Ever since it was announced in April 2025, Star Wars Zero Company has quickly become one of those unexpected games to watch out for. XCOM, but Star Wars? Sure, sign us up. Now, after nearly one year in the shadows, Respawn Entertainment and Bit Reactor have shown a bit more of the game off.
PC Gamer’s latest magazine has the exclusive new look at the game, but the site has just shared an in-depth feature too, and if you’re a proper Star Wars fan who wants something refreshing from Lucasfilm Games and Electronic Arts’ next huge shake-up of the galaxy far, far away, here’s what you need to know. To quote Count Dooku: “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
So who, in Star Wars Zero Company, are we fighting? Well, since the original story (led by Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor veteran Aaron Contreras) is set during the Clone Wars, clankers and Separatists of various kinds are among the foes you’ll be facing, but things become more interesting when a mysterious Dark Side cult comes in, empowering regular people using evil ghosts and whatnot. Fallen Order and Survivor already leaned on the more surprising side of Star Wars’ mythology, and it appears Zero Company may be doubling down on such ideas while retaining “the grittier style of Rogue One” and the prestige TV prequel Andor.
In practice, the evil Force-empowered troops gain buffs that stack up and get worse (for you) if you don’t neutralize enemies in the right order. This is only a very extreme example of how Bit Reactor aims to put real pressure on players, and studio founder Greg Foertsch, who worked on Firaxis’ XCOM reboots and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, underlined the importance of delivering impactful gameplay that trusts players.
Permadeath is also making a return from Firaxis’ XCOM efforts, and that includes even handcrafted characters, meaning entire story threads could be left hanging if they fall during a random mission. If any member of your team (except for Hawkes, the completely customisable protagonist) stacks too many injuries, they’re gone forever. “It was a challenge that we embraced midway through production… About 13 months ago, I lost an argument about permadeath, and it was good that I did, it was the right decision for the game,” Contreras explained.
Losses can be especially bad when you’ve managed to make squadmates at odds with each other finally bond, which has both narrative and gameplay effects (like in your favourite BioWare games). By the way, it’s also been confirmed the camera defaults to traditional third-person when you’re exploring the game’s locales. With a mix-and-match of different Star Wars species, classes, and both authored and 100 percent procedurally generated recruits, Zero Company aims to keep things always moving and unpredictable, but the fun part is that it’s fully embracing it’s many many influences too.
Even the galaxy map and “cycle” system will remind the turn-based tactics veterans of hardcore classics of the genre, as we won’t be able to take on every mission and will be forced to deal with consequences that sometimes will manifest as permanent buffs to our enemies. But those results can be positive too: “I helped this guy… then 10 cycles from now, he comes back with some information or an item or something that’s useful to me,” lead designer Grayson Scantlebury told PC Gamer.
It all looks and sounds like a remarkably complex but enticing package, and if these early impressions are anything to go by, it sound like Star Wars Zero Company could still hit its tentative 2026 release window on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. Having an Umbaran sniper team up with a clone trooper just sounds like icing on the cake for us Clone Wars diehards.
