With Star Wars Zero Company, developer Bit Reactor aims to create a tactics RPG with characters and narrative at the forefront. It's got proper, big-budget cutscenes, you can talk to your buddies, and you can customise and upgrade your squad. However, the developers have gone on record in a new Discord Q&A to say, no, don't expect to have control over how the story unfolds.
Earlier this year, our own Ted Litchfield spoke to narrative director Aaron Contreras, who explained that while Bit Reactor wants its cast to have real friction, Star Wars Zero Company is "not a personal fantasy game." Those "player-centric romance" options that seem to pop up in so many games today won't appear in Zero Company.
This was reaffirmed in today's Q&A, where the developer plainly states, "No, there aren’t any romance systems or branching paths" in Zero Company. "While we are excited about pushing the genre forward with a more cinematic approach, this is still a turn-based tactics game at its heart where adept skill and strategy are needed to overcome tense combat challenges."
"That said, there are story moments that can alter based on who you have in your squad, but the overall story is a linear one from beginning to end."
Likewise, speaking on the game's ending specifically, the "story’s conclusion will be largely the same for everyone."
You can have four operators in your Star Wars Zero Company squad at any given time, from cyborg boxer Kabb Uppercut and Mandalorian merc Cly Kullervo to Jedi padawan Tel-Rea Vokoss. With the developer's insistence that the main story is set in stone, I assume any narrative differences come in the form of simple dialogue changes accounting for who's in your crew, as well as their bonds. Plus, the game has permadeath (you can switch it off if you want), so you could lose a few teammates too.
Taking advantage of a Disney budget, Zero Company's focus on storytelling is very promising, despite the lack of branching paths. And if it pans out well, I don't think players will be too bothered by it being linear. Personally, I'm just hoping the plot can fully account for and play around with permadeath mechanics to up the stakes.
