Star Wars Zero Company is a great turn-based tactics game and probably the best way to dip your toes into the genre besides Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Moreover, the much-discussed permadeath mechanic isn’t as scary as you’ve been led to believe… if you play your cards right.

By cards I mean operators, the literal lifeblood of Zero Company. While you can get through the game using only authored characters, that’s an approach that, at least during a first playthrough, puts them at unnecessary risk. Why not throw some customized redshirts into the woodchipper instead?

Look, I appreciate everyone I recruit and welcome into my scrappy base of operations. I don’t want to see them bludgeoned to death like Aurelio. But, if someone’s gotta go, you shouldn’t hold on. You can repeatedly refresh for new custom operators (or make them yourself) at no cost anyway. Star Wars Zero Company is extremely lenient, actually. And the moment you learn to leave the right folks behind to complete a mission, a lot of the stress and difficulty dissipates.

Lethal playgrounds

Zero Company is not a very long game if you compare it to other giants in the genre. Therefore, you won’t be doing countless secondary missions on top of the main story ones.

The cycle system takes care of that, as you’re not meant to play everything the game has to offer in a single run. There’s momentum and friction to the game’s big overarching structure, like in The Blood of Dawnwalker.

This means you shouldn’t save custom operators for the ideal random mission. Even a generic attack on a Separatist base can be deadly and yield massive rewards. This might also lead you to think custom operators are B-tier soldiers, but that’s not true. They lack the ridiculous passives some authored characters have (turn Jae into a sharpshooter and have fun with her one-execution-per-turn perk), but class skill trees are pretty much the same, and the cool thing about Zero Company is that new operators match your group’s level.

Because of the pressure to save everyone, you may overlook that custom operators are cheap (seriously, any Black Market item is more expensive) and quite reliable. Moreover, there are no penalties to taking them in any direction and resetting their focus (perk) points. You’re meant to toy around with their builds and throw them into the riskiest secondary missions. What’s the worst that can happen?

Rescue and sabotage missions are probably the most “annoying” of the bunch, mostly because you’re given a very strict turn limit to complete the objectives, which usually involve legging it across the map to reach a guy (or astromech droid) in danger or an object that must be blown up. Operators in Zero Company can’t move a lot every turn while also battling the endless waves of enemies, so success in such missions involves just throwing someone into the meat grinder to at least stop the timer before being told to reach an evacuation zone that’s also quite far. The perfect job for the latest hires, no?

Every man for themselves

I’m frankly impressed by the amount of dialogue custom operators get in this game. They feel lively and like “part of the crew” even if you don’t have authored chats with them. Great voice acting, too. It’s probably for the best that they still fade into the background after a while, though. Sorry, but I’ll protect the only Jedi in the game at all costs.

A common scenario in Star Wars Zero Company is getting absolutely pummelled after completing the objectives, as you’re trying to evac. It’s nerve-wracking, especially when droids won’t stop pouring in. Pause for a second and notice the option to extract without getting everyone to the evac zone. If things are very bad for your irreplaceable operators, you can spend their action points to hit the bricks and leave the randos behind. This is why you put those freelancers in front of the greatest dangers. It’s just a job, and they’re easy to replace.

This coldness actually feels right and permeates much of Zero Company even if there are tales of camaraderie and warmer exchanges to be found. Rogue One and The Clone Wars (or even The Bad Batch) haven’t been repeatedly cited as inspirations for the game only because of what goes down with its main players. Those stories are full of sacrifices and grunts fighting for something greater than themselves. By design, you’re meant to use those operators as pawns in a larger game.

Dropping the “we don’t leave anyone behind” mentality not only makes the game easier, since you’re really encouraged to do so. It also makes the connection between the narrative and the systems holding it together tighter and richer. It won’t protect the key characters from death if you bite more than you can chew or during their own key missions, but it reinforces them as important assets that are deployed more strategically. You can bet I’ll save-scum as hard as possible to save Tel-Rea, though.

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