Oh, Star Wars. Ever since Disney got its hands on the franchise, it has been a wild ride of hits and misses. When it comes to the movies, there have arguably been a fair few misses, with The Last Jedi and, of course, the abomination that is The Rise of Skywalker leaving a nasty stain on the franchise. However, there have also been some genuinely strong highlights. Rogue One and Andor, in particular, have proven that Star Wars still has plenty of life left in it.

Then we have the gaming side of the franchise, which has experienced its own ups and downs. Respawn’s mostly excellent Star Wars Jedi games have been particular highlights, alongside a steady stream of remasters bringing older favorites back into the spotlight. Star Wars: Zero Company, however, might be one of the most interesting releases yet. Developed by a team featuring former XCOM developers, it’s a sci fi tactics game that manages to live up to that pedigree while still bringing some refreshing ideas of its own to the table.

Tel-Rea, your new favorite Glup Shitto.

Set during the Republic era, Star Wars: Zero Company takes place as the galaxy is consumed by war between the Republic and the Separatists. You play as Hawkes, leader of the mercenary outfit known as Zero Company. However, a new threat has emerged in the form of the Infinite Coil, a cult seeking to spread the Shadow Plague across the galaxy and turn anyone caught in its path into servants. Zero Company is contracted to hunt down the cult and put an end to its plans.

As commander of Zero Company, you’ll choose which missions to undertake and recruit new mercenaries as you hunt down Fathom, the leader of the Infinite Coil. Several members of your crew also have their own personal motivations for pursuing the cult, giving the story a more personal edge than I initially expected. I’ll admit, I was genuinely surprised by just how much I enjoyed the narrative here.

The main storyline is excellent, and I ended up liking the characters far more than I anticipated. There’s some great character development throughout, alongside plenty of the lighter moments that Star Wars has always been known for. For me, this is right up there with Rogue One among the best stories from the modern Star Wars era, and I enjoyed every minute of it. There are even a few surprises sprinkled throughout that had me feeling genuinely excited about Star Wars again.

As for the gameplay, if you’ve played the ever fantastic XCOM 2, things should feel immediately familiar, which is particularly funny considering the frankly unreasonable number of Star Wars mods I’ve installed in that game over the years. However, Zero Company introduces enough changes to the familiar formula, alongside a number of welcome quality of life improvements, to carve out an identity of its own.

I’ve played enough XCOM to not trust high percentages but to roll on low percentages.

Zero Company is an isometric, turn based tactics game. Hawkes, as the leader of Zero Company, is a fully customizable protagonist, allowing you to select their race, gender, class, and abilities from the ground up. Once you head into a mission, you’ll bring Hawkes alongside three mercenaries of your choice, tackling various operations across the galaxy. While the overall formula will immediately feel familiar to XCOM players, there are some key differences that prevent Zero Company from feeling like little more than XCOM wearing a Star Wars costume.

Unlike XCOM, when a soldier loses all of their HP, they won’t immediately die. Instead, you can revive them and, if necessary, get them to extraction so they can recover back at base. If a character goes down three times during the same mission, however, that’s it. No more revives, no miraculous recovery, and their personal storyline comes to an anticlimactic end, with a harsh reminder of your failure waiting back at base. Thankfully, this isn’t particularly easy to achieve, and I only came relatively close once during a brutal mid game boss fight.

And yes, you will, of course, still miss plenty of shots with a 90% chance to hit. It wouldn’t feel right otherwise. I built my Hawkes as the squad’s dedicated sniper, hanging back in larger arenas to provide cover, deal huge amounts of damage from a distance, and set up Overwatch to punish enemies attempting to flank the squad. I will mention that Overwatch occasionally fails to trigger for no obvious reason, which can be frustrating when you’ve planned your turn around it.

Each soldier has three AP to spend on movement and attacks, while a separate mechanic called Advantage Points allows you to unleash specialized abilities without consuming AP. You’ll quickly settle into a satisfying rhythm of performing standard actions to build Advantage, then spending those points on powerful abilities that can target either individual enemies or entire groups. There’s far more emphasis on character abilities and squad synergy here than I was expecting, giving combat an additional layer of strategy beyond simply finding cover and praying that your 90% shot actually behaves like one.

Cly’s Advantage abilities are borderline game-breaking, and I love it.

I was confident enough in my abilities to play on Hard difficulty, and that’s what I’d recommend for most players as well. There is also an Expert difficulty for those seeking a greater challenge, although I suspect even that won’t be enough for some genre purists. Hard strikes a nice balance, making your decisions in battle feel meaningful without completely overwhelming you.

Just note that the opening hours, before you’re properly introduced to the villainous Infinite Coil, are considerably easier. Their arrival marks the game’s first major difficulty spike, introducing numerous enemy types and modifiers that you’ll continue encountering throughout the adventure. For the most part, Zero Company feels reasonably well balanced, although some boss fights can border on frustrating. Thankfully, if things become too much, you can lower the difficulty outside of combat.

