A Tactical Star Wars Adventure
To me, the most interesting part of the Star Wars canon is the time during the Clone Wars, which wasn’t even a planned part of the story when the original trilogy first released. While briefly mentioned during the movies to help build out the world, it wasn’t until after the fact that the concept was explored during the prequels and the Clone Wars TV show.
STAR WARS Zero Company continues to build on the lore of the Clone Wars by focusing on an independent company that is divorced from The Republic and now takes independent contracts for all kinds of jobs.
Their operations with The Republic are strictly transactional until a long-term contract with them is established to pursue and eradicate the threat of the Coil; a militant group that also threatens the stability of the galaxy during the twilight of the clone wars.
The game begins with Zero Company in the midst of a mission. This tutorial covers commanding units, how to use abilities, attack, and how to interact with objectives during the mission. Anyone who has played XCOM will be able to easily imagine how the gameplay flows, as it’s near identical in terms of core concepts.
Mission Objectives Keep Things Moving
During the course of a mission, there is typically an objective beyond simply defeating all enemy units. Usually a terminal will need to be activated and then an area will need to be secured as waves of enemies spawn in. Other missions may require the player to revive a downed operator within the first few turns and then extract the mission area while keeping everyone alive. Of course, there are missions that require simply fighting off waves of enemies as they enter the combat zone.
Build Your Own Squad
Each unit can be fully customized from their appearance to their class and combat style. Immediately recognizing the opportunity that this customization afforded me, I immediately chose to recruit only human operators so I could put every trooper in 501st clone armor.
The class of a unit determines what weapon they use and the abilities they have access to. Abilities are unlocked through the use of focus points, more on those later, and weapons can be equipped with various mods. These mods can either be purchased via the black market or by completing missions which grant them as rewards.
What really separates Zero Company from XCOM games is the bond system for the operators. When operators undertake missions or perform actions during missions together, it increases their bond. As this levels up, they can undergo bond training which raises their stats permanently and every operator has a bond with every member of Zero Company. These perks may be an increase in health, better accuracy, or buffs to their damage, and increasing bonds across all the operators is essential to improving the strength of Zero Company.
Life Inside the Den
Between missions, players will control Hawks and walk around their base of operations, also referred to as the Den. Here you can interact with other operatives, customize units, and so on. At the mission table, beyond just choosing missions there are separate operations and an influence tracker. By using intel that is acquired by completing missions, these side operations can be completed. They often have a predetermined outcome, or will require players to make a choice that influences the outcome. Doing these can earn credits, special items, and unlock other special missions that advance the main story or progress personal stories of members of Zero Company.
Throughout STAR WARS Zero Company there are a handful of operators that join Zero Company, each of which have their own stories and motivations, including a Mandalorian and a Jedi. I greatly enjoyed the character writing and story beats that each of these operators brought to the game. The only downside is that they were so interesting and so much stronger than the other recruitable units, that once I had all of these operators in Zero Company I never bothered to use my customized characters.
A Forgiving Challenge
Part of that is also because the game is not overly difficult. Even on hard difficulty I managed to make it through without a single operator dying. During missions, operators can be injured when their health goes down to zero. After the third injury they die for good. Between missions they can be healed in the medbay, which starts off limited to one operative and then needs to be upgraded.
But again, by the end of the game I only ever needed to place operatives in the medbay because of randomized outcomes during the operations, and rarely because of their performance during actual missions. There are easier modes though for anyone that isn’t as confident in their strategy game skills, and the permadeath can even be disabled. On the other hand, there is an expert difficulty and a Beskar mode that makes all deaths permanent and autosaves after every action.
Overall my impressions of STAR WARS Zero Company were positive. Yes, there were a couple of characters I didn’t care for, but the gameplay itself was solid.
Performance Issues Hold It Back
Unfortunately, STAR WARS Zero Company is plagued with optimization issues which only seem to get worse on the more complex maps. Most of the time I could get through a mission with minor stuttering or the screen briefly freezing before the game continued. In more severe circumstances I would have to wait over a minute for the game to load, or the camera would pan off screen before moving erratically around the map. Sometimes character models wouldn’t animate properly or enemies would move to an impossible spot on the map before teleporting to the appropriate spot.
In almost every instance the game managed to correct itself, but once or twice I did have to fully restart the game to get it to load properly. Thankfully there are autosaves at the beginning of every mission, so I never lost too much progress. But it does slow things down in an unpleasant way. It didn’t completely ruin the experience by any means but it is something to be aware of going into the game.
A Worthwhile Mission for Star Wars Fans
The replayability is also a bit limited because there is no randomized endless war game mode. The story does end after around 20-30 hours of gameplay, at which point players will need to start a new campaign. But overall, STAR WARS Zero Company is an incredibly fun experience. The mechanics are accessible for players who come in new to the genre, and while it never quite reaches the level of complexity that XCOM does, it has its own identity and unique mechanics that ensure STAR WARS Zero Company is worth playing.
Important Links
A New Tactical Battle Plays Out With STAR WARS Zero Company – https://www.thexboxhub.com/a-new-tactical-battle-plays-out-with-star-wars-zero-company/
Assemble Your Squad! Star Wars Zero Company Turn-Based Tactics Game – Release Date Confirmed! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/assemble-your-squad-star-wars-zero-company-turn-based-tactics-game-revealed/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/star-wars-zero-company/9ppt228dzk4n
There’s a Deluxe Edition – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/star-wars-zero-company-deluxe-edition/9nhkd9lrnpxw
