There is a moment in Star Wars: Zero Company, EA’s newly released Xcom-like turn-based tactical strategy game, that made me freak out a bit. I won’t lie, I might have even gasped. It’s a moment that shows the right way to mix Star Wars characters from different projects together, and is also one of the coolest examples of modern Star Wars games crossing over.
Fairly late into Star Wars: Zero Company, the young Tognath Jedi you’re working with, Tel-Rea, gets a distress call from someone she knew before the Empire took over and began wiping out the Jedi and their allies. Tel-Rea asks you, the leader of Zero Company, to accompany her to meet with this person and… I can’t really say anything else here because I need to hide this all behind a spoiler warning. So let’s do that real fast.
Okay, so Tel-Rea gets a message from Trilla Suduri, a Jedi she was friends with before the Purge. Suduri is apparently meeting up with some surviving Jedi to figure out what to do next, and Tel-Rea wants to meet up to help out and see what’s going on. But some members of Zero Company are nervous that it might all be a big trap set up by the Empire to catch more Jedi and their allies. Tel-Rea, who grew up at the Academy with Trilla and has fond memories of her childhood friend, is willing to take the risk, but would love some backup.
Now, if you are a fan of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the moment you heard the name Trilla Suduri, you likely reacted with dread, as I did in that moment. That’s because at this point in the Star Wars timeline, Suduri is no longer a Jedi. Instead, she is an Imperial Inquisitor, specifically known as the Second Sister, and is on a mission to hunt down and eliminate the remaining Jedi in the galaxy.
Of course, Tel-Rea and plenty of people playing Zero Company don’t know that. And neither does Zero Company‘s leader, Hawks. So when the team arrives on Dantooine and are confronted by a red-lightsaber-wielding Suduri clad all in black and looking to kill Tel-Rea, it’s a real shock.
But before they fight, Tel-Rea and Suduri have a conversation over comms. And during this convo, the former Jedi mentions another Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order character: her former master, Cere Junda. She criticizes the Jedi Order for convincing parents to give up young kids to be molded into space monks, and when Tel-Rea refuses her offer to join the Inquisitors, the mission kicks off. However, your goal isn’t to defeat the Second Sister. Instead, it’s simply to survive a few rounds, protect Tel-Rea, and get the hell out of there. And that will be tricky, as Trilla Suduri is an incredibly powerful adversary who will basically do whatever she wants and is nearly impossible to damage.
Suduri’s appearance in Star Wars: Zero Company is so damn good for a few reasons. For one thing, it’s a moment that rewards fans of the franchise who will know, before the mission even starts, that this is a bad idea. It also acts as a big gut punch for the very sympathetic Tel-Rea, and helps advance her storyline nicely. It is also just cool to see a character seen only in Star Wars video games (Okay, she did have one minor appearance in the comics first) show up in another Star Wars game in a way that makes complete, logical sense. Of course one of the few Jedi remaining in the galaxy would be lured into a moment involving the Second Sister as she actively hunts them down. It’s also a nice twist on how missions usually work in Zero Company. You can’t win. You can only survive long enough to escape.
The Star Wars Jedi games, Fallen Order and Survivor, are some of the best Star Wars games in recent years, and it’s just wonderful to see characters from these games start appearing in other Star Wars media, especially other Star Wars games. Now, when the heck is Cal Kestis going to pop up in a Star Wars movie, show, or game? Come on, Lucasfilm, quit making us wait for that cameo.