Star Wars Zero Company is a project I've had my eye on for quite a while. An XCOM-like game set in the Star Wars universe with a strong focus on characters, rather than the generic soldiers of the former game? That's ticking all the right boxes for me.

The game's developer, Bit Reactor, consists of veterans from Firaxis, so this isn't new territory for them. Development began in 2022, and, according to an ever-reliable leaker, we'll see the culmination of the studio's efforts soon.

Zero'ing In On Zero Company

According to Billbil-kun at Dealabs, Star Wars Zero Company is set to release on August 27, right before the September period, which is set to be one of gaming's busiest ever release windows as publishers scramble to avoid clashing with Grand Theft Auto 6.

The release date is set to be officially revealed during tomorrow's Summer Game Fest stream. Star Wars Zero Company will be available for $49.99 (Standard) or $59.99 (Digital Deluxe).

Zero Company has been developed in collaboration with Respawn Entertainment; the now-deceased founder of the studio, Vince Zampella, invited XCOM art director Greg Foertsch to create a Star Wars tactics game under the Electronic Arts umbrella.

A big internal debate regarding Zero Company was whether to include permadeath, a mainstay of the XCOM series. In XCOM, the characters are player-created, so losing them is an emotional blow to the player, but they don't necessarily miss out on any content as a result of their characters' deaths.

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However, in Zero Company, the characters are fully realised with full voice acting and writing. The death of a character could deprive the player of future content and make some of the narrative design tricky to navigate, because you need characters that can't die to advance the plot, or you need fail-safes, which add development time.

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Ultimately, Bit Reactor felt the additional stakes and emotional depth that permadeath offered the game was worth the headache of trying to write around characters that may or may not be alive.

For my part, I wholeheartedly agree with them. I adore RPGs where facets of the game can dramatically change based on player actions, and I can already sense how replayable Zero Company is going to be if Bit Reactor can pull it off.

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Star Wars Zero Company

Turn-Based Strategy Tactical Sci-Fi Systems Released 2026 Developer(s) Bit Reactor Publisher(s) EA Franchise Star Wars
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Genre(s) Turn-Based Strategy, Tactical, Sci-Fi Powered by Expand Collapse