Star Wars Zero Company Review

Growing up Star Wars was a staple in my household. Plastic lightsabers, VHS and DVDs, books and comics featuring the galaxy far far away litter my room even to this day. Something about this universe felt like it could be anything; its world was so profoundly mysterious that the potential for storytelling felt nearly infinite. Then I played Jedi Academy and realized that video games were the prime place to tell those stories. Fast forward 20 years and we have every kind of Star Wars game you can imagine. What has always astounded me is the ability of this franchise to morph the DNA of a genre to create something that feels wholly original. So, it makes sense that the crosspoint of the devs behind XCOM 2 and Respawn’s Jedi series would create something so easily identifiable and yet completely unique. Much like its name’s sake band of heroes for hire, Star Wars Zero Company is an accumulation of the strengths of each team now coming together through BitReactor to deliver one of the best Star Wars games to date. Zero Company effortlessly navigates daunting subjects like PTSD, generational trauma and the horrors of fanaticism, wrapping these topics in a slick tactics game, with excellent visuals and wonderful attention to detail. Perhaps more so that recent titles like Outlaws, Zero Company’s writing shines above all else, providing believable characters and great moment to moment story telling told with the need grandeur for a space opera about a rag-tag band of mercenaries trying to find purpose in a universe at war. As a longtime fan of turn-based tactics games, Zero Company’s more assertive playstyle felt like coming home, while it’s refreshingly robust cast of characters proved that this is more than just another clone of what’s come before.

Zero Company wastes no time at all dropping you into the familiar fray of the Republic and Separatist, showcasing the many fronts of the galaxy spanning war and finally landing us within the smaller conflict that is the focus of the game. For me this instantly perked my ears up because my favorite Star Wars tales are the ones told in fringes of its blustering conflicts. With a war to win and credits to be had, we are quickly introduced to Hawks, a former military commander who went independent after a tragic loss on the battlefield. Hawks is the perfect combination of space yeehaw and Han Solo, his charming voice is easy and cool under pressure. Which is good because his steady handed, seat of his pants leadership is going to be vital as the first mission the Republic recruits him for places him face to face with a violent Separatist adjacent cult; The Infinite Coil. A sort of super-powered cult led by creepy and mysterious Fathom, who believes in very holistic medicine like letting a brain-melding plague enter your body via a super fun looking bug bite. I’m sure if you are a casual fan of Star Wars, this sort of villain feels like they came out of left field, but the more engaged with the franchise you are the better this story will hit. As far as Star Wars bad guys go The Infinite Coil is a nice change of pace from the typical red saber wielding baddies we normally face. The Coil have a cool power set that feels reminiscent of the dark side but with a cool psionic flair. Fathom herself is the most enjoyable a villain has been allowed to be since Moff Gideon. Her mysterious origins and nature make her an enigma to overall galaxy, her motivations feel well thought out. The strongest part of her character is the ways she influences characters like Hawks and her own son through control and domination, which helped prevent her from landing as a one note flat villain. This opening fight sets up the real conflict, stopping a power-hungry plague spreading menace from giving the Separatist armies a new weapon to win the war with. This is surface level but to say any more would spoil what is truly a fantastic story So I’ll leave it at that.

Zero Company’s gameplay loop is nothing new. Following in the footsteps of tactics games before it, you start each day in your hub area, The Den, where you can socialize with your crew, customize the looks of team members, build out their kits and skill trees to prepare for the next mission. This is a great place to get to know your crew, the main cast of which is extremely well written. Each crew member has independent motivations for them joining Zero Company, with complex back stories ranging from regaining their home to hell-bent revenge tales. Kabb offers a surface level lighthearted funny talking alien who loves space opera, but his story is dark, reveling in the creased flaws of the blue alien. Trick, Hawks’ closest friend and a discharged clone have perhaps one of the best story arcs in the game. Each character is animated with a solid level of human nuance, making them feel more real in conversation and even when idling in The Den. Zero Company’s writing is only enhanced by how well performed all the characters are from the southern inspired Hawks to the coy and cold Mandalorian Cly, every voice actor is giving it 100%. What really makes the team stand out against other Star Wars ensembles is the eclectic group Hawks has managed to compose. An Padawan gone on the lamb to investigate the coil, Separatist sympathizers, Luco the Umbaran sharpshooter who’s hate for the republic extends to every facet of its existence. All these different stories weave together in an unlikely found family that feels organic and earned by its plot.

