Star Wars Zero Company Review: Exceptional strategic adventure shows what Star Wars is capable of

I’m hopelessly surrounded. Hordes of Clone Troopers watch my squad’s every move as we crawl desperately towards the extraction point, knowing deep down that one wrong decision will be our last.

We’ve taken the objective, so now all we need to do is get out alive. Which is unfortunately much easier said than done when you’re outgunned, outmatched, and forgot to bring your dual-wielding Jedi along for the ride.

But the beauty of Star Wars Zero Company comes from how there’s always a clever way out of such predicaments. I can send a powerful sharpshooter to higher ground and dispatch the battle droids from afar, or trust my blaster-wielding bruiser to capture an objective alone, with his allies providing covering fire.

Developer Bit Reactor has crafted an exceptional strategic adventure that not only lives up to the pedigree of XCOM, but expands on the killer formula through strong characters and a surprisingly poignant narrative at the centre of it all.

It’s not without a few notable shortcomings and an unfortunately helping of technical issues, but that doesn’t prevent Zero Company from being one of the strongest outings to a galaxy far, far away in a very long time.

You play as Hawks, a hardened mercenary who once served in the Republic Army before a tragic incident saw countless soldiers killed under their command.

Now you make your living as the leader of the titular Zero Company, an outfit that operates between the Republic and Separatists without ever truly picking a side. You go where the money is, even if that means siding with The Hutts or forming a temporary alliance with the armed forces our protagonist once walked away from.

Taking place between the events of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the driving force of the narrative is The Coil. This dastardly group is spreading a plague throughout the galaxy that turns innocent people into hivemind-obeying supersoldiers.

You must stop them at any cost while working alongside six supporting characters who all have a serious bone to pick with these intergalactic terrorists. It’s a compelling premise, but don’t expect the story to delve into the moral implications of operating on your own terms, nor to make any decisions that seriously impact how everything unfolds.

A shame considering how much inspiration the game otherwise takes from Mass Effect, a series which is all about shaping your avatar and how they are viewed by everyone around them. In Zero Company, you are always the plucky hero filled with quippy banter, which makes it impossible to delve deeper into who they really are.

Fortunately, this lack of depth can be found in the aforementioned companions. Jae Mordant is the ore-baroness of Luunata who has no choice but to leave a life of riches behind as she begins to fight for a rebellion she once undermined.

Trick is a clone who learned to think for himself and leave the Republic behind to live his own life, even if doing so leaves behind an excess of psychological scars. My personal favourite is Tel-Rea, a Jedi Padawan mourning the loss of her master to The Coil, determined to stop its spread for good.

You come to care about all of these characters and want to protect them in the midst of each combat mission, since if they are downed more than twice, then permadeath kicks in and you lose them for good. Unfortunately – on normal difficulty at least – I didn’t lose a single person in my review playthrough, so be sure to ramp things up if you’re a strategic sicko.

As for the combat itself, it plays very similarly to XCOM and other games of its ilk as you lead characters across a battlefield to take out enemies, achieve objectives, or reach specific points on the map.

Snipers are perfect for taking the high ground and activating overwatch, while Jedi are ace at running in to slice fools up before force-pushing them off the nearest cliff. You have complete freedom to create whatever squad you like as well through customising existing personalities or recruiting new ones to Zero Company.

I can already see players creating quartets of clone troopers or squads who get up-close-and-personal before delivering the killing blow. It sucks that the narrative doesn’t effectively accommodate this mechanical freedom though; neither do optional missions where you are often doing the same thing over and over again. Much of the flavour text and world-building provided by your constantly evolving base is stellar, but it rarely holds a candle to true pioneers of the genre.

The biggest achievement of Star Wars Zero Company is how much it made me care about a universe that has grown achingly dull and predictable in recent years. It rarely innovates with its combat or characters, but it doesn’t have to when they’re both this well executed.

Battles are nuanced games of chess where every single move matters, while the personal stories of each companion tugged at my heartstrings in ways I would have never expected from a title like this. By replacing the light and dark with a demonstrable shade of grey, Zero Company is able to show us exactly what Star Wars is capable of in the right hands.