Wccftech attended a preview event for Star Wars Zero Company, which included both a Q&A with developers and hands-on time with a preview build. The single-player turn-based tactics game, developed by Bit Reactor for Lucasfilm Games, is due out August 27 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X. Speaking to press were Game Director Greg Foertsch, Lead Designer James Brawley, Narrative Director Aaron Contreras, and Lucasfilm Games Executive Producer Orion Kellogg.
The game is set during the twilight of the Clone Wars and follows Hawks, a customizable former Republic officer who leads Zero Company, an unlikely mercenary outfit made up of Republic loyalists, Separatist sympathizers, and criminals. The developers said the story draws on film noir, screwball comedy, mid-century espionage fiction, and influences like Andor and Rogue One to depict a 'war beneath the war.' At the outset, the team is indebted to a Hutt overlord and becomes entangled with the Infinite Coil, a Separatist-aligned cult led by Kundri Fathom that spreads a disease called the Shadow Plague to create resilient, unpredictable soldiers. Other Coil leaders include Visser and Typhon.
Permadeath is a core feature that can be toggled on or off, though developers recommend playing with it enabled. If Hawks dies, the mission ends and must be restarted, but other characters, once introduced, remain permanently vulnerable, including named heroes like Tel-Rea Vokoss. Fallen characters can be viewed at a Memorial, and losing an authored character ends their questline. The preview build confirmed downed operators are injured, with a third injury resulting in death.
Combat uses familiar turn-based tactics mechanics: three Action Points per turn, cover, flanking, and Overwatch, but with no fog of war, unlike XCOM. New systems include Backup, which lets units join in on an ally's attack, and Bond, which builds relationships between operators and unlocks Cross Training bonuses; the preview found Bond progression easy to build up over time. A shared Advantage resource charges during combat to power Ultimate abilities. Characters include named heroes such as Trick, Kabb Uppercut, Luco Bronc, Jae Mordant, and Cly Kullervo, alongside customizable operator archetypes like Rogue, Maverick, Gunny, Medic, Scout, and Sharpshooter, with adjustable appearance and hybrid specializations.
Outside combat, players manage the Den, the team's base, featuring facilities for personnel, recruitment, armory upgrades, medbay, and customization, alongside the Holotable, which tracks Operations and Tactical Missions across twelve zones. Operations are non-combat scenarios involving espionage, resource gathering, and choices that can affect bonds and the wider galaxy, including the Coil's growth; some operations expire if not completed in time. Developers said choices in Operations and missions shape which stories and enemy types appear later, and that the campaign is not meant to be fully completed in a single playthrough, encouraging replay with different squads and choices.
Difficulty options range from story mode, intended to be forgiving for players focused on narrative, up to hard and expert levels for genre veterans, with permadeath available at any difficulty. Developers said their goal was to bring cinematic presentation and strong storytelling to the tactics genre without sacrificing depth, citing past work on XCOM 2 and Marvel's Midnight Suns as influences. The preview build's dialogue with authored characters was described as engaging but somewhat less developed than Midnight Suns' hero interactions, though the overall narrative was seen as a strong example of storytelling within the tactics genre.