Star Wars: Zero Company review

Some of the best Star Wars moments take place outside of The Skywalker Saga and movies. The Clone Wars, Rebels, Andor, Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor, The Acolyte, comic book runs like Doctor Aphra, Darth Vader, War of the Bounty Hunters, and the novels, such as Shadow of the Sith, Fallen Star, and Last Shot; all bringing things together to interconnect a galaxy far, far away. I’m very happy to report that Star Wars Zero Company now joins that list as it is, by a large margin, one of the most faithful and well-executed Star Wars canon we’ve had in gaming. That’s a very high bar, so let’s talk about why this is far more than just XCOM in Clone Trooper armor.

The team at Bitreactor are familiar faces. They are, in fact, the team that brought you games like XCOM 2, Midnight Suns, Civilization, and Gears of War.  To say they know turn-based tactical and action games is an understatement.  Star Wars Zero Company preserves the best parts of their previous games, while realizing some of the potential left on the cutting room floor of their best tactical work. If pressed, I’d have to say it has the most in common with the incredible expansion, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.  If that made you sit up straight in your seat, I’ve got lots to tell you.

Zero Company takes place in the later stages of The Clone Wars; for fans of the TV Show, think late Season Five. Far enough in that we’ve seen the heights of war, but not far enough that we’re in the endgame quite yet. You’ve had the bombing of the Jedi Temple (the plot Ahsoka leaves the order after in The Clone Wars), the Umbaran Conflict (Pong Krell and his horrific ideals), and more.  You play Hawks, a former Galactic Republic Captain who, after a particularly bad mission, was forced out of the military.  Still wanting to make a difference, Hawks forms their own group called Zero Company, taking paying work wherever and however it arrives. Imagine a sort of intergalactic A-Team, complete with all the personalities you could ever want. Your version of Hawks can be either male or female, and can be Human, Togruta, Twi’lek, Zabrak, Miralan, or Devaronian, though the choice is purely aesthetic and doesn't affect anything, including story, stats, or interactions. You’ll also pick your standard class, though there are four that are restricted – we’ll talk about them in a moment. 

In the earlier hours of the game, Zero Company eases you into the complexities of party makeup.  You can recruit from eight specializations – Assault, Gunslinger, Heavy, Medic, Scoundrel, Scout, Sharpshooter, and Soldier.  As the story progresses, you’ll naturally gain access to other classes – four to be specific, though you and your team won’t have access to these if they didn’t arrive with them already.  It’s a Star Wars game, so one is obviously Jedi, but I’m going to be very vague about the rest (other than Astromech) as the other two are for you to discover.  Each class grows over time with mechanics we’ll talk about in a moment, and eventually you’ll even unlock a secondary class, but suffice it to say that the team wants you to learn how to operate Zero Company before they give you access to the entire roster of possibilities.  

CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION AND CREATION

Character customization is something that will fully make or break a game for me. I’ve fully chosen not to play games because of their lack of creativity with this engine. I was so overwhelmed by the amount of choices that Zero Company provides. You can make the main character, Hawks, a human… but why? When they provide us with multiple choices of aliens to be. Each one comes with the ability to change their face shape, skin color, horn shape, Lekku shape and markings, height, freckles, tattoos, makeup, and more. That is all just the canvas. Moving on, you can pick Hawks' outfits top to bottom. From helmets to shirts and pants, even gloves and boots. Want to look like Captain Rex? There’s an entire 501st outfit. Want to look like Darth Maul? Try a Zabrak and change the skin color to red and add black markings (to clarify, you can’t specify you’re a Dathomirian Zabrak, but the game does specify that Zabrak come from Eridonia AND Dathomir, which I greatly appreciate). It took me about 20 minutes to fully finish Hawks. I made a blue Twi’lek with longer Lekku and a hat that reminded me of Hera Syndulla. 

Here is where your imagination can go WILD. In the main menu, there is an option called Character Database. Inside here, you have options to create characters and droids. What does this do? Nothing but allow you to add your own characters as recruitable NPCs that you can give personalities to, and they’ll talk to you in The Den. I made myself a Zabrak scoundrel because I had changed Hawks to a medic (long story, too many cool characters). In the database, you can fill gaps in your team and add characters that round out your needs, or you can simply make the crew of your dreams! Let’s hear it for the inevitable “all-droid” “all-Twi'lek” “all-Ovissian” teams. 

