It boggles me that there aren’t more strategy games set in the Star Wars universe. Naturally, people want to experience the thrills of piloting an X-Wing or swinging a lightsaber, but the franchise’s many warring factions seem ripe for armchair tacticians, as Empire at War proved in the mid-2000s. It’s a void Star Wars Zero Company could potentially fill, bringing some XCOM flavour to a galaxy far, far away.
Set during the Clone Wars, Zero Company sees you operating on the edges of the conflict as a rag-tag group of mercenaries drawn into taking down a cult-like group known as the Infinite Coil. After I played several hours of a preview build on PC, it feels distinctly XCOM in a lot of ways, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that Bit Reactor, the studio behind Zero Company, is led by ex-XCOM developers.
On the surface, this is classic turn-based tactical fare. Battlefields littered with cover points host opposing squads taking turns to beam each other in the head with lasers. It’s not a revolutionary concept, but it’s a well-executed one at first look.
Star Wars Zero Company isn’t just XCOM with another franchise pasted on top. Gameplay-wise, it strikes a balance between the calculated risk-taking combat of XCOM and the freeform movement of Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
This combination results in a slick-looking tactics game with plenty of strategic depth, accompanied by the audiovisual aesthetic of a Star Wars film. Sometimes, though, the grander strategy elements lack the bite promised by the high-stakes setting.
Welcome to Zero Company
Setting a game parallel to an existing story is a tightrope act of balancing consequences within established boundaries. Star Wars fans already know how the Clone Wars ended, so how can you tell an impactful story that sits on the periphery? Zero Company’s solution is to give you authorship within a grander narrative.
While XCOM set the stage for an overarching plot about a world-ending alien threat, it let you fill in the blanks with blank slate characters. Half the appeal was naming squadmates after your friends and creating organic stories about their wartime heroics or tragic deaths. Characters didn’t have much of a life of their own; it was like playing make-believe with Barbie dolls, except the Barbie dolls were battle-hardened soldiers ready for war.
By comparison, Star Wars Zero Company meets you halfway, providing you with a mix of fully realised characters and fresh canvases waiting for your narrative paintbrush. Hawks, whose space boots you inhabit, leads Zero Company, a rag-tag group of mercenaries operating beyond the bounds of the Republic or Separatist factions. Although Hawks has a clearly defined role, you can transform them into whoever you want, with a wide range of customisation options, including gender and species.
Along the way, Hawks recruits various pre-defined characters, replete with backstories and story quests to complete. Decisions you make, including who you take on missions and what you choose at pivotal story moments, impact your bonds, thereby increasing characters’ combat proficiency.
It doesn’t matter that these characters aren’t Jedi Masters. Their stories haven’t been finished yet, which is where you step in. In addition to the pre-existing characters, you can also recruit fully customisable characters to round out your crew.
They all congregate at the Den, your base of operations, where you upgrade abilities, acquire new combat items, and plan your next moves. It’s a nice change of pace from the stress of battle, and an opportunity to learn more about your teammates. But most of my time during the preview was spent with a weapon in hand.
It doesn’t matter who shot first
The best stories to come out of tactics games emerge naturally. You’ll always remember the one unit who held off enemy reinforcements while everyone else dropped like flies. You’ll mourn the loss of the teammate who survived right up until the final hurdle. These are the narrative beats that stay with you.
Star Wars Zero Company promises many of those moments on and off the battlefield. In combat, there’s enough variation between different types of soldiers and weapons to justify spending time with each character, which, in turn, unlocks upgrades to their abilities.
On your turn, it’s up to you who moves first. Each unit has three action points, spent on a combination of moving, attacking, or various battle-turning abilities. Because you can use these points and swap between units in any sequence, every encounter encourages creative solutions to dealing with thugs and droids.
Depending on who you bring on any given mission, different synergies present themselves along the way. Close combat specialists can punch an enemy out of cover and into other foes, causing them both damage. Then, a long-ranged unit can finish them off with some well-placed blaster fire. Just remember, a 90 per cent chance to hit is not a guarantee of success.
Every mission I played during the preview adhered to familiar formats, like escorting VIPs, sabotaging enemy structures, and clearing a map of foes. While the different mission types required a bit of flexibility in terms of approach, most of the variety came from the satisfying interplay between Zero Company’s diverse crew.
‘Assault’ units thrive on the frontlines, while ‘Medics’ patch up squadmates in strife, and ‘Heavies’ absorb plenty of hits. Who you take into battle is important, but the way you use them matters the most. I got a real kick out of wheeling an astromech droid into the arena. They can’t engage in combat directly, but can give teammates more action points, and can hold more combat items. Once you see an astromech exploding a crew of enemies with a grenade, you’ll never go back.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes
Permadeath, where killed characters are gone for good, is simultaneously a hallmark of the tactics genre and considered a deterrent for newcomers. Star Wars Zero Company offers permadeath as a toggleable option, but it’s best to leave it on for the truest experience.
Rather than the one-and-done approach of XCOM, Zero Company employs a three-strikes-and-you’re-out approach to permadeath. Once a character’s health hits zero, they acquire an injury. Another character can revive them to resume combat, but copping three injuries means they’re down for the count.
For Hawks, and any character tied to a mission’s objectives, dying is an instant game over. Beyond this, all other deaths are irreversible — unless you’re a save-scumming scoundrel. There’s always a lingering sense of tension that any miscue could wipe out a character you’ve grown attached to, especially as the injuries build up.
But the three-injury system adds a bit of leniency — perhaps too much — in an attempt to make the tactics genre less daunting for a mass audience. Further undercutting Zero Company’s permadeath is the medbay at the Den. Any injured characters can be prescribed bed rest or a bacta tank to reset their injury count to zero.
This limits the stress and depth of personnel management between battles. In combat, a wounded soldier is cause for alarm, forcing you to strategise accordingly, lest they end up on the memorial wall. As soon as the fighting stops, though, it doesn’t matter how banged-up they are; a trip to the medbay will see them right as rain as if nothing happened.
On the bright side, Zero Company’s approach to permadeath encourages more aggressive tactics. Risk-taking is essential to victory, with melee opponents able to flush you out of cover, while a literal factory line of battle droids can quickly overwhelm you if not taken care of quickly.
I’ve seen enough of Star Wars Zero Company to know that I want to dive deeper into its tactical combat when it launches into hyperdrive on 27 August. Like XCOM, there’s plenty of room for organic storytelling. But it’s the scope for creative combat combinations that I’m most keen to explore.
Star Wars Zero Company was previewed on PC using a code provided by the publisher.
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