Star Wars Zero Firm, which one would possibly colloquially seek advice from as “the XCOM Star Wars recreation,” obtained a full reveal in the present day at a panel at Star Wars Celebration Japan. As for why one would possibly seek advice from the sport in that approach, it’s as a result of Greg Foertsch — the CEO and Artistic Director of Bit Reactor, which is the studio making the sport — beforehand labored on a number of main turn-based video games at Firaxis, together with the XCOM franchise.
“Our imaginative and prescient for Star Wars Zero Firm is grounded in gameplay design pillars that weave within the immersive Star Wars galaxy with partaking turn-based ways gameplay,” stated Foertsch, based on a press launch despatched to epicgamejourney. “It’s our goal to ship a recreation with an unique Star Wars story from the Clone Wars period that has significant outcomes from participant selections, and deep turn-based tactical fight with an approachable and cinematic presentation.”
The protagonist of this single-player recreation is a personality named Hawks, a former Republic officer who should command “an unconventional outfit of execs for rent hailing from throughout the galaxy.” This ragtag squad is the titular Zero Firm; its members should “put aside their variations to beat almost not possible odds and tackle an rising risk that may devour the galaxy if left unchecked.”
The sport’s construction, as described within the press launch, sounds refreshingly much like the XCOM video games: “Gamers will embark on a marketing campaign of tactical operations and investigations throughout the galaxy. Between missions, they’ll develop a base of operations and collect intelligence by a community of informants to remain one step forward of Zero Firm’s adversaries. Gamers may have the liberty to create and customise their very own squad of recruited operators whereas attending to know a forged of newly authored Star Wars characters.“
The very best a part of all that, a minimum of based on this writer, is the “newly authored Star Wars characters” side. I’d be effective if no recognizable Star Wars mainstays confirmed up on this, and as a substitute we obtained to play by an entirely unique facet story. Andor, for instance, is filled with completely new characters and tales advised inside the wider universe of Star Wars, and that’s one of many many issues that feels so recent about it. One can solely hope Zero Firm takes a web page out of that very same ebook.
We’ll have to attend some time to seek out out, although, as Zero Firm doesn’t but have a launch date, and its launch window is solely 2026. The sport, which Bit Reactor is growing in collaboration with Respawn Leisure and Lucasfilm Video games, might be launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Sequence X.