Star Wars Zero Firm: A New Hope for Flip-Based mostly Techniques

Once I spoke with the Inventive Director and Lead Designer of Star Wars Zero Firm earlier this summer season, I left extraordinarily excited in regards to the promise of a turn-based techniques recreation set amid the Clone Wars, made by seasoned palms behind a few of the style’s finest.

Now that I’ve performed 15 hours of a preview construct over the course of every week, I’m thrilled to report that it completely lives as much as that immense promise. Star Wars Zero Firm is the proper fusion of style, developer, and mental property into one thing particular that bodes effectively for the way forward for each techniques and Star Wars video games.

Final Staff

You play Hawks, a former Republic officer who now leads the eponymous Zero Firm of mercenaries, starting as many nice Star Wars tales do: suffocating in debt to the Hutt crime syndicate. Quickly, a displaced noble and a Republic Intelligence agent strategy them about investigating a harmful cult, the Coil, spreading within the outer reaches of the galaxy alongside a mysterious and terrifying plague. It’s a basic, morally clear premise to get you proper into the motion of preventing smugglers, cultists, and droids in gripping, turn-based tactical battles.

As is so typically the case in Star Wars, what actually elevates the proceedings is the scrappy, discovered household of outsiders at your facet. In fact, one unlucky Rodian doesn’t survive the tutorial mission to strengthen how permadeath works (happening in fight provides a wound, and accumulating 3 wounds with out resting is finish of the road). That leaves you with a beginning squad of discharged clone trooper Trick and ex-convict/boxer, Kabb Uppercut (a very basic Star Wars identify, and likewise my Hawks’ finest pal in accordance with the bond system, which rewards tracks and rewards characters that do quite a bit collectively). Quickly you’re joined by Jae Mordant, the aforementioned noble whose mining citadel was stolen from her by Fathom, chief of the Coil.

Nevertheless it’s not lengthy till you’re rising that squad your self. Early on, I additionally recruited two totally different snipers from the procedurally generated pool of potential teammates out there for rent: Yaan Nia, a human insurgent firebrand that I took as a result of she seems to be type of like Kleya from “Andor,” and Kos Niemz, a steely Weequay mercenary that I took as a result of she seems to be type of like a California Raisin. I fell in love with each of them virtually instantly – procedurally generated characters, pinging off each other in emergent, systematized relationships, to not point out the looming risk of loss of life, is a confirmed system in numerous video games from The Sims to XCOM to RimWorld. As you would possibly count on, Star Wars is a fully excellent setting for it, overflowing with iconic species and archetypes to combine and match like motion figures in your individual sandbox. This will probably be nice fodder for imaginative streamers, like XCOM was earlier than it.

Along with totally customizing the looks and specialization of Hawks at first, it’s also possible to respec any of the above characters at any time. The one characters you may’t change are these you may recruit with distinctive specializations (up to now, a Jedi Padawan and a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter). For the generated characters, you may even change their look and character everytime you need. You may as well construct characters from scratch from the beginning menu, and allow or disable them for recruitment. It actually is among the most sturdy toolkits I’ve ever seen for customizing your individual adventuring crew of ‘Star Wars guys’ this facet of a tabletop role-playing recreation.

My Hawks began as a Scoundrel, however Kabb additionally had that class, so as an alternative I quickly switched her to a quick-firing Gunslinger, with a view to reap the benefits of a weapon mod I’d discovered that utilized accumulating burn standing on each assault. I may simply as simply think about extra RP-minded gamers utilizing these customization techniques to make narrative-driven modifications to their crew, like new scars and a change of function after a near-death expertise. Zero Firm empowers gamers each strategically and aesthetically to freely experiment with establishing precisely the crew of operators that they need, whereas reserving the intense friction for the place it belongs: the tactical battles.

Blorbo Chess

Fight will, in broad strokes, really feel proper at house to turn-based techniques veterans. Every of your characters has 3 motion factors per spherical, to be spent on transferring, attacking, or utilizing objects and skills. You alternate between taking all your actions and the enemies taking theirs as you struggle via varied docks, touchdown pads, and different unique locales throughout the galaxy far, far-off. Goals are usually divided between standing and preventing till you’ve defeated everybody, or attaining a set job (akin to rescuing a hostage or holding a spot for a number of turns whilst you steal one thing) after which transferring to an extraction zone whereas extra enemies pour in.

