About six hours into Star Wars Zero Company, one thing becomes immediately clear: Bit Reactor didn’t just skin XCOM in a galaxy far, far away and call it a day. By grounding the campaign in the twilight of the Clone Wars through the lens of disposable mercenaries, the game finds a gritty, personal angle on an era we’ve seen dozens of times.
The opening hours set up a tight tactical loop, but the story is already pulling real weight. We’ve just crossed a massive threshold: finally casting eyes upon the shadowy Kundri Fathom for the first time and integrating a Jedi Padawan into our motley squad.
Here is how the early hours of Zero Company are coming together.
Star Wars Zero Company
We play as Hawks, a disgraced former Republic captain haunted by a catastrophic failure that got their troopers killed. Stripped of rank and operating in the galactic underbelly, Hawks leads Zero Company. A ragtag outfit of ex-clones, bounty hunters, and oddball mercenaries taking on off-the-books contracts.
Unlike the Grand Army of the Republic, you aren’t backed by unlimited senate credits or a fleet of Star Destroyers. You’re operating out of The Den, a central hub where you manage gear, resolve squad friction, and launch covert operations.
What makes the conceit sing is how the game treats its squad members. Between missions, you walk around the base in third-person, listening to your crew bicker or air out their grievances. A approval/bond system tracks how squad members build synergy together on the battlefield, unlocking tactical perks, but also forcing you to navigate the delicate ego balancing act of running a mercenary crew.
Built by ex-Firaxis team members, you can feel their finger prints all over it. Star Wars Zero Company often feels like a light touch on some of the Abbey moments in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Before some base management like Xcom (to a lighter degree). The Zero Company interactions feel akin to Mass Effect, too. Having already done some side-missions for squad members to build our bond.
Star Wars Zero Company hits the ground running with charm and personality. Which is no mean feat.
Getting started
Star Wars Zero Company does a great job of bringing you into things, too. With surprisingly deep customisation, you can make Hawks your own and you can even re-clothe and re-colour clothing of all of your squad mates as you go.
Once you’ve settled into the story setup and you’ve made Hawks your Hawks. You’re straight into the action and the opening missions are perfect for helping you get to grips with the moment-to-moment gameplay.
Each squad member has action points to spend, and you manage them all. Moving folk between cover and vantage points. Taking shots, charging for melee attacks, working together with a squad mate for backup. Star War Zero Company is firing on all cylinders from the get go. Think Xcom, or maybe Mario vs Rabbids, and you have the idea. Turn-based, tactical, top-down action.
Aesthetic
It looks and sounds like a game set in the Star Wars universe. Iconic blaster rifle models and sounds. The world building done by decades of movies and TV shows, shines through here.
You feel legitimately embedded inside the wider-world, and being a part of the story from a different perspective, only (so far) touching upon central themes and factions. You’re living in it, unattached to the stories told elsewhere in the canon. Star Wars Zero Company feels incredibly Star Wars and yet it feels unique and unrestricted by the massive stories told in film, TV and other media. It’s awesome.
The voice acting is excellent, too. You feel for the squad, you want to be friends with them, and Hawks is mostly likeable. Voicing some of the randomly generated squad members is a lovely touch, too. Sure, they aren’t critical to the core story, but they feel as much a part of the situation as anyone else.
So far, so good
It’s early doors, but so far, Star Wars Zero Company is not only scratching our Xcom itch, but also our Mass Effect/Marvel’s Midnight Suns itch. There have been a few bugs, and it looks like post-release, there are some internal studio issues that might impact patching/future development, which is a real shame. But there’s been nothing to hamper the experience, really.
In fact my first 4 hours were exclusively on the Steam Deck and whilst it had some frame rate issues and obviously had graphical downgrades but it’s more than serviceable out of the box, which is great news.
All being well, Bitreactor will get sorted out and we’ll see some performance updates etc. But even if we don’t, Star Wars Zero Company is in a great place from launch. Let’s not discount just how rare that is these days, too.
