Star Wars Zero Company’s Characters Will Have Friction, is “Not a Personal Fantasy Game”

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Bit Reactor, the team behind Star Wars Zero Company, isn’t just building a strong story – they also want to create interesting relationships and conflicts between the characters. In a recent PCGamer interview, narrative director Aaron Contreras discussed how ensemble RPGs usually handle character interactions, and explained what makes Star Wars Zero Company‘s approach unique.

The story won’t follow the typical “chosen one” plotline. Instead, it will center around a team of operators who are the main characters. This means Star Wars Zero Company isn’t a story about a single hero’s journey, but a team-based one.

Contreras explained that this game focuses on teamwork, bringing together operators from diverse backgrounds. It’s not about a single hero; instead of one person saving the day with incredible powers, the character Hawks is a leader who relies on strategy and negotiation to succeed. He’s clever and needs to think things through.

The story is built around strategy and imagination. It focuses on the challenges of leading a team, understanding each member’s unique personality, and maximizing their individual skills while addressing their shortcomings.

I’m really excited about how complex the characters in Star Wars Zero Company seem to be! Even though it’s set during the Clone Wars with the clear Light Side versus Dark Side conflict, it sounds like things aren’t always black and white. The war itself is going to force everyone to make tough choices, and it’s going to be interesting to see how that blurs the lines between what’s right and wrong. It’s not just a simple story of good versus evil, and I’m totally here for that!

He explained that while these beliefs will eventually lead to a simple conflict between good and evil – like rebels versus an empire – the period of the Clone Wars is much more complex. That ambiguity, he said, is what makes it such a compelling setting for a story.

The game really puts you in the leader’s position, forcing you to handle disagreements between team members who see the world differently. According to Contreras, this is a key part of the leadership experience the game aims to create, and the way characters bond with each other also influences these interactions.

We knew some questions would spark strong reactions, and it’s impossible to please everyone. So, we intentionally included a feature that would sometimes cause bond values to decrease, even when they were generally trending upwards. This was a crucial part of our design.

I was really touched to hear Greg Foertsch, the founder of Bit Reactor, talk about how Respawn and Lucasfilm believed in them. He said they could have easily gone with a safer, more predictable game, but they took a chance on Bit Reactor and their project, even though strategy games aren’t always the biggest sellers. It’s awesome to see those big companies supporting a smaller studio and a genre that isn’t always mainstream!

Foertsch observed that much of what’s happening in the gaming industry feels unoriginal, which is common for art forms. He specifically praised Respawn and Lucasfilm for their willingness to take risks and trust his team.

It’s amazing that such major companies are willing to invest in a new studio like ours – they saw our potential and were brave enough to take a chance on us.

People were willing to take a chance on us because we were trying something different, something they hadn’t seen before. In both locations, traditional turn-based strategy games weren’t popular or common.

​Star Wars Zero Company is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S later this year.

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2026-04-07 15:41