Last one for a bit on this game, as it’s more on the conceptual side than the implementation. Again, Zero Company is a solid game, and I’m overly impressed that it does so much while restricted by the Star Wars IP.

A great man once said that a game is a series of interesting choices. A great game is therefore a series of very interesting choices. We can think of a few dozen examples. Zero Company has a fair share of interesting choices, some hidden, some obvious.

Hidden choices, where you commit without any understanding of the possible outcome are generally anathema to strategic games. You are given a limited set of resources to achieve a goal, and you need to therefore maximize them for success. What happens with hidden choices is you alt-tab to a wiki, cause the only other option is to scum-save to get informed. I am pretty sure there’s a mod out now that removes all hidden choices in the game, and just provides you with the info at hand. This isn’t about an easier choice, you still have to pick between spending money, losing bond, or increasing reputation – all which are limited for most of the game. I’d guess this will change in some future patch.

There are some strategic choices to be made, in that you need to think long-term on their impacts. Coil Upgrades are certainly the most obvious, but you have others strewn about. Den upgrades for passive buffs and Bond buffs are choices you cannot revert, and can snowball. Investing early in +intel boost per mission is hugely beneficial if you do it 30 times, not so much if you do it once. There are no choices that are automatic game overs, like in XCOM where you lose massive funding options if you don’t defend a continent. It’s all forward progress and mostly relating to difficulty increments. Now, if you pick a continual amount of + resonance Coil upgrades, you’re gonna have a bad time!

In the missions themselves, all decisions are tactical. Since there’s no Fog of War, you can see every enemy all the time and never get ambushed. This drastically shifts the mindset to an offence-first push, as you can easily optimize line of sight without fear of reprisal. Think of XCOM2, where trying to get a proper line of sight somehow triggers 3 new enemies – none of that here. Additionally, nearly every decision you make has a cost of 1 action point, so you never feel like you’re over-committing resources to a particular set of actions. The net result here is that blaster rifles become the optimal tool for combat, especially at later levels where damage ranges become a bit too similar. The pistol deals too little damage (and is superseded by an insane amount by a Gunslinger), the repeater uses all your AP for linear gain, and the sniper rifle doesn’t scale and has no 1AP options.

Important to note that 90% of all missions need you to reach an extraction point. Further, each map will have continuous spawns so that not only is it rare that you take out all enemies, it will only ever last 1 round. You can’t really go into a defence mindset, you’ll never exit the map.

With only 3AP to use per character, per turn, you have at most 12 actions to take. But wait! You gain advantage points (1 per enemy hit), which can be used for alternate attacks. You’ll quickly math this out, where some advantage attacks are way better than others for their point cost (e.g. 10 advantage rocket attack is worse than nearly all other options). What you’re looking for then is free damage, where possible.

• Backup Assist. Once per turn, you can select an Ally to attack the same target as you, for free. Use this every turn, also increases your bonds. Extremely deadly on elite enemies.
• Knockback. For every hit object while an enemy is knocked, they take 4 damage. Can knock into the void for an instant kill. Grenades do this, most melee, Jedi, and importantly, Cly’s jetpack.
• Fire. If alight, they take the listed damage at the end of their turn, and retain 50% of the stacks. For most purposes, this is useless as the damage is much too low. If it was start of turn, then maybe.
• Jae. Her talent passively shoots enemies below a certain HP, up to twice per round, 100% chance. It triggers frequently.
• Gunslinger. They have an active skill that costs 1AP, shoots enemies for slightly less than a normal blaster, and rewards 1AP if you kill a target. This applies much more than you may think. Oh, and each shot also gives 1 advantage.

At any given point, you’re given a list of potential targets and actions. You want to maximize your AP usage. Sometimes you want to get closer, sometimes knock them around to get near a gap for an instant kill. Sometimes you know reinforcements are coming and want to set up Overwatch instead.

And then, then you have Cly. When you first unlock her, her toolkit feels weird as it’s not exactly damage focused and comes with pistols. If you invest fully into her jetpack, for 2 advantage you can cross half of the map, and land with an AE knockback effect, about half as effective as your best grenade. This is great for knocking people out of cover, throwing them into pits, or quickly getting to an objective. And then, then you get 2nd specializations for all classes and you truly appreciate the Gunslinger. Maxing their quick shot ability gives you a 1AP attack that refunds the AP on a successful kill, meaning you want to stack damage & crit chance as high as possible. With both these tools, Cly can clear half a map in a single turn, and still find full cover at the end.

While most maps will eventually rely on Cly’s insane movement ability and free damage, there are still cases of tactical choice. Grenades are bad for damage, but fire grenades wipe out defence stats, a big increase in damage. If you knock Droidekas, their shields drop allowing you to deal quick damage if you’ve set an Overwatch trap. Dazed enemies move at half speed (mostly useful for bosses, one in particular), while shocked enemies cannot attack you. So the question becomes, can I take down this enemy this turn, or do I prevent them from acting?

This is different than other tactical games, where you tend to focus on one character, exhaust their moveset, and then go to the next one. Primarily due to fog of war and the sheer risk of moving 1 step forward and unlocking 4 new enemies. Zero Company actively rewards you for swapping continually between characters – one is a set-up, the other the closer, while always knowing where the next attack will come from. These are positive, fair (!!), and interesting choices. The net result is an extremely accessible tactical game with clearly laid stakes in every map. For all the quibbles, this is an fairly impressive achievement.