Your Ultimate Guide to Star Wars Zero Company

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Bit Reactor’s long-awaited tactical Star Wars game, Zero Company, was officially unveiled last year, but many details about this Clone Wars-era black ops narrative remained under wraps—until now.

I spent about 4.5 hours playing Zero Company and had several discussions with the development team. In this piece, I’ll focus on the core elements: the story, gameplay mechanics, and what you can expect during your gaming sessions.

Star Wars Zero Company is set to launch in 2026, though a specific release date hasn’t been announced yet.

When I played it in February, it seemed ready for a release this year, but we still lack concrete details.

Zero Company can be described as “Star Wars XCOM,” but it offers much more. While its combat mechanics build on the XCOM formula, the presentation feels reminiscent of titles like Jedi: Fallen Order or Mass Effect. You command a mercenary group made up of former Separatist and Republic operatives during the Clone Wars, tasked with investigating a new Dark Side faction for the Republic.

The combat is akin to XCOM, similar to how Dragon Age: Origins evolved from Neverwinter Nights or Knights of the Old Republic: familiar yet significantly refined. A standout feature is the ability to roam around your home base and between mission locations in full third-person control.

This seamless integration creates an immersive experience that blurs the lines between tactical squad gameplay and a full-fledged RPG. Selecting missions from the galaxy map, returning home, interacting with your crew, and upgrading your gear felt reminiscent of the rhythm found in Mass Effect 2, despite the combat being quite different.

In Zero Company, you create a custom protagonist named Hawks, who is also a key character in story missions. Hawks is a disgraced Republic officer navigating a war-torn galaxy, accompanied by their clone war buddy, Trick. The mercenary group operates like the Star Wars A-Team, taking on covert missions for the highest bidder while maintaining a moral compass. The narrative introduces several unique squadmates that echo the feel of BioWare companions, including:

There are also various support characters tied to the story who stay at your home base, known as the Den. All story squadmates are subject to permadeath rules, similar to custom mercenary operatives, ensuring a balanced playing field. However, story characters possess unique abilities that persist even if respecced: Cly’s Mandalorian jetpack, Hawks’ AP refresh, and Jae’s random assist ability reminiscent of Fallout’s Mysterious Stranger, which can finish off enemies at critical moments.

You can interact with all characters at the Den. The story characters feel like BioWare companions, complete with engaging conversations and side stories, while custom operators hang out like soldiers in Mother Base from MGSV—though you can’t suplex them for thanks. The mercenaries have distinct “personalities” that influence their combat dialogue and greetings.

Additionally, there’s a comprehensive astromech droid builder for creating your own R2D2-like companions, which have their own class focused on support abilities and grenade usage.

While story squadmates have fixed appearances, they can be respecced to any class except for restricted “exotic” classes. For instance, Cly Kuervo can be respecced to the Sharpshooter class, utilizing her signature Mandalorian jetpack for strategic positioning, but no one else can take on the Mandalorian Warrior class she starts with.

The base classes or “specializations” include:

My favorite class to play was definitely Gunslinger: they have an attack that refreshes AP on kill, allowing for a chain of finishing moves. Hawks and the fully customizable “mercenary” characters can choose from various Star Wars alien species:

The following species are exclusive to custom mercenaries, not Hawks:

Zero Company’s combat will feel familiar to XCOM players. You typically control a squad of four, with each character having three AP per turn. There are abilities to restore AP mid-turn and gain extra attacks, with movement and actions drawing from the same AP pool—think Fallout or Divinity rather than Baldur’s Gate 3’s separation of movement and attacks.

The squad has an “advantage” bar that acts like a communal ultimate meter: the Assault class can unleash a multishot ultimate, while the Heavy class wields an AOE rocket launcher. These powerful abilities require significant advantage expenditure, but smaller advantage abilities are also available. Once per turn, Hawks can spend a bit of advantage to restore one AP to an ally. Notably, advantage abilities do not consume AP—Trick could initiate a turn with a rocket attack and still follow up with a heavy blaster salvo.

The early-game battles I experienced were challenging and memorable in that classic XCOM way. A 70% chance to hit feels like a gamble, and enemy placements are designed to punish complacency, forcing you to adapt your strategies. What seems like a sure bet can backfire, but you can also stumble into incredible moments. I managed to take down a tough boss by setting up overwatch from multiple characters at its spawn point, expecting just another wave of regular enemies. My squad whittled down its health before it could even activate its shields.

The mission objectives I encountered varied widely, including hostage rescues, control point captures, and “eliminate all enemies.” The maps offered diverse layouts and enemy advantages. For instance, the control point map had the objective exposed in an open arena, while the hostage rescue map featured interconnected areas with a spawn point at one end, an extraction zone at the other, and the VIP located in the middle.

I caught a glimpse of some of the tougher enemies we’ll face as the campaign progresses: Commando droids from the Clone Wars with a dodge buff, and dark side cultists who grow stronger as their allies fall.

Your home base, the Den, offers an unprecedented level of immersion for the genre, allowing you to engage in activities similar to those at XCOM HQ: research, gear upgrades, mission selection, and more. Zero Company operates in “cycles,” with each cycle concluding when you embark on a mission, advancing the in-game clock. Missions on the galaxy map are only available for a limited number of cycles before they disappear.

In addition to tactical missions, there are non-combat “operations” available. Instead of just one per cycle, you can undertake as many operations as your resources allow. These intelligence-gathering tasks unfold within the galaxy map UI and remind me of the text-based, choose-your-own-adventure segments from games like Pillars of Eternity or Rogue Trader. They typically involve choices that impact the rewards you receive and your squad’s approval of your actions.

One operation involved gathering intel at a cantina: do you charm the relevant parties, bribe them, or start a brawl? Each choice affects squadmate reactions and material rewards, with the last option risking injury to the character you send out. Injuries usually occur from being knocked out in combat and require time and resources to heal. Accumulating too many injuries can lead to permanent character death.

Your squad is ideologically diverse: prioritizing the Republic’s interests over your contractual obligations will upset the Separatists in your ranks, and vice versa. This built-in tension is one of the aspects I’m most excited about, enhancing the ensemble story of Zero Company.

For those hoping for RPG-style romance subplots, I was informed that Zero Company will not include them. While the game draws inspiration from classic BioWare titles, that element is not part of the experience.

The development team boasts a wealth of former XCOM talent. Bit Reactor founder Greg Foertsch mentioned that around 20 former Firaxis developers are on board, and my conversations with the team revealed many familiar names from the credits of XCOM and Midnight Suns. The game is being published by a well-known studio, with the lead writer from Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor overseeing the narrative for Zero Company.