The wide variety of characters you can bring into battle also comes with an equally diverse selection of abilities. On top of the standard classes, each hero character brings unique skills to the table. My favorite is the Mandalorian Cly, who uses shock darts that can be detonated with an area of effect electrical attack. Chaining these together can result in devastating amounts of damage.

Then there’s the Tognath Tel-Rea, who serves as the squad’s Jedi hero and can use various Force abilities to dominate the battlefield. One of my favorite combinations involves using Force Push and Pull alongside Overwatch to absolutely decimate enemy health bars, or simply throw some unfortunate enemy over a ledge. There are even droids that don’t attack directly, instead providing critical buffs to the rest of the squad. Zero Company gives you plenty of tools and actively encourages experimentation to discover which combinations work best.

A few thoughtful features help take the experience to another level. While you’ll spend most of your time viewing the battlefield from a bird’s eye perspective, Zero Company occasionally lets you explore story missions from a third person viewpoint. There’s no combat during these sequences, but being able to see these environments from ground level adds some welcome flavor and helps immerse you in the world.

Another neat touch is that soldiers continue firing at one another between turns. These shots don’t actually deal damage, but they make battles feel more dynamic and prevent the turn based nature of the game from making firefights appear strangely static. They’re relatively small additions in the grand scheme of things, but thoughtful details like these go a long way toward giving Zero Company some extra personality.

Zero Company lets you explore at ground level.

Then, of course, once you’ve completed a mission, you’ll return to The Den, where Zero Company takes on a more choice driven approach. Back at base, you’ll chat with your story companions to advance both the main narrative and their individual side stories. You’ll also make strategic decisions that provide resources, credits, and other bonuses that can be used to improve your squad and unlock new abilities.

You can also recruit additional mercenaries who aren’t tied to the main story. While I often found myself sticking with the established characters, it’s nice to have the option, especially since these recruits don’t fall behind when it comes to stats or utility. In fact, one of the strongest characters in my squad ended up being a random recruit I picked up along the way. On the galactic map, you’ll spread your influence across different regions, send your squad on choice based operations, and eventually deploy into proper missions. Everything on the map operates on a timer, with each cycle ticking down whenever you deploy. You simply won’t have enough time to do everything, forcing you to constantly weigh the potential rewards and consequences of your decisions.

The most interesting examples are Coil Crisis missions. When these appear, you’ll only be able to complete one, while ignoring the other grants the Infinite Coil a permanent buff that lasts for the remainder of the campaign. At one point, I found myself choosing between dealing with a crisis and pursuing a potential companion mission. These decisions give the strategic layer some genuine weight, as you’re regularly forced to sacrifice something worthwhile.

If I have to be more critical, Zero Company certainly isn’t perfect. For one, I wish the campaign were just a little longer. At around 30 hours, it’s already a solid length and offers excellent value, but another one or two major story missions and a few additional cycles would have helped the progression breathe a little more.

It’s also disappointing that there’s no proper armor system, with customization being largely cosmetic rather than providing meaningful stat changes or bonuses. I would have appreciated a little more variety in the mission objectives as well. Still, these are relatively minor complaints in the grand scheme of things. The core combat and progression loop is so enjoyable that these shortcomings rarely detract significantly from the overall experience.

You’ll be put into situations where you can’t do everything, and you’ll have to decide on the consequences yourself.

The visual design here is incredible, managing to recapture that unmistakable Star Wars magic that even some of the franchise’s worst movies somehow manage to get right. Character designs are excellent, and you’ll visit a wide variety of planets and locations across the galaxy. Some are completely new, while others will be immediately recognizable to longtime fans. There are a few rough edges, however, including some low resolution textures and certain custom Hawkes character models that don’t quite match the quality of the rest of the cast. Honestly, Hawkes looks best when kept relatively close to their default appearance.

Zero Company fully supports ultrawide resolutions both during gameplay and elsewhere, but I did encounter a few technical issues. Performance isn’t always ideal, with noticeable stuttering when loading into a new map. The camera can also struggle during friendly and enemy attacks, occasionally deciding that a nearby wall is much more interesting than whatever is actually happening. This was one issue I really hoped would be addressed, as these awkward camera angles can make an otherwise polished game feel unnecessarily rough around the edges.

The sound design can best be described as… well, it’s Star Wars. All those iconic blaster sounds are present and accounted for, while the soundtrack provides the appropriately epic accompaniment you’d expect from the franchise. The voice acting is also incredibly well done, with each member of the core cast delivering a convincing performance that feels right at home in the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars: Zero Company surprised me in the best possible way. I went in expecting XCOM in the Star Wars universe and not much else, but what I got was a thrilling take on the turn based tactics genre, backed by a fantastic cast of characters and a story I genuinely wanted to see through to the end. It takes a familiar formula and does enough with it to establish an identity of its own. Zero Company is easily one of the year’s biggest surprises, and one of the most enjoyable Star Wars games in recent memory.

Star Wars Zero Company is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. 

Reviewed on PC with an RTX 4070, Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 32GB RAM.

A copy of Star Wars Zero Company was provided by the publisher.