Your squad’s strongest talents require a shared useful resource, Benefit, as an alternative of motion factors, which accumulates as much as a max of 10 when any of your crew efficiently offers harm to the enemy. This component of tempo results in huge, dramatic swing turns the place you flip the tide of battle with a determined, creative, heroic mixture of strikes out of your crew, and is an ideal instance of how the spirit of Star Wars infuses the design from prime to backside.

Lead Designer James Brawley instructed me in June about how he sees techniques video games as a option to generate numerous distinctive puzzles from the mixtures of enemies, environments, and your talents. It feels nice to go from panicking in regards to the seemingly not possible again foot the enemy has me on, via assessing my choices and eking out one other victory, spherical by spherical. On the builders’ suggestion as a style veteran, I performed on Onerous (third highest out of 4 difficulties) and located it very properly difficult, almost all the time feeling like I’m scraping by and taking a wound or two, although not but shedding anybody completely. There are well-balanced choices to use roughly problem to fit your style, and the cutely named Beskar mode is that this recreation’s equal for XCOM’s Ironman, with no reloading earlier saves.

I’ve solely simply scratched the floor of how a lot selection there may be to discover within the fight and crew composition. One of many greater eye-opening moments of my playthrough was after I lastly acquired an astromech, which has no fundamental assault, however carries three totally different utility objects – all forms of grenade, on this case – with two makes use of every (versus one slot and one use for everybody else up to now). Utilizing them acquired me to start out pondering extra laterally about how I used grenades with different characters as effectively, akin to utilizing the concussive grenade to knock individuals off the map totally. Brawley had talked about that he appreciated having the ability to area a squad totally of astromechs, partially as a form of homage to his childhood curiosity of operating all white mages in Ultimate Fantasy. I sit up for exploring this big selection of choices that open up as the sport proceeds.

House Is The place the Holotable Is

Between missions you retire to The Den, your cozy base of operations on a dramatic former mining-turned-trading outpost known as the Ring of Kafrene (first featured at first of “Rogue One,” the place Cassian Andor’s contact confirms the existence of the Loss of life Star and units the plot in movement). Right here you run round in third particular person to speak together with your crew, handle your assets and crew, and choose your subsequent mission on the holotable.

Along with selecting your subsequent mission, the holotable additionally has a strategic map of your affect all through totally different sectors of the galaxy, unlocking varied rewards as you do issues in them. Operations are little text-based storylets that you choose from the holotable between area missions, often with a alternative to find out the end result, typically requiring you to ship operators out with related dangers. These typically advance the primary story or side-quests as a part of narrative chains resulting in missions, however are sometimes simply one other option to get the credit, intel, and equipment that you might want to function. For sure, significantly charged ethical decisions, everybody in your squad could have an opinion, with the UI clearly exhibiting how every possibility will have an effect on Hawks’ bond degree with each different character. All these techniques satisfyingly interlock to offer you numerous little decisions that dynamically feed again on each other – it provides off that basic, Sid Meier sense of a recreation being “a sequence of fascinating selections.”

Apart from strategic administration of your personnel and tools, the Den additionally serves as a fantastic narrative interlude to your harrowing battles, studying extra in regards to the members of your squad in addition to different, non-combatant members of the crew, like your wry android physician. Dropout star Vic Michaelis stands out specifically as Runa Blask, a Togruta (like Ahsoka) former Separatist partisan finance knowledgeable who’s change into Hawks’ fundamental advisor. She’s extraordinarily sensible, slightly imply, and won’t hesitate to let you know the way a lot she hates the Republic. I actually want she’d choose up a blaster and be a part of us within the area.

Go See a Star Warfare

Ask me a number of years in the past, and I’d have simply instructed you that I’m extra of a Trek man, however the one-two punch of “Andor” and now Star Wars Zero Firm has significantly shifted that heart of gravity. Very like that distinctive TV sequence, Zero Firm places Star Wars in a barely totally different style context than I’m used to, carried out with such ability and care that it makes me recognize with contemporary eyes what’s all the time been nice in regards to the franchise, like discovered households, cute little aliens, and the tinny voices of hapless, overconfident B-Collection battle droids being instantly owned (they’re fodder enemies that go down in the event you breathe on them, and it by no means stopped being humorous).

It’s additionally all the time nice to see builders whose work I’ve liked unfold their wings at a brand new studio. Even on the preview stage, Star Wars Zero Firm is a incredible first outing for Bit Reactor, and past wanting ahead to taking part in extra of it, I’m additionally already enthusiastic about no matter they resolve to do subsequent.

