SWCJ 2025 Panel Recap - Why I'm Excited for "Star Wars: Zero Company" from EA and Lucasfilm Games

I know Star Wars Celebration 2025 has been over for more than a week now, but that week was a hectic one and before the dust completely settles I wanted to get across my excitement for the upcoming video game Star Wars: Zero Company from Lucasfilm Games, Electronic Arts, and developers Bit Reactor and Respawn Entertainment.

When I was a video game-loving kid growing up, I never much cared for turn-based games. I always preferred real-time action-adventure titles like Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, and to this day I still have not played most of the acclaimed turn-based RPGs from that era such as Final Fantasy and its ilk. But now as a middle-aged adult whose brain just doesn’t move as fast as it used to, turn-based games are absolutely where it's at for me. I can’t tell you how much I love having all the time I need to decide what my next move is going to be on a strategic level, and over the past decade the gaming franchise that has best encapsulated that thrill for me has been XCOM from Firaxis Games, which sends a squad of elite troopers out into a variety of Earthly terrains against an invading alien force. Now I’m not saying that XCOM and its sequels are only for old people like me– I probably would have loved games like that as a teenager if I had really given them a chance– but it is just about the perfect gaming experience for where I’m at in life at the moment. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished there was a XCOM-type game set in the Star Wars galaxy.

Enter Star Wars: Zero Company, which was announced in the weeks leading up to Celebration this year, and on Saturday afternoon at the event I was able to attend the panel presentation all about the game. Moderator Lucy James kicked things off by revealing the first trailer for the game, which is set during the Clone Wars era of the larger Star Wars timeline. Now I have to admit when I heard Clone Wars and turn-based tactics, my first thought was, “Why isn’t this game about the Bad Batch?" Clone Force 99 and its members would make the perfect squad for an XCOM-like strategy game, with one ranger/assault character (Hunter), one sniper (Crosshair), one tank/heavy (Wrecker), and one support/medic (Tech), with Echo thrown in for good measure whenever you need an infiltration expert. But Zero Company doesn’t feature the Bad Batch– or at least not that we know of– instead introducing its own new squad of misfit characters, with customizability being the real selling point. Players can create their own squad members by gender, appearance, outfits, accessories, and name.

On stage, Zero Company’s developers talked about how their first pillar in creating the game was to “stay true to the Star Wars franchise," and noted that composer Gordy Haab (Star Wars: Jedi - Survivor) would be writing its musical score. “Think high-stakes battles with deep gameplay choices– thoughtful pacing and decision-making coupled with an amazing Star Wars story." A Lucasfilm Games representative also discussed why the Clone Wars was the right period in which to set Zero Company: ““The Clone Wars are a unique part of our timeline, because it’s two relatively evenly matched forces going up against each other." We in the audience got to see some additional concept art depicting the game’s locations and built-in characters, which include a Jedi Padawan, a clone trooper, and a Mandalorian warrior. I was intrigued to learn that astromech droids can be called in to assist or also used as members of your squad, and that certain difficulty settings will include perma-death and limit the ability to save your game.

“The Den" on the Ring of Kafrene (as seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) will serve as Zero Company’s base of operations, and we got a sneak peek of the galaxy map that players will use to choose their next destination. Some of the in-game planets will include Serolonis (from the aforementioned Star Wars: The Bad Batch animated series), Vandor (Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Mapuzo (Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi), and the squad’s ship will have a droid pilot named M3-VO or “Meevo." As the panel came to an end, we were told by the participants, “We hope you enjoy playing Zero Company’s story as much as we did making it. There might be some surprises announced about who we’ll run into in the game in the future." So I’ll hold out some hope for a Bad Batch DLC and continue to count down the days until we get hands on with Star Wars: Zero Company, coming sometime next year. Everything I’ve seen and heard about the game is genuinely quite appealing.