I’ve been keeping a close eye on Star Wars: Zero Company ever since it was first revealed. As someone who loves both the Star Wars universe and tactical strategy games like XCOM, the idea of combining the two immediately sounded like an almost perfect pairing. Now, after recently getting the chance to go hands-on with the game and spend a considerable amount of time playing it, I can safely say that Zero Company is shaping up to be exactly the kind of Star Wars game I’ve been hoping for.
I came away from my time with it seriously impressed, but perhaps more importantly, I finished my hands-on session wanting to play a whole lot more.
That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise when you look at the talent behind it. Star Wars: Zero Company is being led by veteran Game Director Greg Foertsch, whose experience with the XCOM series makes him feel like an almost tailor made fit for a game that is attempting to bring turn-based tactical combat into a galaxy far, far away.
And from what I’ve played, the combination works remarkably well.
Zero Company is set during the Clone Wars Era, but rather than simply retreading familiar stories and characters from the era, it aims to explore parts of the timeline that haven’t received quite as much attention.
You play as Hawks, the leader of Zero Company. Once a captain in the Republic’s Grand Army, Hawks has fallen from grace following a disastrous mission that ended terribly. Now, rather than serving alongside the Republic’s conventional forces, he has assembled his own band of misfits and mercenaries. Their mission is to take down Kundri Fathom, the leader of Infinite Coil, a dangerous Separatist cult.
Hawks also serves as your avatar throughout the adventure, and there’s a surprising amount of freedom in deciding exactly who that character is. You can choose between a male or female Hawks and select from a variety of Star Wars species, including Humans, Twi’leks, Zabraks, Devaronians and more. From there, you can tweak physical appearance, clothing and accessories to create a character that feels like your own.
That emphasis on customisation extends far beyond Hawks, too.
One of the things I enjoyed most during my time with Zero Company was constructing the team itself. This isn’t simply a case of picking the most powerful characters and sending them into battle. You’re assembling a group of very different individuals, each with their own abilities, backgrounds and reasons for being part of Zero Company.
The roster includes ex-Separatists, characters driven by revenge, former criminals and plenty of other outsiders who don’t necessarily fit neatly into the Republic’s traditional military structure.
There are a number of core characters you’ll meet and get to know throughout the campaign, referred to as Author characters. These are the personalities who help drive the narrative and give Zero Company much of its character. But you can also recruit Custom Operators to fill specific gaps within your squad. Need another gunner? You can recruit one. Looking for a Rogue to complement your existing team? You’ve got options.
These Custom Operators don’t necessarily arrive with elaborate backstories in the same way the Author characters do, but they’re still valuable additions to your roster and give you the freedom to construct the kind of squad you actually want to play with.
And I really liked just how far that customisation goes. You can change appearances, armour, clothing and accessories, allowing you to create a team that can look wildly different from another player’s. Even the species available to you add another layer of personality. You can have Clone Troopers fighting alongside Twi’leks, Droids, Astromechs, Tognaths and a huge range of other familiar Star Wars races.
It’s a wonderfully diverse roster, and being able to build a squad that looks and plays exactly how I want is something I’m already looking forward to experimenting with much more.
Of course, appearances are only part of it. Each Operator has their own specialisation, with unique perks and abilities that influence how they perform in battle. Weapons, utilities and other modifications further expand these options, meaning constructing your team is as much about finding the right combination of abilities as it is creating a squad that looks cool.
The team behind Zero Company has talked about “meaningful choices” as one of its core design pillars, and that philosophy appears to run through almost every aspect of the game.
The decisions you make, the jobs you take, the way you choose to fight and even the crew members you decide to bring along can influence your experience. That has the potential to make each player’s journey through Zero Company feel quite different.
It also gives the game some serious replayability potential. Changing your squad composition, choosing different Operators or approaching situations differently could fundamentally alter how you experience the campaign. I’m particularly interested in seeing how far those choices actually reach once the full game opens up.
There’s also clearly a lot of passion for the wider Star Wars universe behind the project. From the characters and locations to the little audiovisual details, the team seems intent on making this feel like a genuine Star Wars story rather than simply a tactical game wearing a Star Wars skin.
The bulk of Zero Company is built around its turn-based tactical combat. These are ground-based encounters where you control your squad, move them around the environment, utilise their abilities and weapons, and work towards completing a variety of objectives.
As far as I’ve seen, there aren’t any ship-to-ship dogfights here. Instead, the focus is firmly on the boots-on-the-ground tactical experience. What makes the combat particularly interesting is how much your squad composition can change the way an encounter plays out. Your Operators, their specialisations, weapons, utilities and modifications all factor into how you approach a situation.
The missions themselves also aren’t simply variations of “eliminate all enemies.”
During my time with the game, I encountered different mission types and objectives, including rescue operations, elite target takedowns and sabotage missions. Having these different objectives should hopefully prevent the tactical gameplay from becoming repetitive across the length of the campaign. So far, I’ve had a great time with the combat. It feels strategic and challenging, but there’s also a strong cinematic quality to almost everything you do.
That’s something I wasn’t quite expecting. Zero Company is a surprisingly cinematic experience.
Obviously, the cutscenes have that unmistakable Star Wars flavour, but it extends into the moment-to-moment gameplay as well. Attacks, abilities, explosions, camera angles and character animations all work together to make your battles feel like scenes from a Star Wars film rather than simply pieces moving around a tactical grid.
Then there are all the smaller touches. The banter between characters. The music. The sound effects. The sound design. Even the screen-wipe transitions. Put all of these elements together and Zero Company feels indisputably like Star Wars.
It’s gritty, cinematic, challenging and, most importantly, fun. But that authenticity is what stood out to me the most. The developers clearly understand what makes the universe special and have managed to translate those elements into a genre that naturally lends itself to the setting.
The different planets and locations also add plenty of variety. Moving between different environments doesn’t just provide a change of scenery, but also gives the tactical gameplay a different backdrop to work with. After what I’ve played, I’m excited to see what other locations the full game has in store.
Despite spending a considerable amount of time with Star Wars: Zero Company, I came away feeling like I’d only scratched the surface of what the game has to offer. There are so many different variables at play. The choices you make throughout the story, the characters you recruit, the Operators you develop, their specialisations, weapons and equipment, and the squad combinations you take into battle all have the potential to dramatically change your experience.
That’s exactly what I want from a tactical strategy game. More importantly, I think it’s exactly what Star Wars is suited to.
After my hands-on time with Zero Company, my excitement has only increased. The combination of the Clone Wars setting, a new cast of characters, extensive customisation and deep turn-based tactics already feels like a winning formula.
I went into my hands-on session hoping Star Wars: Zero Company would live up to the promise of its reveal. I came away wanting to play a whole lot more.
Star Wars: Zero Company launches on August 27th for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
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