The review embargo for Star Wars Zero Company has lifted, and the first wave of critics mostly likes what Bit Reactor has built. The turn-based tactics game earns strong marks for its combat, squad building, and story, while several reviewers flag a linear campaign and rough technical shape on PC.
The short version: it plays like XCOM, but it tells a story like Mass Effect and structures itself like Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Tactical combat is the most consistently praised part. Positioning, abilities, and squad composition carry the encounters, and the dual-specialization system lets you mix two classes per character for unusual builds.
Reviewers also single out the character work. Zero Company leans much harder on narrative than modern XCOM does, pairing a fixed cast with customizable mercenaries. Voice acting drew positive notes, including both versions of protagonist Hawks, a customizable ex-Republic officer.
There’s a story difficulty for newcomers, and permadeath is reportedly optional rather than forced.
Where it differs from XCOM
This isn’t XCOM with a Star Wars skin. There aren’t any procedurally generated maps: every battlefield is handcrafted. The campaign is authored and linear, closer to XCOM: Chimera Squad, Gears Tactics, or Fire Emblem than the sandbox of XCOM 2.
One review pegged the campaign at roughly 40 hours, with estimates generally landing in the 30-40 hour range. You get more missions than you can fit into a single run, so mission choice creates some variation, but replay value comes mainly from different squads, builds, and difficulty settings.
Bit Reactor has also said it has no plans for official modding tools, which rules out the kind of community scene that kept XCOM 2 alive for a decade. And despite the Mass Effect comparisons, there isn’t a romance system.
Your Steam Deck is going to hate this
PC performance is the biggest red flag. A reviewer running hardware close to the recommended specs at medium settings reported regular freezes, frequent crashes, and lockups that needed a hard restart. The same reviewer said stuttering from the preview build had improved.
Others reported minor visual glitches, camera issues during attack zoom-ins, missing animations, and dead enemies staying upright until the end of the turn. At least one reviewer saw improvements after a day-zero patch, so the launch build may not match what critics tested.
Star Wars Zero Company is developed by Bit Reactor, founded by former Firaxis developers, with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games, and published by EA. It’s set in the closing days of the Clone Wars and is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
