New Star Wars XCOM-Like Game Includes A Surprising Feature

According to a new preview of Star Wars: Zero Company, EA’s upcoming turn-based tactical game set during the Clone Wars, players will be able to explore levels in a third-person perspective, as seen in Jedi: Fallen Order. 

PC Gamer got its hands on an early version of Zero Company as part of an official preview and talked to the people making this XCOM-like Star Wars game. And perhaps the most interesting bit of information to come out of this big preview is that developer Bit Reactor is going to let people run around and explore its visually impressive recreations of famous Star Wars planets like an action-adventure game, complete with camera control and third-person gameplay.

During story missions, players can explore and walk around areas between the more tactical, XCOM-like combat segments. This isn’t like a full-on Star Wars third-person action game, but instead an attempt to mix action-adventure moments with a turn-based tactical game. According to the outlet, this mix was a main priority of Bit Reactor founder Greg Foertsch.

“The heart of the game is in the tactical combat,” animation lead Hector Antunez told PC Gamer. “But we really wanted to add an element that allowed players to spend even more time in the Star Wars environments and not have those spaces be limited by what would make for fun combat.”

I’m very into the idea of letting characters walk around and explore Star Wars locations between big combat moments. Walking around digital Star Wars worlds is one of my favorite things to do! Combine this element of Zero Company with another detail from the preview—that your squadmates will bicker and bond between missions—and it’s starting to sound like this is going to feel a bit Mass Effect-y, too. And that ain’t a bad thing.

Star Wars: Zero Company doesn’t have a release date yet, but EA and Bit Reactor are planning to launch the tactical Star Wars game sometime later this year on console and PC.