Star Wars: Squadrons - “Hunted” CG Short 

Seeing a rebel pilot being treated as a villain was chilling. His visor hiding his eyes was a really cool visual touch.

Rebel pilot: the war’s over, imp Tie pilot: Call an ambulance...But not for me!

I loved getting to voice Varko Grey, and bring a different perspective to the Imperial side. I remember watching this for the very first time the day this short dropped... I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and that I got to be a part of the Star Wars universe. Hope folks enjoyed playing Star Wars: Squadrons, and a special welcome to my new Imperial pilots. Welcome to Titan Squadron. 😊

Everyone is talking about how good the animation was, but no one is talking about how good the soundtrack was. It was amazing.

My favorite part is when he doesn't become a rebel

Never thought I'd see the day when the empire gets treated a bit more seriously.

Wait, the Empire is just...people? Always has been.

Would watch a movie centered around a TIE fighter pilot.

The imperials having more personality and the fact that you want the "bad guy" to live seems like the game is going to have a good story

This trailer showed more imperial perspective than all of battlefront 2’s campaign

5:20 Finally, a TIE Pilot who takes advantage of his fighter’s Insane maneuverability…

When Gray pulled that hard turn creating the wall o' water and the Imperial theme started...I LOVED IT!!!! Such a masterful use of music in addition to an amazing scene and bit of storytelling.

Rebel: “The wars over imp” Tie pilot: “I’m going to do what’s called a pro gamer move”

10 minutes later: 795 things you missed in the new trailer

I can’t imagine being left behind like that it would be so scary

There’s 2 things I like about this. First, they chose to show this in the perspective of the empire pilot instead of the rebel’s. The rebels were always portrayed as the good guys and the empire were always shown as the bad guys. However, this time, the gave the “bad guy” a face so that we can see the fear and desperation in his eyes and sympathize with him whereas the “good guy” had his eyes covered by the visor and remained stoic the whole time. At the end of the day, both are pilots fighting for what they believe in. The second thing I like is that they chose to show a tie interceptor instead of just an ordinary tie fighter. Tie interceptor pilots are generally more skilled than your typical tie fighter pilots.

I like that they make it hard to see the Rebel pilot's eyes because he's the "bad guy," like in the original trilogy when you never see the TIE pilots' faces to hide their humanity.

Finally a loyal imperial that fights on even when the odds are against him

Having played the game now for a fair while I'm impressed as to how close this cinematic is to the game. It's all there: the Energy distribution, energy dumps to required system, boost, drift turns, counter measures, weapons recharge, etc. I remember the Elite: dangerous launch trailer and then other videos dissecting it: "you can't actually do this", "this is not possible", "oh if only they had included this", etc. Having a game cinematic which actually fully embraces the game is very refreshing.

Hoping we get a series on Disney+ showing an entire Imperial cast that DOESN'T defect. Like a some troopers going into the Academy or Imperial Navy for a means of living.

As brilliant as this entire thing is, what strikes me the most are the little details. The way the Captain follows orders without any protest and abandons the attack run, it’s perfectly in character with a squadron leader. They need to enforce rigid discipline to have any chance of surviving - given the lackluster state of Imperial fighter tactics - and he probably wouldn’t want to commit any of his pilots to a run where they’ll be under fire from at least two warships the entire way. Then the captain of the Overseer (I assume that’s who she is) actually having a sensible strategy and choosing to preserve her remaining assets and retreat rather than fight against terrible odds. And when Grey (I think that’s his name?) goes to rescue the TIE bomber, it shows the kind of bond that starfighter pilots have. The Rebels and the Empire probably had very similar ideals in that regard, considering the insanity of taking cheap fighters into space and trying to destroy warships. The scene in the wreckage with Grey powering down all his systems is fantastic. There’s not a “power off” switch for every system, he has to individually deactivate everything and rely on what looks to be passive radar (since it isn’t constantly pinging). This is great, passive radar wouldn’t be picked up like active radar would on sensors, so it makes sense. Then the TIE Interceptor starts failing, and the pilot doesn’t seem immediately worried. He’s calm due to extensive training, experience, and the fact that his life support systems don’t require a fully-sealed cockpit unlike the X-Wing. The descent through atmosphere is gorgeous, especially the bow wake. And the quick transition into atmospheric dogfighting is equally stunning. It’s reminiscent of modern dogfights when they’re WVR. Shows off the maneuverability advantage of the Interceptor too, as well as the speed advantage. The water trails from the ion engines are great. They’re spiraling like trails from an actual jet engine, unlike those seen in The Force Awakens. Beautiful stuff. Finally, the way that the TIE slowly tips down when power is lost, and how it just flies to pieces upon contact with the water. And how the Captain looks like he expects to die. It’s so accurate, which is something that you rarely see from Star Wars. The TIE doesn’t just drop and start spinning, it falls forward gradually because it has to have been designed for atmosphere as well as vacuum. And without a FBW system to keep it stable, aerodynamics takes hold. As a final note, it makes me so happy to see that the writers/CG artists chose to keep both the eyes of both the TIE and X-Wing pilots covered until the end. A lot of media will try and humanize one side while demonizing the other just by showing or not showing eyes. As an easy example, having the visors of Rebel pilots in the OT be see-through while the Imperials used fully-enclosed helmets. By putting both pilots here on the same field, the viewer is left to judge them in more unbiased way. To see them both as pilots fighting for their respective sides. Edit: Rewatched it, forgot something. The Rebel pilot taunting/insulting the Imperial pilot - who stays silent - again makes total sense. The Captain is focusing only on keeping his Interceptor up and surviving, plus he’s been trained to essentially act without emotions in combat. The Rebel is a lot more...shall we say, open with his feelings. And obviously he’d despise his opponent, so the spite works perfectly

