An 86 doesn’t look like a number worth writing home about. In Star Wars, it puts you in the top five.
That’s where Star Wars: Zero Company sits at the time of writing, and the reviews only just landed. Bit Reactor’s XCOM-style tactics game has done the thing that gets harder every year: made a Star Wars game that belongs in the conversation about the greats.
Where it sits among the greats
Zero Company is currently tied with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Ahead of it: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast at 89, Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2 at 90, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 at 91 and Knights of the Old Republic at 94.
That’s the company it’s keeping. Considering how many Star Wars games exist, cracking that tier is an increasingly tough ask.
The villain doing the heavy lifting
IGN’s Dan Stapleton gave it a 9/10 and made a point of saying this isn’t a costume change. Zero Company is “far more than a simple Star Wars reskin of XCOM,” Stapleton wrote.
He singled out the story, calling it one of the best Star Wars stories we’ve seen since Rogue One. A lot of that credit goes to Fathom, the villain.
“It’s a welcome change of pace to be up against something at least a bit more original than yet another Sith-like villain,” Stapleton wrote in his review. “Fortunately, Fathom is largely allowed to remain mysterious during her chilling performance, and her relationship with her henchman son prevents her from becoming a two-dimensional villain.”
The build-crafting goes deeper than expected
PC Gamer scored it a 90. Reviewer Ted Litchfield also landed on the story as a strong point, and noted it doesn’t crowd out the complex, systems-heavy tactics game underneath.
“I was surprised at how much RPG buildcrafting there is in Zero Company,” Litchfield wrote. “We’re not quite at Rogue Trader levels of spreadsheet psychosis, but there are some fun synergies to exploit. A little ways in, Zero Company introduces multiclassing, and then we’re really off to the races.”
Not everyone agrees on what’s working. James Galizio, reviewing for Game Informer at 8/10, was less taken with the “competent if unremarkable story and characters.”
But he came around on the RPG systems, and gave the mission design real credit for making all that character-building matter.
“Growing and improving your operators is well enough on its own, but it wouldn’t be very satisfying if the game didn’t have strong map and mission design to back it up,” Galizio wrote. “Thankfully, it does; one standout mission had me dealing with enemy units, while at the same time fleeing towards an extraction point. Every turn, more and more of the map behind me became a death zone.”
A familiar formula, a very specific thrill
The story splits critics. The tactics don’t. Everyone seems to agree Zero Company is a strong riff on the XCOM formula, even the reviewers who think it plays things safe.
GamesRadar’s Alex Spencer admits it doesn’t do much to evolve the tactics genre. He also doesn’t much care, because of what the Star Wars trappings do to the whole thing.
“I’m willing to forgive a lot, for a game that can leave me feeling like I’ve dropped a proton torpedo down the exhaust shaft of my own personal Death Star,” Spencer wrote in a four-star review.
