Team Management and Organic Romance: The Narrative Philosophy of Star Wars Zero Company
Aaron Contreras, narrative director of the new turn-based strategy game Star Wars Zero Company and former narrative lead of Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor, has outlined the narrative boundaries of the game developed by Bit Reactor: no infallible protagonist surrounded by an adoring entourage, but a leader dealing with strong-willed professionals, divergent opinions, and relationships that are far from obvious. The declared goal is to build an experience where team management, with its internal frictions, is an integral part of the fantasy itself.
"It's a game about the team, a team of operatives coming from different places, and it's not a game about personal fantasy," Contreras explained in an interview with PC Gamer.
"Hawks is not the solitary chosen one destined to do everything by force. Hawks is a leader, a negotiator; he must be cunning and strategic."
This definition affects the entire structure of the narrative design: the reference model is not the classic BioWare-style RPG where the protagonist accumulates increasingly devoted companions, but something closer to the logic of special operations, where the people he works with have their own agendas and do not stop having them.
Moral Ambiguity in the Era of the Clone Wars
The setting in the final phase of the Clone Wars is not a decorative detail. Contreras explicitly focuses on the ideological gray area of that period, before everything settled into the clear opposition between Rebels and Empire.
"We know how these ideologies will be resolved," he stated. "But during the Clone Wars, things are not so clear, and this creates a really interesting opportunity."
That moral tension translates into difficult decisions, where the player must deal with the interpersonal conflicts within the company.
The player takes on the role of Hawks, a disgraced former Republic officer leading Zero Company: an unconventional unit of freelance professionals from across the galaxy, with archetypes ranging from astromech droids to Jedi. The character is fully customizable in name, gender, and species. As already mentioned at the time of the official announcement, the narrative structure aims for decisions with real weight, also thanks to permadeath: all companions except Hawks can permanently die on missions, with direct consequences on the story.
The Bond System and Its Frictions
Central to the design is the bond system: companions develop relationships as they share missions, but the path is not a linear progression toward solidarity. Contreras describes the mechanism with these words:
"There will be people with very strong opinions on certain issues, and you can't please everyone: a way to impose setbacks in a bond system that would otherwise only tend to go up."
Some pairs of characters may also develop romantic feelings, but these are organic dynamics, not romance options to unlock on demand.
On the permadeath front, Contreras initially had doubts but then admitted that this feature makes the entire game framework more solid: the permanent risk is consistent with Star Wars' nature as a universe built on loss.
Star Wars Zero Company is expected in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with Bit Reactor (a studio founded by veterans of Firaxis who have worked on XCom) leading development, and the project has been approved by Vince Zampella of Respawn Entertainment since the early stages.