It's amazing that they managed to completely reverse the Rebel/Imperial dichotomy in a seven minute trailer like this. A desperate, underdog Empire being driving back by the victorious New Republic. An X-wing pilot coming across like a vindictive asshole chasing after a wounded foe that can't escape anyway while the TIE pilot is the hero, trying and failing to save a wingman at risk to his own life before taking on and defeating the X-wing pilot. And even if Squadrons is a complete and utter failure (which I don't think it will be) it did give us this awesome trailer. My hats off to all the people that have worked on Squadrons and this trailer.

it's so sad that ea just sorta abandoned this game after launch because it is genuinely some of the most fun I've had in a star wars game in a long while

3:50 Can we talk about how the TIE Pilot literally said, “No U” to the enemy missile? *That’s one hell of a countermeasure…*

"There have not been such great cinematic shorts like this one since the days of the Old Republic."

This is where the fun begins

Disney: "Impossible. The TIE Interceptor didn't blame the Empire for the death of the TIE Bomber pilot and instantly defect to the Rebel side."

5:21 does anybody else think that this version of the Imperial March is awesome?

This is first Disney era moment where Rebellion looks intimidating. Actually felt bad for the Empire. My beautiful Empire ;-;

Star wars media that doesn't glorify the rebels and shows a competent humanized imperial who doesn't let his men down and keeps on fighting for what he believes is right even if the odds are against him? -F*cking finally!

where girls cried: titanic where MEN cried: When the star destroyer boosted without him

I think one of the things I like most about this is how, on his radar, the imperial ships (the “bad guys") are blue and the rebel ships (the “good guys) are red. Really drives home the point that, from their own point of view, the imperials are the heroes of this story.

This was exactly the kind of hype I needed

I love how they reverse the storytelling techniques of making the Rebel the emotionless, near-faceless enemy, thereby dehumanizing him the same way those techniques dehumanized Imperials in the original trilogy. They also made the Imperials have the squadron camaraderie chatter and command tension, humanizing them in return.

Finally, imperial soldiers who are not useless and are also human, if the villain is not powerful, it diminishes any victory of the hero. That's the way it should always be.

TIE fighter sound effects are to this day one of the greatest sound effects ever made.

5:20 the imperial march with a heroic spin. Ooooooooh that’s good.

The empire: "I may be a villain in your story, but I'm a hero in mine"

1:08 “We’re not handing the enemy one more Destroyer, Captain…” **Shows destroyed Destroyer in the background** God I love this short film!

This imperial pilot’s 7 minute story was better than the entire story of the battlefront 2 campaign

That's one badass pilot. I love how we see sorrow when a fellow imperial dies. Dissapointment when he's left behind. Skill and determination to survive. Even moments where the rebel pilot seems like the antagonist. Just, lovely.

People seem to constantly forget the Empire use to be the Republic.

4:18-4:22 is my favorite shot in this entire short. I just love the handheld look of the camera in this entire dogfight. Such a badass short.

So the X Wing pilot looks menacing. That’s a new twist and I like it.

Everyone: We weren't expecting a CGI short with a compelling story that makes us empathize with a Tie Pilot in less than 7 minutes. EA: *ThAt'S tHe pOiNt SeRgEanT*

What I really like is that they make him sympathetic without being good. The Empire is evil and the Rebellion is good, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have interesting characters on both sides.

To this day, this cinematic intended as marketing for a video game is the best piece of linear Star Wars content to come out of the Disney acquisition.

Finally a actual person who doesn't change at the first sight of losing, a loyalist

Never thought I would be happy to see an X-Wing crash. Absolutely genius.

3:26 That’s pretty cool. Star Wars movies don’t usually show when aircrafts enter the planet’s atmosphere. I’m glad they added that little detail that can make a big difference in space anatomy.

When the bad guys become the good guys and the good guys become the bad. The story was truly emotional, the captain should be awarded the medal of honor for disobeying orders just to "leave no man behind" TRULY AWESOME

A CG short in collaboration with ILM? Can't wait!

I mean, why not making a film with this kind of storyline? I’d 100% watch it

"The war is over IMP" this gives you goosebumps.

So that's why the player's designation in game is Titan-3. The previous Titan-3 died here. Made you wonder if that X-wing pilot was Vanguard-5 or not.

Wow this CGI Short really makes you feel for the Imperial Pilots. An extremely fulfilling watch! Bravo! 👏

That was amazing. I'd love to watch an entire series with this graphics

We NEED another game like this. The singleplayer campaign of Squadrons was amazing.

