Star Wars may have its darker moments, but the franchise is more known for its dramatic lightsaber duels and epic space battles than gritty-ground level combat. Even the massive ground battles of Star Wars: Battlefront tend to be a relatively clean and bloodless affair.
However, a recent mod for the tactical FPS Squad attempts to change this. The game’s Galactic Contention mod transforms the modern military shooter into a darker and grittier version of Star Wars: Battlefront.
YouTuber WARFVRE posted two videos of the mod, showcasing first-person combat from the perspective of a Star Wars prequel-era Clone Trooper and a Gungan warrior. The Star Wars: Battlefront-inspired mod boasts 15 maps, 15 factions, 25 types of vehicles, and over 150 unit types. Players can download it from the Steam workshop and then jump into massive 50 vs. 50 Star Wars battles. The main shortcoming seems to be the hefty 30GB download, which is more than half the size of the vanilla game.
While Galactic Contention may lack some of the finer bits of polish, it’s still impressive looking and highly detailed. The transition from a third-person perspective to a first-person perspective also makes for a more intimate and immersive experience. If nothing else, it certainly ratchets up the tension and lets players really get into the headspace of the low-level foot soldiers filling out the background of Star Wars’ many large battles. Cade Onder from the website ComicBook compared Galactic Contention to the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which offered a closer look at the grittier side of the Star Wars universe. This mod comes the closest to transferring that atmosphere to something resembling Star Wars: Battlefront.
For those who haven’t heard of it, Squad is a 2020 tactical first-person shooter developed by Offworld Industries. The game lets players choose between 7 factions, including various modern militaries and insurgent groups. Each faction has a unique arsenal of weapons, vehicles, and other equipment, and the game emphasizes tactics and coordination within large groups of players. Squad currently goes for $50 on Steam and enjoys “Very Positive” user reviews on that platform.
The Galactic Contention mod is similarly well-received, with a 5-star rating on the Steam Workshop. Though perhaps not impossible, it seems unlikely that the next Star Wars: Battlefront game will resemble this mod. However, Electronic Arts doesn’t have exclusive rights to publish Star Wars games anymore. This could open the possibility of more experimental games in the future, and Squad’sGalactic Contention mod provides an interesting proof of concept.
Squad is available on PC.