SDCC 2026 – Star Wars: Zero Company

Star Wars is finally returning to the strategy genre after 20 years with a purely turn-based tactical videogame. On July 25, Bit Reactor narrative director Aaron Contreras, Lucasfilm Games’ Kelsey Sharpe, moderator Michael Peyton, and voice actors Dee Bradley Baker, Jonathan Freeman, Rekha Sharma, and Vic Michaelis all met in Room 6BCF at San Diego Comic Con to elaborate on their upcoming project: Star Wars: Zero Company. What immediately sets this game apart from others is that, while a couple of past games have attempted this (such as Empire at War or Galactic Battlegrounds), they primarily focused on real-time strategy rather than turn-based tactical combat (such as Fire Emblem: Three Houses). So, even though fans won’t capture command posts like in Battlefront or slice through opponents like in Jedi: Survivor, they’ll still immerse themselves in a more methodical yet brain-challenging experience on August 27. 

What Is The Story?

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this game, it’s important to understand the lore and story behind it first. And thanks to Kelly Knox on starwars.com, who posted about the panel shortly afterwards, we get just that. 

The game is set during the fan-favorite (and, given the numerous recent projects, Lucasfilm’s favorite as well) era of the franchise: the Clone Wars. It is during this time that we meet the main protagonist of this story: Commander Hawks. According to Hawks’s voice actor, Hawks once served in the Republic until a mission went horribly wrong and his whole company was killed in battle. The Republic blamed him for the whole thing, which led him to leave them and “[float] through the galaxy, like a gun for hire, doing whatever he can to get a credit, and just wants to keep it that way. And then what does life do? It presents opportunity after opportunity to reemerge and reconnect and be part of the team again and fight for something that’s larger than yourself” (starwars.com). Of course, this means that, at some point during his years adrift, a Republic officer approached and convinced him to rejoin the fight. Of course, though, he would only agree on the condition that he would operate independently and form his own team: the titular Zero Company, consisting of former/current Republic members, outlaws, and other hired contractors. This perfectly continues Contreas’s earlier statement at the beginning of the panel about where the story would go from there: “Hawks and his team are hired to go against the Infinite Coil, a Separatist-aligned paramilitary cult that’s intent on spreading a deadly shadow plague across the galaxy.” On the panel, the team was frustratingly yet understandably vague about the Coil’s plans and what exactly the shadow plague even is. However, they also revealed a short cutscene where the main antagonist and leader of the cult—Kundri Fathom—not only makes a grand speech about the corrupted politics of the Republic, but also draws attention to a great power or mystery “at the center of everything,” which means this could be more than just the typical Republic vs. Separatist plot that the Clone Wars centers itself around. Overall, this sounds like a Guardians of the Galaxy setup where a group of misfits, who don’t necessarily like each other or anyone else, assemble to fight a greater evil to save lives, but putting that storyline in a setting like Star Wars is guaranteed to be all the more compelling. 

The Cast

A good number of the Star Wars fanbase may recognize the voice actors who were both present and absent from the panel, while other people may recognize them from other franchises. Either way, there’s no denying that the cast of this game is completely stacked and well-thought-out! For instance, in the case of the fully customizable Commander Hawks, where you’ll be able to choose the species and gender of the character, you’ve got Jonathan Freeman doing the male voice and Erica Luttrell as the female voice. Freeman is well known for his work as Jafar in the original animated Aladdin movies, as well as cameos in other Disney animated shows and even in Kingdom Hearts. At the same time, Luttrell actually returns to the Star Wars video game industry, as she once voiced Grace Sienar in the recent Star Wars: Squadrons game from 2020. Next, for the fans of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica,they’ll surely be happy to know that Rekha Sharma (who played Commander Ellen Landry and Dr. Lorelei Tsing, respectively) will serve as the villainess of the story: Kundri Fathom. Moving on, there’s also the elephant in the room that needs addressing: the legendary Dee Bradley Baker! His most renowned roles are those of literally every Clone trooper throughout Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, so naturally he is voicing the disgraced and disillusioned Trick (fun fact: he also voiced Perry the Platypus in Phineas and Ferb and also Appa and Momo in Avatar: The Last Airbender). Speaking of iconic legends, Matt Lanter (also known for his roles as Aquaman, Ted Kord, and Ultraman in various DC animated projects) returns as the voice of Anakin Skywalker in the game, just like The Clone Wars. 

