After Firaxis Games introduced XCOM back into the world of mainstream gaming back in 2012, it has felt like the turn-based tactical genre has never been the same again. The franchise about defending earth from an invading hoard of aliens truly captured the imagination, as its brutal combat and perma-death mechanics changed the game for anyone that followed. More than that, it also reminded the mainstream video games industry that tactical experiences are not solely the reserve of PCs.
Publisher Electronic Arts was surprisingly coy about the full details of Star Wars: Zero Company until relatively close to the game’s release late last month. However, even from the glimpses there were prior, many fans’ observations were that it looked like a true love letter and homage to modern XCOM in a Star Wars skin. Look a little deeper, though, and this is a game that strays beyond just being a clone.
Firstly, unlike XCOM, which has a thin narrative thread dangled strongly by the player’s decisions, Zero Company throws a full-budget Star Wars production no less than anyone who has watched any of the recent Disney Plus series will be familiar with. Commanding the elite and elusive Zero Company group is former Republic officer Hawks, who it is soon revealed is bitter after being dismissed from the army following a mission against the Separatists gone wrong.
If all this seems familiar, it’s because Zero Company takes place in the twilight of the Clone Wars era of Star Wars – a period of the saga which is ripe for so many more experiences to explore beyond the rather more well-trodden “between Episode 3 and 4” setting. Indeed, the choice to position Zero Company here opens up so many interesting possibilities for cameos as is seen throughout the 40-hour linear campaign.
It is fantastic to bump into some well-known faces – from a few fan favourites to more obscure characters – and while the story is always on the edge of the core narrative of Jedi versus Sith, it never feels isolated from it. The little touches like listening to news reports about some of the key moments of the Clone Wars do an excellent job at knitting all the threads of this universe together.
As alluded to, Hawks and his team is made up of a variety of interesting characters and personalities, plus more generic recruitable soldiers that are not going to be fighting on the fields of Geonosis alongside Mace Windu. Instead, they are plucked out of debt trouble to the Hutts and are recruited for an operation by Republic Intelligence to stop the Infinite Coil, a Separatist-aligned cult, and their leader Kundri Fathom before the deadly Shadow Plague consumes the galaxy.
While they do a serviceable job as main antagonists and certainly are a useable plot device, it does give the impression of a mid-level threat that’s never going to challenge the overriding “big bad” that anyone playing a Star Wars game is fully aware of. It’s a challenge so much of the expanded universe of this mammoth franchise has faced and it’s the same pitfall here – how to make a tangible threat when just out of earshot there are supernatural beings that can move ships with their minds. With all that said, half the fun in any of these XCOM clones is the player almost crafting their own side story with the ups and downs of managing a base of characters, and – more importantly – keeping them alive.
Similarly, Zero Company maintains lots of the great aspects of XCOM, including building up a base and upgrading it to unlock new perks and abilities, recruiting new characters to go on missions, and then picking and choosing which missions to embark on. While there are numerous set piece moments throughout the campaign, it’s fair to say two people’s experiences are rarely likely to be the same. The game provides interesting dilemmas, with limited resources meaning it isn’t possible to do every mission available on the holo-board. Send a crew off to one planet to rescue a particular character and they might unlock a new weapon, but at the expense of a haul of credits.
While recruitment is a key part of the game, one of the challenges in Zero Company that wasn’t ever a problem in XCOM is the fact that the main companions of Hawks, Trick, Kabb – and three more of the unique characters – are just better personalities and make it largely redundant to ever bother with other generic “recruits”. The generous perk and abilities system in Zero Company also means that unlike XCOM’s more rigid specialisations, there’s plenty of scope here to mould the main characters rather than compromising to get a balanced team. It’s a minor issue when the characters are so likeable, but it does detract somewhat from a key aspect of the genre.
Caring about these characters is important as once they die after suffering multiple injuries, they are gone forever, and while there are lots of accessibility options to tone down the difficulty, it feels wrong to turn off one of the central pillars of these types of games. Some of the battles are quite tough here and it takes a full grasp of the mechanics to succeed. Thankfully, anyone versed in the XCOM games will feel right at home.
It’s actually remarkably similar in the core aspects of gameplay. There are the light and heavy cover systems which are key to survival, the overwatch mechanic that is vital in taking out enemy squads, a whole suite of abilities for each character – from those who focus on close combat to snipers – and it even has XCOM‘s notorious percentage chance of hits display (if one more point-blank 85% chance shot is missed… grrr). With the danger of losing characters, however, comes such exhilarating tension. So many times during the adventure the difference between losing a key hero and keeping them alive is simply the roll of a dice. When a plan comes together and a character’s abilities and weapons synchronise into that one killer move, there’s no better feeling.
If there was no grand story filled with cutscenes and set-piece moments, it would almost be easy to confuse Star Wars: Zero Company for a highly detailed mod of XCOM. That sounds like more of a criticism than is intended. Given XCOM is such a polished game, it’s hard to innovate too much in the moment-to-moment gameplay without ruining something.
Where Zero Company shines in its own right, though, is in that Star Wars atmosphere and feel it exudes. From the multitude of planets the team traverses, and even the loading screen of the ship jumping to hyperspace before entering a mission, it’s top-drawer from an immersion point of view. It’s the little touches that make such a difference, like controlling the party in third person around the main base and in story missions as opposed to just a bland menu system.
The quality of the voice acting is particularly up there also, which is pleasing given just how much narrative there is across the dozens of hours of gameplay. The unique personalities of each of the characters really shine in their voices, and give that extra incentive to keep alive. Even the player-designed character of Hawks – there are a ton of customisable body and clothing options – who represents a kind of Mass Effect Commander Shepard vibe, is excellently memorable where sometimes these generic player-character leader types can fade into the background a bit.
Add to that music that is quintessential Star Wars straight from any of the movies or TV shows, and it really does a great job at sucking the player into the story. What maybe slightly lets down that otherwise engaging story is some of the dialogue that creeps a little too close into the Marvel territory at times. There’s a place for humour, but not every moment has to have a punchline. That said, in the main it is impressive just how cinematic some of the key scenes and plot points end up being.
If all that sounds excellent from a story and core gameplay loop, then maybe the slight downfall of Zero Company comes in its performance. Cubed3 tested Star Wars: Zero Company on both Xbox Series X and Series S. It’s clear Series S has seen some compromises, with framerate aiming for 30 but sometimes dipping below, and a wide issue of textures popping in and failing to load. It’s not even a case of an initial texture problem when first loading and then it being solved – no, textures continually popped in and out. Meanwhile, there are widespread reports of crashing from some users.
Xbox Series X fares much better with the ability to also utilise either performance mode – which opens up 60fps – or quality mode for better lighting and effects locked at 30fps. That said, even across the consoles and PC, texture load-in continues to be an issue. While the technical problems slightly hinder the gameplay, they don’t detract usually from the overall experience. In the heat of battle, any of the graphical issues tend to fade into the background in what is still a beautiful game even on Series S. Given the inherent stop-start nature of gameplay, the framerate also doesn’t tend to be a dealbreaker where in some other genres it might be.
