Star Wars Zero Company Review

It’s not perfect, but Star Wars Zero Company is ultimately a reminder of what Star Wars can be when it’s handled well. It’s a joyful, swashbuckling adventure filled with lovable characters, dramatic twists, and humor that never comes at the cost of gravity or immersion. It’s made by Bit Reactor, a new studio with a founder and several staff members who’ve worked on the XCOM series, so I expected solid tactical gameplay, not necessarily a compelling, blockbuster narrative.

But make no mistake, Zero Company‘s gameplay is a shining star in its own right, made from a collection of easy-to-grasp mechanics and bolstered by truly incredible presentation. Games like Star Wars Outlaws and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor look great, but for my money, Star Wars Zero Company is the most cinematic and intense Star Wars game of this generation.

Star Wars Zero Company’s Story Is Better Than It Has Any Right To Be

Star Wars Zero Company is set during the tail end of the Clone Wars, a conflict that saw the Galactic Republic, a massive interplanetary governing body, fractured by dissent and Separatists. You play as Hawks, a former Republic soldier who was disgraced and stripped of his position after losing a pivotal battle. Now, he runs Zero Company, a mercenary outfit whose main allegiance is to the almighty dollar. But times are tough: Zero Company’s in debt, and there simply aren’t enough credits to pay back the avaricious Hutts. Enter a beleaguered baroness and Republic intelligence officer, who jointly offer Hawks a lucrative contract in exchange for his help taking down a dangerous cult.

From there, Star Wars Zero Company adopts a surprisingly Mass Effect-like vibe: you grow your team of misfits, chat with them at your base, and sortie with them on various missions, sometimes as a personal favor to one of your own. Through this process, you may find that you are actually growing closer to these various characters alongside Hawks. For instance, I developed a particular fondness for Kabb Uppercut, a member of the Felshi—an alien species that’s debuting in Zero Company—who speaks in a rhyming, sing-song dialect at all times. More than a novelty, characters like Kabb are Zero Company‘s heart and soul, coming together to form one of the best gaming casts seen in quite some time.

This appeal begins with Hawks himself. Although you can customize Hawks quite extensively, he is far from a player surrogate. Dialog options are few and far between, and when you can make a choice, it’s generally between two similar options. Hawks is not a pawn for the player to control in the context of Zero Company‘s story, but a full-fledged, predefined, self-determined character, and this makes him all the more compelling. He doesn’t just act the way a given player might want him to. He’s firmer than that.

Zero Company‘s other cast members are similarly well-wrought. At this point in the Star Wars canon, the galaxy is wracked by political strife and warfare, and disharmony can sometimes feel like the status quo. Characters will say and do things that you disagree with, like forgiving the Republic or sympathizing with the growing Separatist movement, and the “right” ethical stance is often elusive. Still, when a character like Trick, born and raised as one of the Republic’s clone soldiers, is unfairly prejudiced against a Separatist sympathizer, you can understand where he’s coming from.

It’s a story that feels decidedly influenced by the contentious political sphere of our times. Zero Company‘s characters are regularly torn between defending the Republic that has represented them for so long, and recognizing where that same Republic has done wrong. This is no allegory—there’s never a moment where, for example, Emperor Palpatine is meant to be a stand-in for any real political leader—but the ground-level, people-level effects of the Republic’s decisions will definitely be relatable for a lot of players.

Still, no matter how complicated the relationships get in Star Wars Zero Company, it’s easy to feel the love between the core characters. Gameplay actually has quite a bit to do with this.

Star Wars Zero Company Is a Satisfying, Accessible, Cinematic Strategy RPG

Star Wars Zero Company is mechanically similar to the XCOM games, far more so than other recent XCOM-likes, such as Marvel’s Midnight Suns. You depart on missions with up to four operators, each with a different class (and eventually, a secondary class), that informs their stats and abilities. For example, operators in the Heavy class have extra health, and abilities that allow them to draw enemy fire and counterattack during enemy turns. Most moves cost Action Points, but there’s a secondary resource called Advantage that can also be spent to unleash special moves.

All of these elements come together to facilitate strategic gameplay devised around flexible team composition. For instance, you might want to pair a Heavy with a Medic who can heal them, or a Gunslinger, who has useful Advantage attacks, with a Scout, who can build up Advantage with exclusive abilities. Other features, like a free “team-up” attack each round, basically make it impossible not to consider team synergy at all times. Thankfully, you’ll continuously find new, viable operator combinations; there’s no way to have a flat-out unfeasible team comp in this game.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to the individual to decide. I can certainly see more experienced strategy game fans scoffing at Zero Company‘s relative simplicity and forgiving design. For perspective, I played the game on Normal difficulty, and I never failed a single match or lost an operator. This made features like permadeath—any supporting character, even those with dedicated storylines, can be irretrievably lost at almost any point—less meaningful. If you’re familiar with the XCOM formula, you may want to crank up the difficulty on Zero Company.

In the end, Zero Company‘s simplicity is its strength. It seems clear, to me at least, that Bit Reactor is attempting to appeal to a wide audience with this game. To this end, it’s relatively easy to “crack the code” of Zero Company, settling into a reliable combination of operators and basically coasting through the campaign on Normal, hardly breaking a sweat. However, this also makes it far easier to get those moments of euphoric triumph, when you figure out just the right combination of support and attack moves to take down a boss, or leaving the safety of an extraction zone to revive a fallen comrade, lest they be lost forever. It’s an incredibly satisfying and cinematic process, and I often felt like I was directing my own little Star Wars action setpiece.

Zero Company‘s story, while still great overall, is a little anticlimactic, and its stellar presentation is occasionally hampered by minor visual glitches or awkward animations, but I can’t bring myself to punish the game too harshly for such shortcomings. If you accept it for what it is, as a compelling, entertaining, and oftentimes very tender blockbuster story, rather than wishing for the most complex turn-based tactics game of the decade, I can almost guarantee that you’ll fall in love with Star Wars Zero Company.

Star Wars Zero Company releases on August 27, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Game Rant was provided with a Steam code for the purpose of this review.