stay tuned. Titles that will be leaving on March 15th include Alvastia Chronicles and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night for console and PC. On the console side, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Kona will also become unavailable. PC-only players will lose access to Astrologaster.

Like many major companies nowadays, EA has their subscription service which was recently rebranded EA Play. If you’re into their games, it’s quite the deal as recent titles come up on it pretty frequently, and now have three of those coming very soon.

As announced by EA, Star Wars: Squadrons will be coming to the service in March. It was the latest title released for the license from EA and put you in the driver’s seat of many iconic ships in the universe. It was largely well-received. Along with it in March will be Madden NFL 21 and in April another newer sports title will come will come with NHL 21.

The games will start being available for EA Play and EA Play Pro throughout all compatible platforms to subscribers starting March 2nd. Those with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate also have full access to EA Play on consoles, though it is not on PC Game Pass, which is still said to be coming later this year.

Electronic Arts may no longer have exclusive rights to develop Star Wars titles but its output has still been impressive. CEO Andrew Wilson revealed during an earnings call with investors (transcript via Seeking Alpha) that the company’s deal with Disney resulted in $3 billion revenue till date. The first title, Star Wars: Battlefront, launched in 2015.

It was followed by Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with Star Wars: Squadrons being the most recent. Collectively, the publisher’s Star Wars titles have sold 52 million copies till date across all platforms. If that wasn’t enough, free to play mobile title Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes generated $1 billion on its own.

When asked about EA producing fewer Star Wars titles due to the loss of exclusivity, Wilson said, “I don’t think you should imagine that the fact that some other people will build some Star Wars games is going to change our commitment to that IP or our ability to build the appropriate number of games.” The publisher noted several weeks ago that there were a “number” of unannounced Star Wars games in the works so it should be interesting to see what’s next.

In the meantime, Ubisoft Massive is working on an open world Star Wars title. Rumors also indicate that a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic title is in development, though EA isn’t supposed to be handling it. Stay tuned for more details and announcements in the coming years.

With the entire Batman universe and the beloved setting of Gotham City at their disposal, WB Games Montreal are going to be tapping into a lot of storytelling potential with their upcoming open world action RPG Gotham Knights. And to make sure that they’re leveraging that source material as well as they can, they’ve been adding talent to their writing team.

Recently, writer Mitch Dyer took to Twitter to confirm that he has been working on Gotham Knights, a project which he started recently. Along with the announcement, he added that the studio is “making something really special”, though offered no other details.

Dyer has been involved with a couple of pretty major games in recent years. He was at EA-owned Motive Studios for a period of roughly four and a half years until August last year, and during that time, he worked on both Star Wars Battlefront 2’s single player campaign (which Motive developed) and Star Wars: Squadrons.

Gotham Knights is due out in 2021, but has no specific launch date yet. When it releases, it will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

A very cool thing about 2021 is that I've been working on GOTHAM KNIGHTS.

The WB Montreal team is incredible, and they're making something really special. Can't wait for you to learn more about this game when the time comes. pic.twitter.com/WOgy9DeBJN

— Mitch Dyer (@MitchyD) January 29, 2021

While Xbox Game Pass is the new hotness for Microsoft as time goes on, there’s still perks to being a Xbox Live Gold member. There are quite a few free game giveaways, for instance, but there’s also the free to play weekends. This weekend has a good helping of titles for you to get through, too.

Starting today, you can play through three very different titles for free if you subscribe to either Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Probably the biggest one of the three is Star Wars: Squadrons, the latest game in the franchise that sees you blasting your way through the stars in the iconic space fighters. Next is something very different, but just as explosive with Dragon Ball FighterZ, Arc Systems’ frantic and wild fighting game that adapts the world famous manga. Finally, for something a bit more mellow and single player-focused, the first Yooka-Laylee, a 3D platformer that harkens to an old school style.

