Star Wars Zero Company is out in the wild, and early coverage lands on a familiar comparison: this is a turn-based tactics game clearly cut from the XCOM cloth, now dressed in Star Wars gear. Eurogamer's hands-on impressions and a batch of PC Gamer strategy guides give a decent picture of how it plays and what players can expect once they start building a squad.
Not Quite XCOM
The skeleton will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has sweated over a missed 85 percent shot. You move units around cover, weigh whether to push forward or hold back, and shuttle between street-level missions and a home base you build out between fights. But Eurogamer notes the game fiddles with the classic template in a few ways. Instead of the traditional two action points per turn, operators get three. There is a cone-based system for aiming Overwatch attention by hand, and a new resource called Advantage Points in the mix.
Eurogamer's overriding takeaway is tonal: the outlet argues that Zero Company nails a "toy-like" feel that suits Star Wars better than the fast-paced Battlefront shooters. The small-scale skirmishes, the reliance on cover, and the give-and-take of turns all echo the intimate, imagination-driven play of arranging action figures, where a handful of individual units get to feel special rather than getting lost in a crowd. The impressions were written early, still "barely out of the tutorial," so treat them as a first look rather than a verdict.
Building Your Squad
PC Gamer's guides dig into the systems you will spend the most time with. Recruitable operators each come with a class and a talent, and crucially, both can be changed later through a change-specialization menu. That means the guide's advice is to recruit characters you actually like the look of rather than chasing a specific talent, since you can retune the build afterward.
There are eight classes in the mix: Assault, Gunslinger, Heavy, Medic, Scoundrel, Scout, Sharpshooter, and Soldier. On top of those sit ten talents, each with three upgrade levels. A few examples PC Gamer highlights:
- A Life of Labor stacks up health, defense, and melee damage bonuses, making it a solid all-round pick.
- Anticipation grants evasion stacks so an operator can dodge incoming attacks, up to three per turn at max level, which PC Gamer calls "somewhat cracked."
- Grit applies invulnerability against the next attack and boosts health.
- The Bigger They Are... adds bonus damage against elite and boss enemies.
- Support talents like Thievery and Espionage let operators farm extra credits or intel from missions.
PC Gamer's overall steer is that A Life of Labor, Anticipation, and Grit are strong on nearly any class, while synergies emerge for specific roles: Heavies want Taunt to draw fire, single-target Sharpshooters pair well with the guaranteed-crit Cold-Blooded, and support classes like Medic and Scout can lean into damage avoidance or resource farming.
What It Means for Players
If you have been waiting for a meaty single-squad tactics game with a Star Wars coat of paint, Star Wars Zero Company appears to deliver the XCOM loop with enough new wrinkles (three action points, the Overwatch cone, Advantage Points) to keep genre veterans experimenting. The forgiving respec system also means you can commit to characters you enjoy without locking yourself into a bad build. Between Eurogamer's warm early impressions and PC Gamer's build guidance, tactics fans have a clear reason to keep this one on their radar.
