Star Wars Goes Back to Strategy Games With The Trailer for Zero Company
After Ubisoft tried its hand at a Star Wars game with 2024’s Outlaws, EA is back with another single-player game, this time from developer Bit Reactor and produced by Star Wars Jedi studio Respawn Entertainment. It’s called Star Wars: Zero Company, and if you’ve been wanting the franchise to deliver a turn-based tactics game, this might be it.
Unlike the recent Jedi games or Star Wars Squadrons, which were set during and after the Original Trilogy, Zero Company is set during the Clone Wars. Thanks to this weekend’s Star Wars Celebration panel featuring Bit Reactor, Respawn Entertainment, and Lucasfilm Games, we know even more details of what to expect. In fact, here’s a trailer. “At Lucasfilm Games, we’re huge tactics fans and we have wanted to make a game like this for a long time,” Douglas Reilly, GM & VP, Lucasfilm Games, said. “The best tactics games are all about meaningful choices, and we’re confident we have chosen the right squad in Bit Reactor to deliver a compelling and innovative title that is authentic to Star Wars.”
Players will take on the role of Hawks, the customizable leader of Zero Company (meaning, yes, they can look however you want them to look), an elite outfit put together during the Clone Wars to do covert missions. Said team includes a trusty mech, a Jedi padawan named Telia Tria, an Umbaran sharpshooter named Lucco Bronk, a Clone Trooper named Trick, and a Mandalorian named Klive. [Note: Spellings are not final as we got them from audio.) But, you don’t have to use them. You are also able to create and customize your own team of characters too. So, if you want a full team of just astromech droids, you can do that. Similar to the recent XCOM games from Firaxis—several among that team left to start Bit Reactor—you’ll control the squad members and use their various abilities in tactical, grid-based combat. The team’s exploits will have them waging a shadow war across the galaxy. The Clone Wars was picked as the era for the game because, unlike many other eras in Star Wars, it’s about a battle between relatively similarly sized forces: the Jedi/Clones and the Separatists. Players will make decisions throughout that have major, at times, permanent consequences and the map is, apparently, the biggest in a Star Wars game to date. There’s also a bond system that, depending on which characters you use, will create new branches of the game. No two playthroughs will be alike.
Also of note, the music will be by Gordy Habb, who game fans know from his work on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor. And, yes, there will be cameos. Star Wars: Zero Company deploys in 2026 on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S. Additional reporting by Germain Lussier. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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