Star Wars: Zero Company has a built-in advantage over most turn-based tactics games: the sheer range of enemies it can throw at you. The Clone Wars era is a chaotic stretch of Star Wars history packed with factions, armies, cults, mercenaries, criminals, breakaway movements, and opportunists. That gives the game access to a wide range of unit types, each with its own tactics and flavour.
Developed by Respawn and Bit Reactor, Zero Company is built around squad-level strategy and character-driven missions. Enemy variety needs to play a central role in how Zero Company functions. It affects team composition, mission planning, and how often the game can shift the tactical challenge. Without regular changes in enemy types, combat risks becoming predictable. When new threats appear, players are forced to adapt and reassess their approach. That’s what gives strategy games staying power.
Games like XCOM depend on a steady rotation of enemy types. Each new threat forces you to change tactics, rework your squad, or make hard trade-offs. Once a pattern settles in, the game needs to disrupt it. Without that pressure, missions start to blur together. Strategy turns into routine. Zero Company doesn’t need routine. It needs pressure. Enemy types should evolve across the campaign to keep players guessing. Surprise matters more than spectacle. The moment you can rely on one tactic to win every fight, the tension drops out.
The Clone Wars setting gives Zero Company a wide range of enemy types to work with. Droids are just the starting point. The era includes raiders, militias, crime syndicates, cults, mercenary crews, and Force-wielders with their own goals. Some groups are well known, others will be original. The variety is already built into the timeline; it just needs to be used well.
The Separatists alone provide a broad range of options. Battle droids are the most recognisable, but the faction also used droidekas, magnaguards, tactical units, and experimental models. The Clone Wars timeline allows room for more. Field tests, local variants, and improvised designs all fit. Respawn has the freedom to introduce new enemy types that challenge familiar tactics without breaking the setting.
Beyond that, Zero Company can draw from the rest of the galaxy. Several factions could easily slot into the campaign as hostile forces, each with distinct combat styles and unit types.
The Hutt Cartel
The Hutts control large sections of the Outer Rim through bribery, blackmail, and brute force. Their military power comes from hired muscle and enslaved populations, not formal armies. On the battlefield, they’re likely to deploy a mix of heavily armed mercenaries, brute enforcers, and criminal specialists with dirty tactics—flamethrowers, poison, traps, and shock weapons. Expect well-funded units backed by artillery or air support if needed, but without the discipline or coordination of trained forces. Their strength is in firepower, not finesse.
Black Sun Syndicate
Black Sun operates as a criminal syndicate with political reach and military capabilities. They favour well-equipped soldiers drawn from across the galaxy, often augmented with cybernetics or combat drugs. Their units are more organised than typical street-level gangs, using coordinated flanking, suppressive fire, and infiltration tactics. Expect mid-tier gear, cloaking tech, and specialists built for sabotage or assassination. On the field, they fight like a private army with underworld ethics. Brutal, efficient, and hard to pin down.
Umbaran Loyalist Forces
The Umbarans sided with the Separatists and fielded their own advanced military during the Clone Wars. Their forces use energy-based weapons, stealth gear, and heavy walkers with unusual designs. Umbaran tactics lean on misdirection, light manipulation, and tech superiority. The Zero Company trailer already confirmed an Umbaran sniper as an enemy unit—likely fast, accurate, and hard to detect. Expect encounters to feel surgical and unpredictable, with high-risk engagements in low-visibility zones.
Bounty Hunter Teams
These are small, elite groups with no shared doctrine. Each hunter brings unique gear and tactics, from jetpacks and grappling lines to EMP traps and thermal charges. They fight for credits, not ideology, and will disengage or switch sides if the terms change. Missions involving bounty hunters could vary wildly in tone and scale, from duels to ambushes to stand-offs involving civilians. They’re resourceful, mobile, and individually dangerous.
Nightsisters of Dathomir
Force-sensitive witches from Dathomir who specialise in dark side magic. They fight using enchanted weapons, necromancy, illusions, and ritual-based attacks. Standard tactics don’t apply. Their units might reanimate fallen enemies, vanish mid-fight, or manipulate the battlefield with non-physical effects. Combat is unpredictable, and success may rely more on psychological control and timing than firepower. They’re rare, but deadly.
Weequay Pirate Gangs
These groups operate across the Outer Rim, raiding convoys and seizing territory when the Republic and Separatists look away. Their forces are scrappy and mobile. Expect speeder bikes, jury-rigged weapons and modified transports. Anticipate hit-and-run tactics, looting objectives, and chaotic battlefield conditions. They rarely hold ground but will fight hard if cornered or if profit is on the line.
Onderonian Rebels
Led by local resistance leaders like Saw Gerrera, the Onderon rebels opposed Separatist rule through guerrilla warfare. Their units use traps, remote explosives, and terrain to their advantage. In missions involving them, expect ambushes, civilian shields, and unpredictable shifts in allegiance. They are ideological fighters, not mercenaries, and may test the player’s choices as well as their tactics.
Zygerrian Slave Armies
The Zygerrians built their power through slave labour and militarised enforcement. Their troops combine traditional slavers with captured species forced into service. On the field, they mix whips, stunners, and control tech with more standard blaster units. Some fights may involve suppressing rebellion within their ranks or facing waves of unwilling enemies. Morally murky and tactically unstable.
Each of these factions brings something different to the table: weapons, behaviours, and moral weight. The more Zero Company leans into that variety, the stronger its campaign structure will be. The setting works because it’s fractured and unpredictable. That’s what keeps players guessing. Strategy thrives on contrast. So does Star Wars.
Enemy variety changes how players think. It influences squad composition, skill choices, and mission planning. If the same enemies appear too often, players settle into routines and rely on a few safe tactics. But when new threats arrive at the right pace, the player has to stay alert. That’s what keeps a long campaign from going stale.
Zero Company doesn’t need to invent everything from scratch. The material already exists. The challenge is in how it’s used. Enemy types should be introduced with clear roles, rotated often, and spaced out to keep the pace varied. Done well, that keeps the player engaged from start to finish.
Strategy games don’t fall flat because they lack content. They fall flat when every fight feels the same. Zero Company has the setting and factions to avoid that. It just has to use them with intent.
If the design holds its nerve, Zero Company could set a new standard for strategy in Star Wars games.