While a few other names in this cast aren’t renowned TV voice actors, they are all well-acquainted in the video game industry. For instance, JB Blanc serves as the voice of Kabb Uppercut, the blue cat-like alien (apparently their species is called Felshi) from the trailer. But did you know that he also voiced Admiral Garrick Versio from Star Wars Battlefront II or Prauf from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (and I’m not gonna lie, this hurt my soul a bit when I found out because his death still haunts me)? Further, Judy Alice Lee, who is playing the squad member Jae Mordant (a woman from a noble house who broke off to start her own mining operation, only for the Separatists to drive her out and take it), also brought life to Marvel Rivals’s favorite Strategist, Luna Snow. And last but definitely not least, we have Jim Pirri (Kraven the Hunter from Spider-Man 2) as Neesh Renark (who runs the armory and black market at the Zero Company’s base) and D.C. Douglas (Senator Daho Sejan, the Pau’an senator who tried to bring Cal Kestis to the Emperor in Jedi: Survivor) as the squad’s pilot/medical droid M-3VO. 

The Gameplay

As previously mentioned, Zero Company will be a purely turn-based strategy game. Based on trailers released thus far, you get to select who will serve in the current team you’ll choose for each mission you go on. The chosen characters will then take their places on the “board” (or battlefield), which you’ll then have to effectively coordinate everyone by selecting the best attack or support, and then your turn will end. After your enemy finishes their turn, the cycle will continue until one side ends up the victor. Only by closely watching the results of your actions and those of your opponents will you hope to be that victor. But to help get the odds in your favor, you have the option to customize and upgrade your weapons, as trailers have shown gameplay footage of swapping out blaster components to give you an edge. Yet, only by closely watching the battlefield and effectively responding to enemy tactics can you hope to prevail. 

However, as linear as most people make it out to be, the panelists have hinted that this may not be the case. For instance, Sharpe explains that the game will have a bond system, meaning that the teammates you send out on missions could develop their own relationships. Further, she basically states that the possibilities are endless, because no two gameplay sessions will be the same. So how close or far apart your squad will be depends solely on how you play the game. But despite such heartwarming potential, there’s a darker side to this mechanic. While not mentioned in the panel, there are reports that your characters have the potential to fully and irreversibly die. Even though Star Wars characters have a reputation for surviving the most insane and ridiculous odds that not even fictional aliens should survive, it’s clear that it won’t be the case in this game, which adds a lot more stakes and also forces you to think twice as strategically when deploying your squad. 

Other Panel Highlights and Final Thoughts

As a huge Star Wars fan, as well as a creative writer who deeply cares about good storytelling, I’m very excited for the potential here. This is especially true because of a particular moment in the panel, where they showed exclusive footage of an exchange between Trick and the Umbaran sharpshooter, Luco Bronc. Due to the intense Umbara arc from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I had questions about how that would fit into this story, such as: did the events of Zero Company take place before or after the Umbara arc, and if they did take place afterwards, then how would the dynamic between him and the squad look? Well, the scene answered that question: about as good as you’d expect. Luco and Trick discuss the infamous invasion, and Trick elaborates that he wasn’t there for that, but Luco fires back with how the other clones were there too. Trick tries to defend his brothers by saying they were only following orders, but of course, this only further agitates Luco as he laments the deaths of his friends. Trick tries again to sympathize by saying a lot of his brothers died too, but Luco does one of the stupidest things you could think of by provoking Trick and further opening the wound of how they all died well. Trick pulls a blaster on him, and Luco calls his bluff by saying he’s a good clone and won’t shoot him, but Trick fires a shot that narrowly misses his head and responds by saying, “Not that good.” Of course, there are a couple of other scenes that the panel showed, but this is (at least in my opinion) the most important one that deserves attention. This is primarily because it continues off of a major Clone Wars plot point and shows us what the aftermath of that arc looks like. 

Aside from that, what I’m also most excited for is the amount of effort and love that are going into this project. For instance, Freeman talked about how he prepared for his role as the male version of Hawks by basing it on noir films he loves. What’s even better is that he says that Contreras provided him with a list of references, which includes many of the movies he already knows and loves. Already, I love the relationship and work dynamics between the team just from this moment alone, but it gets even better. Later on, Sharpe shares how much she loves the work environment, comparing it to being back in theater. She also loves how small the group is, the imagination they have in that one room they’re all in, and the overall intimate dynamic they all share that makes her feel like she’s truly a part of the company. What makes all of this so exciting is that, when you have a team that not only loves Star Wars but also works so well and respectfully with each other, it means that they will pour all their genuine effort into making a good story without any bullcrap or behind-the-scenes drama. We’ve seen what happens when co-stars of movies or shows don’t get along (to put it lightly) and how it impacts the overall project, so it’s very refreshing and reassuring to see a bunch of people with perfect chemistry and the united goal of making a great game for the fans.