XCOM in a galaxy far, far away is a compelling pitch, and one that's had Star Wars Zero Company at the top of my wishlist since before it even had an official name. But while there are plenty of parallels with the beloved alien tactics games, Zero Company also has plenty in common with an equally legendary line of fantasy-themed strategy RPGs: Fire Emblem.
Zero Company features both randomized soldiers in the vein of XCOM, and authored squadmates with particular stories and abilities, as explained through a preview feature in the latest issue of PC Gamer. Characters can form bonds with each other as they jointly complete missions, which is a feature we often see in Fire Emblem games. But there's an even more pertinent Fire Emblem comparison: even story characters can die permanently.
"It was a challenge that we embraced midway through production," narrative lead Aaron Contreras, who also headed the story for Jedi – Fallen Order and Survivor at Respawn, tells PC Gamer. "About 13 months ago I lost an argument about permadeath, and it was good that I did, it was the right decision for the game."
You can see why a narrative lead might want to push back against permadeath for story characters, since, if a given character is dead, future plot beats will have to account for it. "It just became a matter of rolling up our sleeves and getting to it," Contreras pragmatically says of implementing narrative permadeath.
Zero Company does give you a lifeline here, since characters don't die the instant their health bars are emptied. Instead, they accumulate injuries like baseball strikes: three injuries and you're out.
"Star Wars is about loss," Contreras says. "I mean, four years old, watching Obi Wan Kenobi die, right? It’s about loss, and then also, as a developer, wanting people to not save scum, but to push through the loss, to what’s on the other side of the experience, to feel it."
Another Fire Emblem parallel? Your main character, Hawks, who serves a sort of player insert role, commanding the battles while also fighting on the ground. Similar characters have appeared throughout the Fire Emblem series, and here Hawks is the one exception to the permadeath rule. If they die, it's game over. Honestly, restarting a mission has always been a less cruel fate than saying goodbye to a beloved squadmate, but you'd better believe I'm the kind of sicko who'll force myself not to savescum when a comrade inevitably goes down.
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