I’m desirous to get again to the adventures of my Blorbos quickly when Star Wars Zero Firm launches on XBOX Collection X|S on August 27, 2026.

STAR WARS Zero Firm™ Deluxe Version

Digital Arts

☆☆☆☆☆
31

★★★★★

$69.99

$62.99

Pre-order* STAR WARS Zero Firm™ to outfit your droids with the Crystalline Astromech Pack Preorder Bonus, which incorporates the R3 droid and translucent “crystalline” astromech heads for the R4, R5 droid variants, in addition to Star Wars Zero Firm’s™ unique BR-1 droid.

Unlock distinctive beauty objects impressed by the Clone Wars™ period with Star Wars Zero Firm™ Deluxe Version.

The “Grand Military of the Republic” Beauty Pack
• “Republic Officer” Uniform
• “one hundredth Clone Firm” Armor Set
• “ARC Trooper” Armor Set

The “Shadow Collective” Beauty Pack
• “Pyke” Helmet Beauty
• 5 beauty tattoos
‎ – “Pyke Syndicate”
‎ – “Hutt Cartel”
‎ – “Loss of life Watch”
‎ – “Black Solar Syndicate”
‎ – “Crimson Daybreak”

5 Weapon Set Themes
• “one hundredth Clone Firm”
• “Kafrene Informant”
• “Black Solar Syndicate Enforcer”
• “Bespin Safety”
• “Separatist Warrior”

Command an elite squad via a gritty and genuine story in Star Wars Zero Firm™, a single-player turn-based techniques recreation set within the twilight of the Clone Wars™.

Lead the Clone Wars’ Most Crafty Operatives
Command the galaxy’s most interesting in tactical operations, investigations and different heart-pounding missions via a cinematic unique story.

Select Your Path to Victory
Strategize and adapt to make each transfer rely. The outcomes of your selections make every playthrough totally different.

Interact in Tactical Star Wars Fight
Deploy a crew of operatives starting from scoundrels to astromechs, or perhaps a Jedi, selecting from an arsenal of talents to defeat your foes.

Forge Deep Bonds together with your Squad
Enhance your squad’s abilities on missions, as they study to work collectively and unlock new fight synergies.

Personalize Your Battle
Customise Hawks’ fight specialization and look, then fill your crew with unique and custom-made Star Wars characters, tailoring their appearances, loadouts, and skills.

*Situations and restrictions apply. See for particulars.
Lucasfilm, STAR WARS and associated properties are logos and/or copyrights, in the US and different international locations, of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its associates. © & TM 2026 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.

STAR WARS Zero Firm™

Digital Arts

☆☆☆☆☆
31

★★★★★

$59.99

$53.99

Pre-order* STAR WARS Zero Firm™ to outfit your droids with the Crystalline Astromech Pack Preorder Bonus, which incorporates the R3 droid and translucent “crystalline” astromech heads for the R4, R5 droid variants, in addition to Star Wars Zero Firm’s™ unique BR-1 droid.

Command an elite squad via a gritty and genuine story in Star Wars Zero Firm™, a single-player turn-based techniques recreation set within the twilight of the Clone Wars™.

You’ll step into the sneakers of Hawks, a former Republic officer who leads Zero Firm as they’re recruited for an operation that pits them in opposition to an rising risk that can eat the galaxy if left unchecked.

Lead the Clone Wars’ Most Crafty Operatives
Command the galaxy’s most interesting in tactical operations, investigations and different heart-pounding missions via a cinematic unique story.

Select Your Path to Victory
Strategize and adapt at each your base of operations and an ever-shifting battlefield to make each transfer rely. The outcomes of your selections make every playthrough totally different.

Interact in Tactical Star Wars Fight
Deploy a crew of operatives composed of a wide range of archetypes starting from scoundrels to astromechs, or perhaps a Jedi, selecting from an arsenal of tactical talents to outmaneuver and defeat your foes.

Forge Deep Bonds together with your Squad
Enhance your squad’s abilities as you deploy them on missions, the place they study to work collectively and unlock new fight synergies that may very well be the distinction between victory and defeat.

Personalize Your Battle
Customise Hawks’ fight specialization and look, then fill out your crew with unique and custom-made Star Wars characters, tailoring their appearances, loadouts, and skills to suit your playstyle.

*Situations and restrictions apply. See for particulars.
Lucasfilm, STAR WARS and associated properties are logos and/or copyrights, in the US and different international locations, of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its associates. © & TM 2026 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.