Bit Reactor and Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars strategy game finally has a title: Star Wars Zero Company. We'll get our first look at the long-awaited game, which was first announced back in 2022, at Star Wars Celebration Japan this weekend.
Star Wars Zero Company is described as a singleplayer turn based tactics game. It's being developed by Bit Reactor in collaboration with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games.
"Recruit an unconventional team of operatives and deploy them on missions unlike any other in the galaxy far, far away in Star Wars Zero Company!" the official Star Wars website teased.
While we'll have to wait until this weekend to get our first proper look at the game, EA did share some key art, giving us a look at "just a few members of the elite squad under your command."
Bit Reactor was formed around the time this Star Wars game was announced. Although it's still a relatively new studio, it's comprised of developers who have worked on some of the industry's biggest titles, including XCOM, Civilization, Gears of War, and Elders Scrolls Online. Directing Star Wars Zero Company is industry veteran Greg Foerstch, the art director for acclaimed strategy games XCOM 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
The Star Wars Zero Company panel is being held on April 19th at 4:30 p.m. JST (3:30 a.m. EST), so those of us in the U.S. will be waking up to a slew of new information about the highly anticipated game. The previously released panel description teased: "Join Bit Reactor, along with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games, for a first look at a new Star Wars turn-based tactics game."
It's unclear just how in-depth this first look will be. A cinematic trailer feels like a sure thing, but exactly how much gameplay we see is uncertain. Hopefully we get to see a top-level overview with basic gameplay mechanics at the very least.
Although details about Bit Reactor's Star Wars game have been light over the past couple of years, Foertsch did tell PC Gamer last summer that the title will offer more of a cinematic experience, though not at the sacrifice of gameplay.
"I think Hector [Antunez, lead animator] and I have a little bit of an axe to grind in general with the genre. There's this idea that depth costs you elegance," Foertsch said. "Like, oh, if it looks prettier, if it's immersive, if it's got a good story, well, something else got compromised. I say no, not really. I think that you can have both. I don't think that complexity equals depth. And I think that that's really what we're focused on. Differentiating that nuance between those two things."
With that in mind, it will be interesting to see how Bit Reactor blends the cinematic storytelling of the Star Wars franchise with the in-depth gameplay of a tactics game.