Star Wars: Squadrons, the next Star Wars video game, will put players in the cockpit of their favorite starfighters -- and at an introductory price point of $40, even though most new major games are released at $60.
During a quarterly earnings call with investors, Electronic Arts executives clarified why the game was noticeably cheaper than most publishers. Specifically, it had to do with the game's scope.
"Games all have different scales and most of our games right now have huge scale," EA Chief Operating Officer Blake Jorgensen explained. "We designed this game to really focus on what we heard from consumers, which is one of their greatest fantasies and that's to be able to fly X-Wing fighter, TIE-Fighter and be in a dogfight and so it doesn't have the breadth of some of our games but it is still an incredible game and so that's why we chose to price it at a slightly lower level to also allow access to as many people as possible who had that Star Wars fantasy."
The recent remaster of Star Wars Episode I: Racer was similarly released at a reduced price point for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, being an enhanced remake of the original arcade game rather than a completely new title. According to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, Squadrons' price felt appropriate with the amount of development time taken to create the new game.
"This is a very deep and immersive game and that $40 felt like the right price point given the breadth of the game, very proud of what we are doing," Wilson added. "We wanted it to be a wholly self-contained experience that was deeply immersive in that fantasy.”
Star Wars: Squadrons goes on sale Oct. 2 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
via VG24/7