The amount of alien inclusion makes this Star Wars fan happy. I can’t remember the last time I played a Star Wars game that felt like new aliens just kept popping up. Lasat, Nemoidian, Twi-Lek, Zabrak, Felshi, Togruta, Umbaran, Tognath… aliens from the original trilogy all the way to canon, Rebels, Rogue One, and even new (and very worthy!) species made just for Zero Company. Star Wars has always been about the creatures and aliens that make it feel alive. The cantina scene that had us in a stranglehold. Seeing the Rebel Alliance take down the tyrannical empire in The Battle of Endor, the epic formations of The Battle of Scariff. It takes a village, but in this case, it’s a galaxy of simply so many different aliens coming together to get rid of space fascists. What’s better than that?

Another fun element is how specific tattoos and outfits will impact how specific syndicates treat you. How would it fare for you to walk into a meeting with The Hutts with a Crimson Dawn tattoo across your face? Or a mission where you need to be low-key with a Republic Informant outfit. I didn’t run into a TON of these moments, but the more I play, the more of them I find. The level of detail is fabulous. 

The robust amount of customization not only adds to the replayability of the game, but adds a dream scenario for Star Wars fans wanting to live out their biggest Star Wars dreams. It reminds me of how Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau talked about them “playing with their Star Wars toys” during The Mandalorian, but it’s now a show/movie. We now all have the Star Wars toys, but it’s now a video game. 

CHARACTERS

Hawks: [Redacted] Hawks is a former Republic soldier who’s left the life fighting for the Republic to create Zero Company after The Umbaran conflict (see The Clone Wars, Season 4, Episodes 7-10). They are of a cowboy (former military) demeanor with an additional bit of comedic relief. Their heart is full of love for their crew and, even if they can be hard to love sometimes, they always will fight for their survival, no matter the odds. This is your player character, so you can play them as sarcastic or genuine as you’d like to, but I’ve loved seeing them as a mentor to the others in Zero Company.

Runa: Runa is headstrong and cares deeply for Zero Company in her way (even if the sarcasm can be laid on thick sometimes). A former Separatist turned overseer of all things not on the ground itself for Zero Company, Runa knows more than almost anyone on the team. Her intel is top-notch, her personal history provides plenty of insight, and she knows how to hold her own. The best interactions are when she and Hawk are on the opposite side of things, as their respect for each other is clear, but they don’t mince words whatsoever. Lyra's Side note: Vic Michaelis does a great job with this role, and as a fan of their work, having them in Star Wars is so exciting.

Trick: A clone trooper who served under Hawks who was medically discharged to work with Zero Company. Did I have any clue a Clone Trooper could be medically discharged from The Grand Army of the Republic? No. Do I love that they can? Yes. He’s excitable, reliable, and someone I never wanted out of my squad. Hearing Dee Bradley Baker as a Clone Trooper makes me happier than anything. Getting to customize and build a loadout for a Clone Trooper: that’s priceless. 

Kabb: Kabbney Uppercut is a Felshi, a brand new species to the Star Wars galaxy. He’s a former boxer turned mercenary whose greatest love is tinkering and cracking jokes. His speech pattern is unique and makes for some hilarious moments between him and other members of Zero Company. 

Jae: Nobility turned Operator, Jae is the perfect combination of smart and powerful. Her abilities are killer, and her Extermination ability makes bringing her on the team almost a 100% no-brainer. She comes along with Officer Brennic, who’s a bit uptight, but means well. Jae represents what happens when The Republic oversteps in order to keep resources intact. Her side missions are some of the most heartbreaking, but her heart for adventure stays strong. 

Tal-Rea: A Tognath Padawan finds her way to Zero Company already coming with information that helps. Gee wiz, having a Lightsaber can help a lot too. She may not be the “most powerful” Jedi in Star Wars gaming history, but she’s exactly what Zero Company needs to make big moves forward in finding the mysteries behind The Coil. After losing her master, she could have gone and done anything, but finding the secret behind what killed her master, that takes guts. 

Neesh: A Lasat with all the knowledge and wisdom you’d want from your black market specialist. He provides the base of operations for Zero Company as well as the food and drink. While he may not be on the ground helping with fighting The Coil on the front lines, I can truly say, without some of those black market arms and this roof over our heads, Zero Company wouldn’t exist. 

