Star Wars Zero Company Review

Bit Reactor is staffed with people who built XCOM at Firaxis and Zero Company does not pretend otherwise: action points, overwatch, a base between missions where research and upgrades compete for one budget, and permadeath that means the sniper you have carried through fifteen operations can be gone to a single bad roll. What it adds is relationships. Squadmates form opinions of each other across a campaign and those opinions become mechanical, unlocking paired abilities between soldiers who have survived enough together, which is the first system in years to make an XCOM style roster feel like a unit instead of a spreadsheet.

Tesh Hawks is a customisable protagonist with actual authored lines, and the narrative choices pay out late rather than immediately, so a mercy shown in the second act comes back in the fifth. Procedurally placed enemies stop a replayed mission from being memorised. The astromech you assemble for support and demolitions is the best toy in the game. It is held back by everything that is not tactics: levels that funnel more than they open, a technical layer with visible rough edges, and a Clone Wars rendered competently rather than beautifully.

As a Star Wars game it is the best in twenty years. As a tactics game it is a very good XCOM still looking for its own idea.