Bit Reactor aims to make Zero Company welcoming to newcomers without watering it down for veteran tactics players.
Star Wars: Zero Company is a turn-based tactics game set during the Clone Wars, but it’s not just built for diehards. It’s designed to make room for both experienced strategy fans and newcomers who might be drawn in by the Star Wars setting. That means narrative and mechanics are working together, not competing for your attention.
Instead of overwhelming players with systems and options from the start, the game introduces its tactical layers gradually. According to Bit Reactor’s creative director Greg Foertsch, the team wants to lead with story, not just to set the tone, but to serve as a natural tutorial system. This avoids the usual problem many tactics games face: front-loading the player with rules, numbers, and exceptions before the plot even gets going.
A lot of times the mechanics can overwhelm and you tack the story on later,” Foertsch said. “We’re doing the opposite. By using the story to guide us, it doesn’t shut down doors, it opens them.”
That philosophy runs through the whole structure of the game. If you’re here for a Star Wars tale about loyalty, conflict, and wartime leadership, the game will support that. If you’re more interested in challenge and tactical experimentation, you’ll find options like permadeath to raise the stakes. You can lean into whichever style suits you without the experience breaking apart.
If you want to experience the game for the story, it’s there. If you want to play and you want to have permadeath, guess what? You can do that too.”
This dual approach isn’t about simplifying the genre, it’s about accessibility without compromise. It reflects a growing design trend where strategy games stop assuming every player has 100 hours to master them, but still respect the players who do.
Lucasfilm’s Kelsey Sharpe also highlighted how the Star Wars universe allows Bit Reactor to approach the tactics genre from a different angle. In most games of this type, your options are grounded. Grenades, overwatch, suppression. Here, there’s more room for creative mechanics that still feel authentic: Force abilities, astromech assists, and unexpected interactions between squad members who come from very different parts of the galaxy.
So much of Star Wars storytelling is based on the relationships that characters build with each other,” Sharpe said. “You’re getting to know the authored characters, you’re creating these custom ones, and you’re making gameplay decisions that affect both combat and what happens back at the Den.”
The Den is your base of operations, a place where choices made on the battlefield ripple through character relationships and story branches. Some characters won’t always get along. Some may not return from missions. And your decisions around deployment will shape how that all plays out.
Star Wars: Zero Company launches in 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It’s aiming to strike a tone more in line with Rogue One and Andor than traditional power fantasy. That darker edge suits the Clone Wars backdrop, and it might be the key to pulling in fans who’ve been waiting for a Star Wars game with more tactical weight and narrative consequence.