All three games are free to play starting today and the trial will run until Sunday, January 17th for subscribers on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. You can read full details via Microsoft’s website through here.

Motive Studios has released its newest big update for Star Wars: Squadrons which adds two new Starfighters. Update 4.0 adds the B-wing for the New Republic and TIE Defender to the Galactic Empire. Check out the trailer below to see them in action.

The B-wing is a heavy gunship, which means low maneuverability but fairly high durability. It has ion cannons and can deal significant damage to capital ships. If you’re keen on hanging back and taking out foes from afar, it might be for you. By comparison, the TIE Defender is more an anti-Starfighter specialist.

Its shields provide strong damage resistance but it’s also weak to ion weaponry. Players will need to manage their power efficiently but in return, they get the Advanced Power System which overcharges a system with max power. Other features include Custom Games and a server browser for multiplayer and training. Check out the full patch notes here.

Star Wars: Squadrons is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC – check out our review here.

Star Wars Squadrons update 4.0

General

• Added Custom Games and a server browser, available in the Multiplayer & Training menu
• Adjusted Skill Rating requirements for each tier via server-side change last week (see below for full details)
• Updated Skill Rating gain/loss ratios to better reflect each player’s performance in a match via server-side change last week
• Ongoing server-side matchmaking improvements
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash if the player didn’t skip through the outro screens of a match
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash when loading into Fostar Haven
• Fixed an issue where having Lighting quality set to Low could create intense flashes of light on Fostar Haven
• Fixed an issue where AI in multiplayer could on occasion deal no hull damage to players with their primary weapons
• Fixed or improved instances of poor collision detection on Fostar Haven, Galitan, Esseles, Nadiri Dockyards, Zavian Abyss, and Sissubo
• Fixed issue where the interior of the TIE interceptor could disappear after respawning
• Fixed issue where Star Destroyer engine VFX could flicker
• Fixed an issue where PlayStation 5 visuals appeared blurry.

Star Wars: Squadrons’ update 3.0 is live now, and EA have detailed the various fixes, additions, and improvements that it brings to the game. Most notably, as EA promised earlier, support for 120 FPS has been added when running the game on Xbox Series X and Series S, while support for up to 4K resolutions has been added for the former. While the PS5 doesn’t get such boosts, it does see improvements to visual quality and lighting.

Meanwhile, the Fostar Haven map has been added to the game as well, on top of plenty of new cosmetics. The update also brings with it various fixes and optimizations on a visuals front, to VR, to smooth out bugs, and more. You can check out the full, detailed patch notes through here, or check out a selection of them below.

Star Wars: Squadrons isn’t the only game that’s receiving such enhancements on the Xbox Series X/S, but not the PS5. Thanks to how the PS5’s backward compatibility functions, other titles such as Call of Duty: Warzone and Rocket League are also facing similar limitations.

Star Wars: Squadrons is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 via backward compatibility. More updates with additional content are also inbound- read more on that through here.

PATCH NOTES:

• Added Fostar Haven as a map to Dogfight and Fleet Battles (Solo/Co-Op vs AI and PvP)
• Added next gen improvements
  • The game now supports up to 120FPS and up to 4K on Xbox Series X|S
    • Added an option for players on the Xbox Series X|S to prioritize enhanced visuals or enhanced performance
  • Improved visual quality and lighting on PS5
  • Variable frame rate support added for TVs and monitors that allow it
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash while changing loadouts
• Improved support for matchmaking between players with highly divergent load times
  • Players who are not finished loading when the match begins will now have an additional window of time to join the match-in-progress rather than timing out on start
• Tweaked the brightness of light sources on PC so that they’re no longer too bright in some instances
• Fixed issue where the sky color of Esseles would appear to change when entering/exiting the station
• Fixed an issue where the menu voice over accessibility feature could not play after entering a lobby
• Fixed issue where Steam players could fail to log in if their screen name included certain unicode characters or emojis
• Various stability improvements and minor bug fixes.