[STEAM] 12 hours in, Star Wars Zero company is a solid strategy RPG, but it's missing XCOM 2 or Baldur's Gate 3's spark

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(Image credit: Bitreactor) All that shooting could be augmented by character-specific abilities. Hawks hands out extra AP. Trick can charge up a long-range explosive strike. 'Utilities' – throwable items like grenades or stims – offer alternative ways to help friends or hurt foes. But, the best way to chew through enemies quickly is to make use of Zero Company's Backup system. Each turn, one character can call for help, instructing a given ally to fire a free shot at a given target. When properly lined up, and with abilities like Overwatch also in the mix, Backup adds a tactical edge that can see even the spongiest foes go down in a hail of blaster fire.

Who shot first?

That careful arrangement of all your sights in the same direction is one of Zero Company's most satisfying tactical systems when it works in your favor. But, it quickly starts to feel like a bit of a one trick droid. As much as mowing down squads of battle droids is as cathartic as it is in the

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, it's not likely to hold up a 30-hour campaign.

The intended solution is in characters that move away from the traditional blaster-focused combat. Early on, one of those is an Astromech droid who rolls into battle armed not with a blaster, but with a ********* of grenades and the ability to buff allies and disrupt enemies. Later on, you join forces with a Jedi Padawan whose kit focuses on controlling the battlefield – Force pushing enemies around and deflecting blaster fire back at them.

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(Image credit: Bitreactor) The trouble is, those characters don't really feel different enough from their traditional counterparts to warrant their existence in your squad, especially once you account for the bond-based progression system that encourages using the same team, and a permadeath system that's far too soft to require actually rotating through new characters. A pyromaniacal support droid and a Jedi should feel like brand-new ways to experience Zero Company, but they interact with the limited combat arenas in a way that's too similar to everyone else.

And that's where Zero Company fails to become a great tactics game so far. The

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of the past decade are those that show you a battlefield and a ruleset, and set you free to navigate them as you see fit. Sometimes, that means games like

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where combat is an enormous sandbox. Other times, it means the guesswork and deadly stakes of

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. Even on a small scale, the likes of Fights in Tight Spaces and

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– driven by experimentation rather than optimization – are what elevate an amazing strategy game. Zero Company is perfectly competent, but it's missing the whimsy that it should have been able to take from a galaxy far, far away.

Here are some of the

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you can play while you wait for Zero Company.

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