Star Wars Zero Company is on track to shake up the pattern of Star Wars game releases in recent years. As the first single-player strategy game that Star Wars has in years, Star Wars Zero Company diversifies Star Wars‘ game offerings, which have primarily been action or FPS until this point and often set during the Rise of the Empire era. Zero Company breaks the mold by being set during the Clone Wars, and features a completely different style of gameplay.
As a strategy game, Star Wars Zero Company will have players take control of Zero Company, an elite group of diverse specialists who take on special missions during the Clone Wars. Players will be tasked with making tactical decisions in turn-based encounters, managing squad resources, and adapting to evolving mission parameters as the war intensifies. Each squad member brings unique abilities and personalities, creating opportunities for synergies, possible clashes, and will likely bring choices that are story and character-driven.
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The Force isn’t the Only Thing That Needs to Be Balanced in Star Wars Zero Company
Star Wars Zero Company faces an uphill battle in terms of balancing lightsaber-wielding Jedi class archetypes into turn-based tactical gameplay.
Turn-Based Combat in Star Wars Zero Company
Zero Company has another advantage. As a turn-based game, it hops onto a trend that has proven to be a winning formula in recent years, with some of the most successful games of recent years being turn-based rather than action that dominated in years past.
Turn-based games were once a staple of RPGs, but their popularity dropped off as developers began to embrace a real-time action formula, and turn-based combat was soon considered dated. Persona 5, Baldur’s Gate 3, and, most recently, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, have all proven this assumption wrong. All these games are considered to be genre-defining in numerous ways, including their satisfying gameplay loop that keeps players coming back.
Turn-based combat offers several key advantages, particularly when players crave thoughtful, strategic engagement over button-mashing and enemy sponges that tend to appear in action games, and Zero Company‘s embracing of it could be a turning point for Star Wars. One of turn-based combat’s greatest strengths is how it allows for deeper tactical planning, giving players the freedom to think several moves ahead, synergize abilities across the party, and approach encounters in different creative ways. Turn-based combat also makes games more accessible, as it removes the barrier of quick reflexes and favors decision-making.
How Star Wars Zero Company Benefits From Turn-Based Mechanics
Zero Company‘s release comes at a very good time, as some of the most popular and well-received games of the decade are turn-based. Rather than being boring or overly complicated, as was its reputation in the past, turn-based combat has the potential for players to experiment with different builds, plan their attacks, and watch their strategies play out in interesting ways. This is especially suited for party-based combat, as it allows each party member to shine no matter their role or specialization.
Games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 have shown that turn-based systems can be both cinematic and emotionally engaging, both factors that make them appealing to a wide audience beyond traditional strategy fans and proving that well-designed turn-based combat can deliver just as much tension and excitement as real-time action.
Other Turn-Based Star Wars Games
As of 2025, there hasn’t been another turn-based Star Wars game outside of mobile titles like Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. The original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel both used real-time turn-based combat with the ability to pause to give orders, but this only goes halfway. With this in mind, the future Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake could benefit from embracing turn-based combat all the way, instead of using the original’s combat system or pivoting to an action game.