Speaking of characters, Runa, your second in command played by the incomparable Vic Michaelis, joins you at the holotable in the center of The Den to plan operations. Vic’s line delivery is honestly some of the funniest in the whole game, and her background as a former Separatist makes her a solid foil for Hawks loyalties. Runa is your go-to bookkeeper and helps plan and gather the intel for Operations. The holotable provides a map of the galactic war where you’ll need to use limited intel points to pick which choose your own text adventure to send your teams on. Doing this will give you credits, boost your companions’ bonds or give you new equipment to use in combat. On paper this is a fun way to break up the battle scenarios, but man does it feel like firing shots in the dark a lot of the time. You get really no info on what squad members are best suited to what operations meaning sometimes you send a competent crew out on what felt like a slam dunk outing only to have two severely injured party members return. I wish these were a little more interactive and detailed so that the choices felt less arbitrary. The best of these are Delima missions, where your choice directly affects Hawks’ bond with the whole crew. These morally gray choices are designed so you can’t make everyone happy, which means making some very tough decisions. Sadly, this doesn’t impact how stories progress and mostly just determines how much synergy your team has. I’d have liked to see this have more of a bearing on the team dynamics in combat, but ultimately, I still enjoyed the little asides between the fights.

Do enough of these Operations and you can hyper-space jump into a mission, taking place on a huge variety of worlds with conveniently placed boxes and waist high cover strewn everywhere. This is where the fun begins as your squad of four takes to the ground to take down coil and separatists alike. If you’ve played any of the recent XCOM games, then this UI will feel very familiar. Each team member gets a total of 3 Action Points to execute moves with. This can range from moving to new cover all the way to throwing a grenade into a crowd of droids. In practice, this means you’ll need to move from cover to cover making best use of those points to strike targets and hope the force is on your side when it comes to percentages. The basics of combat are pretty easy, line up the attack, play to your operators’ strengths, and make good use of the specializations available to each of them. Mastering the nuances of Zero Company’s more aggressive, forward pushing fights is the hard part. BitReactor set out to make something that felt different from everything else in the genre and a big part of that is Zero Company encouraging you to man handle your foes. See that droid on a ledge? Shove him off instead of whittling him down with blaster fire. Mark enemies for extra damage and then drop a concussion grenade forcing them to bounce off of nearby walls and each other. Even Tel-Rae, our resident jedi on the team, uses the force to push and pull the enemy around like a ragdoll at play time. My favorite tool in the grab bag arsenal of Zero Company is the overwatch stance. Every character has access to it and can expend all remaining AP to cover a certain area with their blaster. If an enemy moves through their cone, they are most likely getting lasered in the face sometimes even forcing them to lose their turn. Calling this turn based is maybe a little misleading, as unlike traditional turn-based games, there is isn’t a factor to determine who moves first. Instead, you can move any of your characters in any order you like during your turn. Which makes setting up traps and assisted take downs much more appealing. You’ll also gain advantage throughout skirmishes which unlock additional skills like rocket launchers, a sick electric dart with a remote trigger, and the best attack in the game; the lightsaber throw. Working as a team to carefully execute maneuvers and spending the advantage at the right time felt extremely rewarding. Zero Company rewards innovative strategies and the ease of chaining actions together further nails that home.

I think the reason this game works so well for me is that it trusts the processes the devs created to resonate with the gamer. Watching your operators grow from recruited nobodies that miss every available shot into battle forged warriors capable of bulls eyeing a Wamp rat from across a factory is something special. The excellent combat system is accented by the incredibly consistent level design and mission layout. Despite the levels being relatively small, barring a few special missions, I never felt cramped or like I was being funneled down one specific pathway. The main story missions have these incredible moments like the arrival of Anakin Skywalker resulting in a massive showdown with a droid gunner ship blowing up portions of the map every turn. Those missions are usually teed up with a third person approach that while pretty limited does make the transition from storytelling cinematic to combat feel much smoother. These linear areas are deeply detailed and yet still feel a little shallow as there just isn’t much to do in them. I wish we could explore more of them with the crew, but this didn’t take anything away from my experience in the game.

What DID take me away was the wide variety of minorly annoying bugs and graphical hitches I ran into. I played performance mode on PS5 because quality mode simply caused too many issues for me. The game would stutter between transitions, and characters would slide along the ground without cause. I had multiple times where I had to wait upwards of 3 minutes for a simple input to go through. None of these are game breaking, but it did hinder my initial experience going in.

Star Wars Zero Company isn’t just an action-packed turn-based tactic game; it is also an incredible Star Wars game. Despite the graphical glitches, everything about Zero Company is pretty wizard, from its wonderful characters that fit tonally between The Clone Wars and Andor to the incredible soundtrack that mixes motifs of the clone wars to great effect. You can feel that cinematic quality we’ve come to expect from Star Wars titles but grounded in strong characters, out-of-the-box storylines that emphasize conflicts and perspectives we just don’t get to see in this universe. The refreshing focus on teamwork and squad synergy had me feeling like I have friends everywhere. Whether you normally like the XCOM game style or this would be your first I highly recommend you join Zero Company for one of the best stories Star Wars has to offer. I give Star Wars Zero Company a 9.

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