Star Wars: Zero Company
Review
Stay on target
by William Thompson
reviewed on PC
You take on the role of Hawks, an ex-Republic officer who can be fully customized across various Star Wars species, genders, and cosmetic options to suit your personal style. Operating in the grey areas of the galaxy, Hawks leads an outfit of professionals for hire on a campaign to track down and neutralize Kundri Fathom, leader of the Separatist-aligned cult known as the Infinite Coil. Rather than relying on familiar Jedi and Sith dynamics, the story focuses entirely on a covert military operation. It stands out as a strong piece of Star Wars storytelling, feeling like modern projects such as Andor for its grounded tone. Narrative depth extends beyond briefing screens into The Den, your home base of operations. Taking the time to chat with squad members between deployments reveals personal backstories, unlocks side investigations, and addresses interpersonal dynamics, making companion interactions a genuine highlight that adds emotional weight to your decisions.
Base of Operations
Between operations, managing The Den serves as the strategic spine of your campaign. Investing credits and resources allows you to upgrade base facilities, which unlocks field improvements, better gear tech, and tactical support options. You can also recruit new squad members across diverse class archetypes to replace fallen operators or fill specific roles on the fly. Sustained combat injuries are not fixed instantaneously; healing wounded squad members costs both time and credits, forcing you to maintain a deep roster and carefully rotate personnel. Character progression expands through extensive customization options, class building, equipment choices, and multiclassing. Furthermore, deploying the same units together builds their interpersonal rapport over time through the Personnel Bonds system. As operators grow closer, they earn Focus Points that allow them to teach each other passive abilities and unique combat tricks, creating rich synergies across your squad. It was for this reason that I often found myself using the same handful of characters for many of the operations. It was only when a character needed healing or a unit would be particularly useful within a mission that I changed up the squad.
Roger, Roger
When it comes to field operations, Star Wars Zero Company delivers deep, engaging, and strategically satisfying turn-based combat heavily inspired by genre benchmarks like XCOM. Each mission begins in the preparation phase where you select available units and equip them for the specific task ahead, ranging from sabotage ops to high-stakes VIP rescues. Combat execution relies on positioning, sightlines, and smart cover usage. Map design across iconic locations, such as the cloud platforms of Bespin, the open plains of Dantooine, and the industrial structures of Lothal, features distinct terrain layouts that directly affect navigation. Although the backdrops do feel different, each has similar types of cover. Using the available cover and flanking enemies to bypass defenses is often mandatory to come out alive.
Pre-mission loadouts and tactical decisions carry immense weight throughout the 30-to-40-hour story campaign. Deciding who to assign to specific jobs and how to react under pressure dictates operational success, a reality that becomes particularly acute when playing with Permadeath toggled on, where a single misstep permanently eliminates a veteran operator. Threat variety keeps combat active. Standard Separatist B1 Battle Droids are easy to pick off individually, but they arrive in large swarms that can overwhelm exposed units. Conversely, B2 Super Battle Droids boast heavy armor plating and can unleash devastating rockets that deal area-of-effect damage to multiple clustered squad members at once. Navigating these combat scenarios feels fluid, with controls working exceptionally well whether utilizing a traditional keyboard and mouse setup or a controller. Crucially, while the combat systems offer impressive tactical depth, the game remains accessible enough for newcomers who are entering the turn-based strategy genre for the very first time.
Despite its overwhelming strengths, the package is not without a few rough edges - where some technical issues hampered my experience. At times during combat scenarios there were pauses where I thought that the game had crashed only for it to come back a short time later. Although this did not effect gameplay at all, there was the feeling of lost momentum within the current battle. There were some issues with the camera, whereby it seemed that an enemy was nearby, but they were actually in a lower level of the area and weren't an immediate threat.
In terms of balance, encounters can occasionally feel overly dependent on luck or suffer from sudden difficulty spikes, swinging from straightforward to punishing without much warning. Additionally, purists seeking endless mechanical depth may find that certain missions lack the extreme long-term strategic complexity of XCOM, operating instead as a structured, story-driven campaign rather than an infinite sandbox.
Hitting the spot
With all that said, Star Wars Zero Company is a major success and easily ranks among the strongest Star Wars titles released in recent memory. By grounding its turn-based combat in meaningful squad mechanics, meaningful customization, and a distinct Clone Wars aesthetic, the developers have crafted an experience that is both strategically rewarding and deeply rooted in a galaxy far, far away. Clocking in at around 40 hours for a typical review playthrough that blends main story objectives with optional side content, it offers a substantial, memorable journey through hyperspace. Despite the minor technical issues, it stands as a genuinely great tactical strategy game that will thoroughly satisfy both turn-based tactics veterans and dedicated Star Wars enthusiasts.
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8.8
fun score
Pros
So much customisation - from Hawks, through to mission composition, to mission loadouts. Simple yet effective combat mechanics.
Cons
Occasional visual pauses, some difficulty spikes within a mission.
