There have been plenty of Star Wars games over the years, but surprisingly few have attempted to combine the galaxy far, far away with the kind of deliberate, squad-based turn-based tactics that XCOM made its own. Star Wars Zero Company is therefore an immediately intriguing proposition, and Bit Reactor has approached that combination in exactly the right way. This isn’t simply an XCOM-like game that has been given blasters, Jedi and familiar alien species to make it feel like Star Wars. The setting, its characters and the tactical systems all feed into one another, resulting in a game that feels like a natural fit for the license while also giving the genre a few ideas of its own. It is an impressive debut for Bit Reactor, although some technical rough edges prevent it from feeling quite as polished as its best ideas deserve.
Set towards the end of the Clone Wars, Zero Company puts players in control of Hawks, a former Republic officer who can be extensively customized before taking command of a mercenary outfit struggling with both its past and its finances. When the group becomes involved with the mysterious Infinite Coil and its increasingly dangerous activities, the story gradually develops into something larger than the initially rather personal concerns of a crew simply trying to survive and pay its debts. We liked that the narrative doesn’t try to compete with the major events already associated with this period of Star Wars history. Instead, it finds room at the edges of the conflict for a darker and more grounded story, with a cast of characters whose different backgrounds and loyalties regularly create friction as well as camaraderie. The writing gives Zero Company a strong sense of identity, and the combination of personal storylines, familiar faces and a threat that doesn’t simply fall back on another conventional Sith villain makes the campaign consistently engaging.
Much of that character work takes place aboard the Den, the crew’s mobile base and the hub from which the wider campaign is managed. Between missions there are weapons to modify, operatives to recruit and develop, relationships to strengthen and facilities to improve, and the sheer number of systems can initially make Zero Company feel a little overwhelming. Once everything starts falling into place, however, the different management layers work together well. Time progresses in cycles and there is never enough time to respond to every mission, operation or developing crisis, meaning that ignoring one problem can have consequences elsewhere. That creates a welcome sense of pressure without forcing the entire experience into a constant race against the clock. Decisions matter, and the fact that the game regularly makes players choose what not to do is one of the more effective ways in which its strategic layer creates tension.
The Den is also where the game’s strongest RPG-like qualities emerge. The core cast gradually develops relationships through conversations and shared experiences, while recruitable operatives can be customized extensively enough that they start feeling like part of your own version of Zero Company rather than interchangeable cannon fodder. Different species, appearances, loadouts, specializations and abilities offer considerable freedom, while fighting alongside the same companions can unlock useful synergies. That makes the threat of losing characters considerably more meaningful, particularly with permadeath enabled. The system is flexible enough to be approachable on lower difficulties, but the higher settings and Beskar mode provide a much harsher experience for players who want their decisions to carry permanent consequences. The only downside to all of this flexibility is that it can slightly undermine replayability, since many builds can be reworked without major penalties and the central story itself remains relatively linear.
On the battlefield, though, Zero Company is at its strongest. The XCOM influence is impossible to miss, with four-person squads, cover, action points and careful positioning all playing major roles, but Bit Reactor has made combat more fluid and aggressive than simply copying that formula. Operatives can spend their actions in flexible ways, switching between squad members in the middle of a plan to set up coordinated attacks, while the shared Advantage system rewards successful play by unlocking powerful abilities without necessarily demanding additional action points. This encourages a more proactive style of tactics, whether that means forcing enemies out of cover, setting up reaction fire, exploiting height differences or combining abilities for a particularly destructive turn. Jedi, Mandalorians, astromechs and more conventional specialists also play very differently, and experimenting with squad compositions is consistently satisfying.
Mission design helps keep those systems interesting for a long time as well. Objectives aren’t always about eliminating every enemy, with scenarios asking the squad to secure or sabotage objectives, steal items or reach extraction points under pressure. Environmental hazards, partially destructible cover and verticality further encourage adaptation, although some repetition starts to creep in later in the campaign as enemy encounters and level structures become more familiar. Enemy variety also appears to be somewhat limited outside of the game’s main combat archetypes, so the tactical depth comes more from squad management and positioning than from a constantly evolving bestiary. We were less enthusiastic about the occasional third-person exploration sections, too. They add atmosphere and visual context, but their interaction is often limited and they can feel like interruptions between the parts of the game that are considerably more interesting.
The controls are generally well suited to the turn-based pace, because the game gives players time to assess the battlefield rather than demanding rapid inputs. The amount of information and available options can take some getting used to, especially once the more advanced squad synergies and abilities become available, but that complexity becomes rewarding rather than cumbersome once the systems click. Camera behavior is unfortunately a more significant problem, as dynamic combat angles can occasionally obscure the action. Some abilities can also behave inconsistently and enemy turns can take longer than they should. These issues don’t undermine the fundamentals of the tactical design, but they are particularly frustrating in a genre where clear information and reliable execution are essential.
Visually, Zero Company does a very good job of selling the scale and atmosphere of its Star Wars setting. The different environments have a strong sense of place, while lighting, particle effects, explosions and detailed character models help combat feel suitably cinematic. There is also plenty of variety in the locations visited throughout the campaign, even if the mission structures themselves don’t always maintain that same sense of novelty. Audio is another strong point, particularly the orchestral score and familiar science-fiction soundscape of blasters, explosions, machinery and droids.
Star Wars Zero Company ultimately succeeds because Bit Reactor understands that both halves of its premise need to be equally convincing. The Star Wars elements aren’t superficial decoration, and the tactical mechanics aren’t just there to support the license. Instead, the game’s squad relationships, character progression, strategic decisions and aggressive combat all reinforce its central theme of a disparate group learning to function as a team. There are clear technical shortcomings, some exploration sections that don’t add enough and a campaign structure that offers less reason to replay the story than its customization systems initially suggest, but the strengths comfortably outweigh those issues. For Star Wars fans who have always wondered what the franchise could do with a proper XCOM-style tactical game, Zero Company provides a very convincing answer – and for turn-based strategy fans, it offers enough of its own personality to avoid feeling like a simple reskin of something that came before.
Score: 8.6/10