Every member of Zero Company is disposable. The Clone Trooper who saved your life, the old fella you affectionately refer to as ‘pops’, even the young padawan who tags along. Or, at least, the galaxy sees them as disposable. Much like you, they have nowhere else to go. Whether it’s the Republic, the Jedi Order, the Separatists, or any of the other Star Wars factions, everyone has been used and spat back out. You’re all still standing. Until you’re not.
This is to say, the cast of Star Wars Zero Company are as disposable as you allow them to be. This roleplaying XCOM-like is the closest a Star Wars game has come to making me truly feel like a down-on-their-luck merc with their back against the wall, and it was beautiful. It moves effortlessly between moreish combat and narrative beats so affecting that, at times, I wanted to put the controller down in the hope that everyone would be safe when I picked it back up. Star Wars Zero Company is the breath of life the series desperately needs.
Star Wars Zero Company kicks off at the tail end of The Clone Wars between the Republic and the Separatists. We are Hawks, a former Republic soldier turned mercenary who runs their own outfit and believes in very little aside from being able to pay rent.
Hawks is semi-customisable. You can choose from a range of origins, looks, and their first name. However, these are largely aesthetic; Hawks is otherwise a pre-written character.
Your motley crew joined Zero Company for their own reasons. Trick, the former Clone Trooper, wants to keep serving the Republic in his own way, after a head injury saw him reassigned to a non-combat role in the army - he is technically a defector, but don’t tell him that. Kabb is a grizzled old fighter who speaks in a Cockney rhyming slang-like language and, at first, just seems to be with you to pass the time. Runa is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire who acts like she’s rich enough to get screwed over by Republic taxes - but couldn’t cut it with the Separatists either.
This is where Star Wars Zero Company shines. Every major character is so well realised and it explores all aspects of The Clone Wars in more detail. They ooze charisma in even their throwaway banter on the ship, and have more chemistry with one another than a lot of party-based RPG squads - and that’s with the ability to lose any one of them to permadeath. I didn’t want to break this squad up. The idea of losing any of these operators made me feel like I was in a 30-hour Mass Effect 2 suicide mission.
That is far from the only Mass Effectism at play here. All of the major characters have their own story arcs, playing out through a series of side missions and conversations between deployments. There’s none of the choice-based divergences that you’d get in Mass Effect, but the rich writing is there, as well as the catharsis of seeing your friends confront their past.
In fact, one of the few problems I have with Zero Company is that I only wish it took these inspirations further. These companions are fantastic, and not allowing us to have deeper conversations with them, with more branching dialogue options, just feels like leaving money on the table. Dare I say that even a very basic romance system wouldn’t have gone amiss, and would have made the permadeath even more terrifying. At the very least, I would have liked to see the ‘bonds’ mechanic have a non-gameplay impact on companions, letting us truly bond with them.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/star-wars-zero-company-review/
