Top Five Star Wars Dogfighting Games

Star Wars Squadrons takes me back to the halcyon days of X-Wing and TIE Fighter and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. As a kid who was fed a steady of Star Wars in his formative years, I grew up obsessed with the adventures of Rogue Squadron, and adored living them out in amazing video games, first on PC, and then across the N64 and Gamecube.

Squadrons harks back to those heady days, with a story that doesn’t overstay its welcome, a multiplayer mode that is exhilarating and addictive in equal measure, and aesthetics that make me feel the same adrenaline rush I got when I first saw A New Hope.

As Squadrons takes its place in the pantheon of cracking Star Wars space combat titles, striking a balance between the arcade and sim approaches for yesteryear, let’s have a look at some of the others that paved the way. In prefer the OG trilogy setting of the Rogue Squadron series, and we’ll come onto them a little later, but Jedi Starfighter is still an excellent arcade romp through some superb space battles.

Notable as the only title in this list to never release on PC, Jedi Starfighter sees you play as Clone Wars-era Jedi Master Adi Gallia as she chases a Separatist-aligned merc across the galaxy. You get a variety of cool ships to fly, along with actual Force powers.

In fact, it might also be the only game where you play as a Jedi but never fire up a lightsaber. Okay, hear me out. I know, the balance and the monetisation on release was terrible, but the dogfighting, man, the dogfighting was still epic. It’s drop-dead gorgeous, the combat is fast, frenetic, and thrilling, and kudos to the team for really tuning everything up post-release.

The game is a delight to play these days. In terms of multiplayer dogfighting in the Star Wars universe, Battlefront II set a new benchmark, and absolutely laid the foundations for Squadrons itself. The most forgiving of the 80s/90s sim titles is also the best looking and most mechanically refined of that bunch, especially when you add in a few mods.

X-Wing Alliance had a great assortment of ships to pilot from your usual X-Wings, A-Wings and bombers to freighters and transport ships, and boasted a mission builder that allowed you to recreate any of your favourite moments from the Star Wars saga.

Where X-Wing and TIE Fighter had told stories from either end of the conflict, Alliance focused in on the lives of folks caught in the middle, and even managed to throw a bunch of Expanded Universe cameos in there too. Check it out today with the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade mod for some jaw dropping community renovation work too.

One of the greatest console launch games ever created, Rogue Leader took everything magnificent about its predecessor, and made them better. The graphics were unbelievable for its time, the sound design was perfect, and Denis Lawson even came onboard to record new lines as Wedge.

It’s a far cry from the at-time punishing difficulty of the early sim-focused titles, but if you want mission-based arcade Star Wars dogfighting spanning the breadth of the original film trilogy, then this is the pinnacle. One of the very best Star Wars games regardless of genre, TIE Fighter showed us a different side to the battle between the Rebels and the Empire, telling a story from the side of the baddies to great effect.

Where X-Wing captured the spirit of the OG films, TIE Fighter improved everything mechanically and forged it’s own path, even incorporating elements of Timothy Zahn’s fantastic Thrawn novels with an appearance from the Vice Admiral himself. TIE Fighter reframed everything about the struggle, positioning the Empire as trying to restore order to a lawless galaxy overrun by civil war and pirates.

Not only did it broaden the Star Wars universe, but it handled beautifully, upgrading everything X-Wing did well and building on those fantastic foundation to create a classic that still holds up today , especially if you can get our hands on the Collector’s CD-ROM.