The X wing prowling around gave me chills

4:41 “...We lost something.” “Not to worry; we’re still flying half a ship”

“The wars over IMP” *dies*

I love how EA can make good cinematic trailer but can't make a game live for at least 5 years

0:37 If you look at Grey’s control panel, you can see that he pours most of his power into speed rather than offense. This is probably because he knows that his Interceptor has a better chance of surviving if it keeps moving…

“Wars over. Imp.” “I’m gonna do what’s called a pro gamer move.”

FINALLY. A GENUINE IMPERIAL LOYALIST THAT DOESN'T TURN TO THE DAMNED REBELLION!

Now THIS is Star Wars. Whoever made this should have been given the honour of making Star Wars saga sequels. So many feels, a proper story and context. Very impressive visual quality and soundtrack as well. Imperials were the good guys all along!

Coming back to this trailer makes me realize how many features in the game they revealed to us. Stuff like being able to shoot missiles out of the sky, drifting, and the HUD. Man this game had so much potential

"Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story." - John Barth

THIS IS HOW BF2 STORY SHOULDVE BEEN NOT JUST TURNING INTO A REBEL AFTER 10 MINS

Here 7 months later. Still love this game to death. Wish it had gotten more support. Hopefully we get a sequel

Long live the Empire

I'm actually surprised that they showed more human face of the Empire.

Anybody else get chills when they hear a orchestrally triumphant Imperial March when a Imp beats the odds? Nothing like it am I right?

2:31 I love how that X-Wing is searching menacingly through the wreckage, even though the rebels are the good ones

This short is one of the best shorts ever made. The game mechanics are portrayed in a superb manner while also everything feels really authentic to the IP. Usually these CG shorts are made to incentivize pre-orders and sales, I feel like so many people were sold after seeing "Hunted", every creative involved deserves a raise. :D

*Electronic Arts* "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time..."

This is EXACTLY what Battlefront 2's campaign should've been! Update: HOLY CRAP! How'd this explode so quickly!? Thanks, guys! 😄

Those dope-ass Old Republic trailers: *My true successor*

This is perhaps the best Star Wars cinematic I’ve ever seen. If not, perhaps on par with the best of the Old Republic ones.

5:20 I just love how the Imperial March theme gets an uplifting tone for once instead of the typical Star Wars heroic theme in the scene where the X-Wing crashed to that rock. It's as if the Empire is saying "I'm not gonna die here, Rebel scum!"

I thought Grey was cool especially with his backstory of being a police officer from Parkella. Knowing that he was working in a bribed force where bad guys could always pay their way out he couldn’t truly pin any criminal with crimes they commit. Joining the Empire allowed him to rightfully deliver justice when his local force wouldn’t. It’s very refreshing to see a positive perspective of the Empire. I’d love to see more. (That scene in Kenobi part 3 with the stormtrooper squad and Freck was so wholesome!)

I love how this shows just how skilled some Imperial pilots can be. Also, you’ve gotta admire their loyalty and dedication, even if we know it’s misplaced.

Imperial japanese navy pilot and u.s navy pilot engage in dogfight over japanese dockyards circa 1945 colorized.

Why didn’t they do shit like this... in the MOVIES.

LONG LIVE THE EMPIRE

I like the fact the Imperials aren't displayed as ruthless vilains anymore. They still have their share of bad people in the game. However, both sides (Rebs and Imps) are displayed in grey-in-grey instead in light-and-dark. Which makes it easier to sympathize with the Imps and root for the Rebs at the same time. Overall the trailer is very cool. The game itself feels like a worthy successor to ol X-Wing / Tie-Fighter games two decades ago. Still wish for a mission editor 'though.

*EA prematurely ends support for Battlefront 2* Me: “War’s not over. Not for me.” tbh tho that trailer was fire and I am SO looking forward to Squadrons! Please give it post-launch support and more eras!

I've never rooted for an imperial so much.

The Tie bomber that gets shot down had the call sign Titan-3. That’s the player’s call sign in the campaign. Nice little touch

Still one of the greatest Star Wars cinematics I have ever seen. The visuals, music, and script shows Star Wars as an actual war with wins, loses, and struggles for both sides. It's fantastic, the team that made this deserve an applause.

Bad Guys finally having an heroic theme and action in Star Wars is absolute GOAT, it’s just too good at 5:22 !

This is literally the first time I felt bad when a TIE pilot died and the first time I felt happy over an X-wing pilot's death

2 minutes til this game is playable... CAN. NOT. WAIT.

No wonder Luke and Han wanted to become Ace Imperial Pilots, that guy is bad ass.

Imperial Pilot: Oh! Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance! *BUT NOT FOR ME!*

We all knew that Tie Bomber was never going to survive to the end.

I loved the part when the imperial march came in at 5:20.

If Tie Defender , Tie-striker and B-wing are added, the game is perfect

3:52 Nice to finally see that starfighters have countermeasures against incoming missiles.

we need more cinematics like this across everything in star wars lmao