Star Wars Zero Company is a very safe XCOM descendant, but its most interesting parts are found in its Midnight Suns DNA

Star Wars Zero Company is giving the people what they want. And that is: more XCOM. The turn-based shootouts, perishable soldiers and those beautiful moments where you survive by the skin of your teeth because of judicious use of overwatch—it all unapologetically calls to mind the two games that have defined the modern tactics genre. It’s what we’ve been waiting for.

I’ve played through 18 cycles of a preview build, and there were moments where it felt like I was checking out a Star Wars-themed XCOM 2 mod, but with huge production values. It is, at times, incredibly familiar. Which isn’t surprising, of course. Developer Bit Reactor was founded by Greg Foertsch, former Firaxis art director, and a bunch of Firaxis veterans followed him to this new venture.

Risky business

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

But inviting comparisons with XCOM, especially XCOM 2, is risky. Look at what happened to XCOM: Chimera Squad. It was a genuinely compelling twist on XCOM 2, but the ways in which it wasn’t quite as good as its predecessor were massively amplified by its association. After dabbling in Zero Company’s early game, I can’t help but wonder if this is happening again. It is very XCOM, but it isn’t XCOM.

When it works, oh boy it works. In one mission, my squad was surrounded and outnumbered. My troops were in good positions, though, so I thought I’d be able to chip away at the enemy numbers. And then a series of shots with 80-90% chances to hit missed. All of them.

I was screaming at the RNG gods. Why would they do me dirty like this? After the enemy turn, every member of my squad had taken a battering. But it wasn’t over. I had tricks up my sleeve, most notably some abilities that gave my squad extra action points and free shots. My next turn was going to be my time to shine.

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Once I was in control again, I activated a backup ability, so when my clone buddy Trick fired at a Separatist, one of his comrades followed it up with a free attack of their own. Some deft repositioning also allowed one of my crew to get behind the enemy frontline, so he didn’t have to worry about shooting goons hiding behind cover. But then I had a better idea in the form of a cover-destroying, bone-crushing grenade. Things were looking up.

My leader ability also meant I could dole out an extra action point to someone—which I gifted to the beefiest member of the crew, who then charged at a Separatist and beat him to death.

I’d prepared for the next enemy turn, too, by holding back one member of my squad in the previous turn. Instead of attacking, I taunted a big group of enemies and activated his retaliation ability—this meant that four enemies would exclusively target him, and every time they shot at him, he’d immediately shoot back.

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By the time enemy reinforcements arrived, we’d cleaned up. They walked through a door into the combat arena, only to be greeted by three overwatch cones. Zero Company eschews XCOM’s omni-directional overwatch, which feels restrictive, but appropriately tactical. Anyway, the Separatists were goners.

Damn did it feel good. I got that XCOM 2 buzz, but there were also some Zero Company-specific tricks in there too—particularly the flexibility and even greater emphasis on teamwork. That this is so present even in the early game, when the bag of tricks is at its emptiest, is reassuring.

The astromech droid class is a prime example of Zero Company’s slightly different approach. These little droids aren’t frontline glory hounds, instead filling a support role. It’s another way to get extra AP, or revel in some squad-wide buffs, and their self-heals mean that, while they are vulnerable, they don’t need to be constantly protected.

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This class is made all the more interesting because Zero Company, like XCOM, makes each one of your crew matter, because you’re only ever going to be fielding a handful of troops. So that astromech might be a lifesaver, but can you afford to go into a fight one gun down?

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm is tempered by all the times the fights feel like a lesser example of the XCOM 2 model. One where fog of war, patrolling units and surprise attacks are replaced by regular enemy reinforcements spawning in clearly defined areas, which has a devastating impact on the tension that’s normally inherent in tactics games, and especially XCOM.

I confess I’m also getting pretty bored of the combat arenas, which tend to be small, mostly open spaces littered with crates. Zero Company has an entire galaxy to play with, but while there’s a variety of tilesets with some cosmetic differences, most of the locations have already started to blend together.

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This issue is exacerbated by the range of foes—people with guns, and droids with guns. There’s the odd exception, and I know more exotic enemy types appear later on with greater frequency, but it still feels comparatively conservative for a galaxy where space wizards exist.

Then there are the problems with clarity and precision—which Zero Company is a bit lacking in. I’ve made far too many positioning mistakes because of this, and I’ve been disappointed to discover that Bit Reactor is clearly expecting us to use a gamepad. Zero Company is just unpleasant to play with a mouse and keyboard. In a tactics game, this is wild.

Midnight Snack

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While the battles feel comfortably XCOM-adjacent, a lot of the most novel and forward facing elements draw from Midnight Suns, which Foertsch was working on at Firaxis before he left to set up Bit Reactor. The more concentrated theme of camaraderie, the pre-battle conversations with your squad inside a base you can freely explore—on top of some pre-mission exploration in the combat levels themselves—and the mid-fight team-ups all evoke Firaxis’s heroic tactics game.

Some of these elements have a mechanical payoff, like the bonuses individual members of your squad receive from working together. But even the arguably fluffier parts, like the aforementioned conversations, or those brief moments where you get to explore an area prior to a fight, walking around as if you’re in a third-person action game, make a significant impact.

The cinematic presentation and subtle nods to RPGs elevate the workmanlike tactical gameplay, ensuring that the whole feels richer. Zero Company has character and panache—of the kind you don’t often see in a tactics game.

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

In most cases, though, it doesn’t go as hard as Midnight Suns. The Den is so much smaller than the Abbey, the conversations are brief and the team-up mechanics—though extremely handy—are restrained.

There is one place where it goes harder, however, combining XCOM and Midnight Suns in a genuinely compelling way. While Marvel’s heroes could not be killed, any member of your squad, even the full-fledged bespoke characters, can die. We cared about our very mortal XCOM squads despite their lack of identity, filling in the gaps ourselves. But we don’t need to do that here, and the risk of losing a member of the team feels so much more pronounced.

If permadeath isn’t your bag, though, you can simply turn it off.

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I’ve been a bit more down on Zero Company than I expected, but 18 cycles only lets you explore the tip of the iceberg, and I still think there’s a lot to like here. Squad management and progression is really strong, for instance, and I’ve already had plenty of fun mucking around with builds, using different combinations of classes and weapons to create potent killers.

At the moment I’m really digging my pistol-wielding gunslinger. Pistols are pretty weak, but you can fire them more often. To take advantage of this and shore up the weapon’s weaknesses, I’ve turned him into a crit hit monster—basically a sniper with a pistol. He’s a bit soft, though, and I’ve been having just as much of a lark building indomitable tanks who soak up damage and dish it back out again to devastating effect.

So I’ve been having a pretty good time, then. Just not as much as I expected. And a big part of that is probably because I was expecting Zero Company to push the blockbuster tactics game forward a bit more. XCOM 2 is a decade old but has yet to be shoved off its throne—and to do that will require a boldness that I’ve not really seen here. Little of it feels like evolution, and in some cases it feels like a step back—albeit an enjoyable one all the same.

Hopefully it takes bigger swings later in the campaign. Otherwise, I think it might leave me pining for XCOM and Midnight Suns again.