Star Wars Zero Company Review, Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Top Features

Star Wars Zero Company from developers Bit Reactor and Respawn Entertainment takes a familiar genre, puts a beloved franchise in the thick of it and invites players to dive deep.

Comparisons to genre heavyweights like XCOM are inescapable. No accident: Names who worked on XCOM and the criminally underrated Marvel's Midnight Suns have a hand in the efforts here.

The result is an easy to pick up and play experience with some surprising depth and a Star Wars tale that is very strong in narrative and memorable characters.

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Zero Company has, without a doubt, the potential to be one of the best games of the year and soon have new releases being compared to it, not the other way around.

Zero Company's production values are…intense.

This is easily one of the best-looking games on the market and the authenticity to the Star Wars brand is both impressive and super immersive.

It has all the bells and whistles, really. The powerhouse graphics look great, the sound design is splendid, the ambiance and overall soundtrack is exactly what it needs to be for the brand and the overall package is exactly what one would dream up when thinking about a Star Wars themed XCOM.

Indeed, Zero Company isn't trying to duck comparisons with its gameplay. Rather, it's trying to layer atop the tried-and-true stuff.

The cover system is there. Full cover is a 50 percent penalty. Flanking leads to exposure states. Certain cover can be destroyed. There's an overwatch system to make characters auto-shoot opponents that enter the zone. Action points per turn govern, well, actions.

And yes, the hallmark of the genre, missing on a shot that has a 90 percent chance to hit? It's there.

Interesting layerings on the formula include being able to call for backup once per turn, assisting attacks. There are ultimate abilities, too, charged through an "advantage" point system shared by all friendly characters that increases by attacking enemies.

These ultimate abilities range from massive things like a rocket launcher attack to less costly, little strategy nuance, such as the ability to refresh a squadmate's AP for that turn.

Different primary weapons define each type of character capable of being added to squads.

Each character, too can equip a certain amount of utilities, talents and specializations.

Specializations won't shock those familiar with XCOM games and similar. Characters can go full-blown assault, the tank-like heavy class, medic, and so on.

Speaking of character and squad makeup, there are stakes. Characters getting defeated rack up injuries. A third injury means permadeath for a character, so players must carefully manage things not just in battle, but post-and-pre battle, too. Except for the main character, anyway, that just leads to a game-over.

Impressive depth and teambuilding strategies here too, no doubt. There's no restriction on pairing certain primary weapons with certain specializations. Weapons being moddable, too, is one of the many things that will lead to unique player-to-player builds that can change for a variety of different encounters.

Mission structures get a nice mixup too. Side missions are standard things like rescue missions or hold-the-area waves. But story missions can have multiple stages with some exploration and storytelling phases to break up the action.

Zero Company hits on some of the best story beats and characters the Star Wars universe has offered in years.

Players assume the role of Hawks, the leader of the game's namesake, "Zero Company." There's a rebellious nature to it all, and baddies to fight and the narrative does a good job of looping in the many different types of enemies and characters documented in a way that makes sense.

Beyond the narrative, managing the "Den" is similar to a variety of games. There's always a ton to do, to the point it might turn some players away because they just want to get back into the fights. Others, though, will appreciate the depth and the sense of immersion it provides in terms of really feeling in command of a multi-layered organization.

The hub does some of the basic stuff players would expect. Players can recruit new members and outfit their squads, among other things.

There are little side missions too that can be largely text-based. It's immersive to pop into the operations center and make key strategic decisions for in-progress, off-screen missions, even if they're simple text-based experiences.

Perhaps a refreshing twist on the concept, at least for similar strategy games, is being able to put boots on the ground and go around talking to characters. It's a fun wrinkle similar to old Star Wars classics like Knights of the OId Republic, which can help players care about the characters they're sending into battle more than usual.

Along the way, Zero Company runs well and has the expected suite of options within the solid UI.

Zero Company sort of snuck up on the gaming calendar this year. A tactical RPG in the XCOM mold with Star Wars window dressing was a little easy to overlook.

There's a great Star Wars tale here and the combination of the source material and genre is a no-brainer in a way Gears War Tactics or Midnight Suns were years ago. The gameplay is a chef's kiss balance between pick-up-and-play approachable and where-did-the-hours-go strategic.

Not bad for Zero Company, really, a bit of an underdog story that now lands as a serious Game of the Year contender.