Luco: An Umbaran with his own reason for joining Zero Company. He has a lot of baggage that comes with his help, but he’s an extremely talented sniper, and the interactions between him and Trick leave us fans with quite a lot of meat on the bone with passive-aggressive and sometimes aggressive aggressive conversations. 

GAMEPLAY

“They fly now” was one of the most horrific lines from The Rise of Skywalker… but when I saw Droideka CLIMB LADDERS I was shocked and aghast and only thought… “THEY CLIMB NOW?!”

Just when you think you’ve hit a section that starts to feel maybe a little repetitive, BOOM, you get your second class unlocked for each character. While some of these are provided to you (such as Tal-Rea and Astromechs), all of the others can be modified with the classes you had access to when creating your character. As I mentioned before, I had Hawks as a Medic to begin. This is mostly due to the massive amount of amazing characters with different abilities I wanted to use. For the majority of my playthrough, I used Hawks, Trick, Cly, and Tal or Jae, so none of them had healing past adding a medpack to their inventory. So I took it upon myself to play the part of medic. However, getting that second class added so much depth, not just to Hawks, but everyone. Giving Trick the Repeater Blaster ability on top of his rocket launcher gave me close and long-range moves that are devastating. I provided Hawks the Scoundrel class since I was running a pistol with her anyway. Don’t miss out on these upgrades when they become available. 

Another way Zero Company keeps fresh is with upgrades to your base and the Black Market.  There are dozens of upgrades you can perform to make your squad more effective in combat.  You can initially have seven operators, but you can upgrade to eventually reach a staggering 20!  Your Droid bay can unlock other advanced chassis options, and similarly, your upgraded MedBay can reconstitute your troops and get them back in the field after they take an injury.  Other modifications can provide additional slots for your weapons or utility slots, and still more will expand the Black Market Inventory.  Additional functionality and damage options are also in here, and much more.  You may be perpetually poor, but when you can afford these upgrades, you might at least consider them.  

In the Black Market you’ll find the aforementioned upgrades to your weapons or utility slots.  At the beginning, you can carry or slot just one of each, but as your time with the game continues you’ll gain up to three per type.  These can improve your ability to hit, critical damage, or whether your shots set the target on fire, just to name a few.  Scattering a foe off a nearby cliff with a shiny new concussion grenade never gets old.  

Successfully completing missions yields, among other things, Focus Points.  Focus Points are the currency your team will spend to grow their skills.  Each advancement in a skill costs a certain amount of Focus Points, bringing with it improvements like range, damage, passive skills, and more across six tiers of upgrades.  By way of example, you can make your soldier’s rocket strike do more base damage, or you can make a “bull rush” punch knock that person halfway across the map.  Here’s where Zero Company once again shakes the dice to make sure things stay fresh.

The troops you recruit can have all of these classes, but their individual traits are a grab bag of skills.  I have a sharpshooter who also carries a mini-shotgun and punches people.  I have a medic who enjoys using heavy weapons.  You can go in and tweak these, changing their specializations, but I prefer a world where you have to use the cards you’re dealt.  Perhaps that’ll be a new mode in a later upgrade, similar to the “Beskar” option that functions like the Iron Man mode in XCOM 2.  

Soldiers are at their best when they trust the man or woman (or droid) to the left and right of them.  To that end, your characters are always gaining (and occasionally losing) their bond with one another.  Strengthening your bonds to a certain level will allow operators to cross-train one another, giving them passive abilities, unique tricks, upgrade mutual stats, and more.  Sending out Trick and Kabb on a mission will grow their comfort with one another, resulting in a choice of three things you can improve.  By way of example, you might gain +1 to both operators for ranged attack damage, or you might add a point to melee for that type of strike.  A third option might give them 0.50m of additional initial movement distance. Another might give both +4 health. These seem not to be random, but related to how they were used, but I might be mistaken.  Here’s the thing, though – they can go the other direction as well.

Each of your characters will have their own wants and motivations.  Satisfying them by doing their missions, or favoring them in conversations, will likely result in them liking you more.  Skipping those missions might drop your bond with them dramatically, causing you to lose some of those benefits.  Yes, this even applies to Astromechs, so take care of your droids. 

