Things reportedly aren't going well at Star Wars Zero Company studio Bit Reactor. Apparently, most of the team that worked on the tactics game were quietly furloughed right before it came out, and the company claims it intends to bring them back if sales prove good enough.
This comes from Game File, which reports that a large number of Bit Reactor's devs were furloughed mere weeks before Zero Company's release. Exact numbers are unknown, but one source says 80% of the staff, while another mentions the studio being run by a skeleton crew.
Zachariah Scott, a former artist at the studio, accused management of "concealing the fact that the team was furloughed weeks ago," this past week on LinkedIn, mere days after the project's launch. Alison Kelly, a co-founder of Bit Reactor who's been involved in an ongoing legal dispute with the company since 2024, mentioned similar in a filing from August 12.
A Bit Reactor representative confirmed the furlough to the outlet, but wouldn't go into specifics. The choice, per this rep, was made by the studio itself, and not by EA or Disney, and the intention is to bring people back at some point, implying Zero Company going gangbusters would change matters.
The reason for letting people go, even temporarily, is that money ran out before Zero Company came out. In comments made to Game File, Scott says that many of the employees he's spoken to aren't confident the whole team will be restored, regardless of what happens.
So far, Star Wars Zero Company is doing well. It's the third top-selling game on Steam at the moment, and it's got an 85 on Metacritic. Greg Foertsch, Bit Reactor's other co-founder, was touting future plans during interviews at Gamescom 2026.
Foertsch is tied up in Kelly's lawsuit, since her premise concerns being pushed out before her 2024 exit. She's suing for $20 million in damages, while Foertsch's counterclaim is that she was never a co-owner and that he's made accusations about her performance, which she denies.
Bitter, contentious, and unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Zero Company is Bit Reactor's first game. We'll keep you informed on what goes down in the months ahead.
Star Wars fans say if you love The Clone Wars and Bad Batch, you should play Zero Company
