Star Wars Zero Company Review

While the world of Star Wars continues to expand with new films like “The Mandalorian & Grogu” and Disney+ shows like “Ahsoka”, it also continues to deliver new stories via video games.

One of the latest video games to be released is “Star Wars Zero Company”, a new single-player turn-based tactics game set in the twilight of the Clone Wars, which is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and PC.

“Star Wars Zero Company” tells the story of a former Republic officer, Hawks, and Zero Company, an elite squad of unconventional professionals for hire, who are recruited for an operation by Republic Intelligence. From ex-nobles to ex-cons, they now share one mission: Stop the Infinite Coil, a Separatist-aligned cult, and their leader Kundri Fathom before the deadly Shadow Plague consumes the galaxy.

While I’ve was never a huge fan of turn-based video games for years, over the past few years, I’ve been slowly beginning to enjoy the format, with games like Marvel’s “Midnight Sons” and “Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus”, which have been allowing me to dip my toe into this format, that I always thought was a little slow compared to traditional action games. And I think “Star Wars Zero Company” is the next game to continue my conversion over to this format, as I’ve been really enjoying playing through the campaign.

Each character you can add to your team generally has a different skill or style, such as someone who is good in melee or can move farther, while another character might be better at shooting. So on a team of four characters, you want a little bit of everything to complete the missions.  

One of the things I really enjoyed about this latest video game is how the story is such a massive part of the game, but more importantly, it’s a new, original story that takes place within the Star Wars universe, but isn’t just about the Skywalkers. Something we are seeing more and more. While I love the films and shows, being able to expand out stories with video games, comic books and novels is one of the great things about this franchise.

There are some elements of this game I do find frustrating, as with too many video games at the moment, is that there is too much focus on skill trees, customising characters, upgrades and many other countless menus that can be confusing to a beginner, but more importantly, feel like a way of expanding a game past its core focus. Some people might enjoy tinkering with characters’ skill trees to increase stats to adjust a gameplay style to their own, but personally, I’m more than happy to have a default character and play straight through with that.

I do like how the game forces you to adjust your team for a specific task, as I did hit a mission that I was really struggling with, so I had to go back and adjust what time I was taking to handle it better. As with any game, there are different difficulty settings, so if you want to play through with just focusing on the story, you can make it easier; alternatively, if you want to make it more difficult, you can play through on harder modes. For me, I started on normal, but decided to downgrade to the story mode as I was getting a little frustrated with having to repeat some missions. I’m glad that option is there, and everyone can adjust the game’s difficulty based on their skill and how much free time they have.

Overall: “Star Wars Zero Company” was a complete breath of fresh air for me personally, and this game was able to deliver an interesting new storyline, away from the main Skywalker saga, while also delivering a challenging game, which made me think about what I needed to do in order to complete a mission, rather than just bashing buttons.  This slow pace made me really enjoy each level, and I’ll be honest, I’ve been to bed every night since this game’s release, because I just can’t put it down and want to finish that mission, which is always a good mark of a game that’s captivated my attention.  

Rating: 4 Out Of 5

“Star Wars Zero Company” is out now on PC via the EA app, Steam, and Epic Games Store, and PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series consoles. Electronic Arts provided me with a copy of the game for review purposes.