Heading to the Holotable, you’ll see these Bond moments play out as well.  The Holotable is split into three sections – Tactical, Missions, and Influence.  Influence lets you unlock rewards in three tiers each, and completing missions will improve your influence in that section of the galaxy.  It might even yield contacts you can place to speed up that process.  Non-combat operations are strategic things you can do on the map that have you spending Intel you’ve earned each in-game cycle to try to solve problems in the galaxy.  You’ll often have choices of who you send, what they do, and more to try to balance risk (financial or physical) against reward.  These wounds are important, as taking a wounded crew into the field in Tactical Missions could be disastrous.  

The side missions are marked with a small hourglass next to them.  These let you know what missions are available, and for how many cycles.  Missing these (and you will - it’s impossible to do them all) might cause you problems, so you’ll want to read each one carefully.  The combat missions are the bread and butter of Zero Company, where you bring your squad down to the planet’s surface.  Once again, this is where the team leans into where XCOM didn’t go far enough – you cannot possibly handle them all, so choosing to handle one combat mission means your enemy might advance their agenda elsewhere.  That could be a loss in opportunity, or worse, it could allow them to gain new powers that will drive you mad.  These are a real pain, but they’re fun to learn about on your own, so I leave you to it.  

On both Xbox and PC, I ran into just a few issues that led to some frustration. There are multiple stages where the ability cinematic would just be covered completely by a wall or structure, making a cool moment into a space I couldn’t see anything. There were also multiple times I would be hovering over a character to do an assist or a healing ability, and it would lock on to the first character I looked at instead. This can be deadly if you’re needing to heal or boost someone and you miss (unlike Fire Emblem, there are no restart little moments). Other than that, the gameplay was mostly smooth; I had one crash the entire time I’ve played, and the load times are non-existent.  In a blast to the past, we do see the XCOM 2 “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll just wait it out” pause rear its head occasionally, where you’ll task your character with an action, that action happens, and then everyone stands very still for 15 seconds or so while the game figures out what’s next.  Things explode, characters ragdoll, and then you’re back to work.  It’s infrequent, but surprising to see it in a completely new engine on an entirely different game.  

NODS TO STAR WARS LORE

Nothing makes my Star Wars nerd head happier than when Star Wars understands Star Wars. That is proven by the simply insane amount of moments where you can hear something and get a ping in your head reminding you that you’ve heard it before. 

There's a mission around Cycle 13-15 where you help Jae with a rescue mission. In the hologram, you hear her “uncle” say the phrase “it’s not safe here… you must contact me!” It cuts off after, and hmm... why does that sound familiar? Oh, because the hologram Queen Amidala gets on Tatooine from Naboo from Sio Bibble says, “The death toll is catastrophic. We must bow to their wishes. You must contact me,” and then it cuts off. 

Early on, Runa is discussing her early life and mentions she’s from Taris. TARIS. For those who are fans of Knights of the Old Republic RPG, The Old Republic MMO, or have read some very specific books and comics, will recognize that name. It’s officially the first time a character, voice-acted, mentions Taris in canon in a video game! 

Those are two examples of how DEEP some of the cuts are in this game. 

The planets themselves are massive moments for fans as we’ll hear a lot about Umbara (The Clone Wars), Lothal (Rebels), Dantooine (KOTOR, KOTOR 2, A New Hope mentioned and then exploded), Sullust (The Clone Wars and Battlefront I and II), Ring of Kafrene (Rogue One and Andor), Bespin (The Empire Strikes Back), and plenty more (don’t want to give away every little fun surprise). This is your chance to have some fun exploring parts of planets that may look familiar, but are made specifically for this game so Zero Company can do their thing.

There are even planets we’ve not gotten a lot from in canon that had a lot of history in Legends. Brentaal IV was a point of great interest in the Rogue Squadron books in Legends as well as countless comic books. Meanwhile, we’ve heard of the planet in a few books, but have seen it in comics like Star Wars and Doctor Aphra. Now, we’re battling for The Coil not to gain control.

Stay on target, stay on target!

Star Wars: Zero Company takes the best parts of XCOM and mashes it in the best way possible with Star Wars goodness. It’s a fun story, unique gameplay moments, exquisite references to other Star Wars, and so much more. This game has something for every fan. If you’re just someone who likes creating fun characters and getting by on simple combat, Story Mode has you covered. For those looking for more of a challenge, there’s everything from Permadeath to insanely difficult modes. Regardless, if you’re looking for genuinely good Star Wars, Zero Company is ready for business.

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