He noted that the story won’t have a “chosen one”-styled narrative. Rather, it will focus on the team of operators that serve as its protagonists. Because of this, Star Wars Zero Company is “not a personal fantasy game.”

“This is a game about a team, a team of operators who come from all over, and it’s not a personal fantasy game,” Contreras said. “Hawks isn’t the lone chosen one who’s going to step out and do all the things with the swing of their mighty, mighty saber or whatnot. Hawks is a leader, negotiator, has to be cunning, strategic.”

​”It’s a tactical strategy fantasy. So it had to be about how you manage and lead this team, and how you deal with these different personalities and their strengths and weaknesses.”

​There is also going to be plenty of moral ambiguity in Star Wars Zero Company, despite the setting as a whole leaning quite hard on the polar opposite philosophies presented by the Light and Dark sides of the Force. Its setting—the Clone Wars era—has also played a key role in this, since war often tends to blur the lines between what could be considered good or evil.

​”We know the way that these ideologies will shake out,” he said. “The dust will settle into an era of Rebels and Empire, of very light and dark, good and evil. But things aren’t so clear during the Clone Wars era, and that makes for a really interesting opportunity.”

Players will have to truly step into the shoes of the leader, especially when it’s time to deal with interpersonal conflicts between team members, thanks to conflicting worldviews. It’s “part of the fantasy of being a leader,” said Contreras, who noted that the bond system also plays a role in this.​

“You’re gonna have people with really strong opinions about some questions, and you can’t make everybody happy. So finding that as a feature was really key for us as a way to force setbacks in otherwise-upward movement in the bond system.”

​Earlier this week, studio founder Greg Foertsch spoke about thanking Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm for “taking a chance” on the studio and its project. While he acknowledged that the two companies could have stuck with a “safe” and iterative game, they instead gave Bit Reactor a shot, despite tactics games being relatively niche in the grand scheme of things.

“Looking at some of the things going on in the industry, it’s very derivative. Art is always that way. Games are no different. But I think, looking at the boldness with which both Respawn and Lucasfilm looked at us,” said Foertsch.

You’ve got these two giants taking a chance on someone like us, having the vision and the courage and the conviction to risk that on a brand-new studio.”

​“The faith in us to do something new, to do something outside of their norms. For both places, turn-based tactics isn’t something that they’ve done.”

​Star Wars Zero Company is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S later this year.

Foertsch said that many major releases in the industry tend to be quite derivative. However, he is thankful for giant companies like Respawn and Lucasfilm for taking a chance on Star Wars Zero Company.

“Looking at some of the things going on in the industry, it’s very derivative. Art is always that way. Games are no different. But I think, looking at the boldness with which both Respawn and Lucasfilm looked at us,” said Foertsch. “You’ve got these two giants taking a chance on someone like us, having the vision and the courage and the conviction to risk that on a brand-new studio.”

“The faith in us to do something new, to do something outside of their norms. For both places, turn-based tactics isn’t something that they’ve done.”

He went on to note how easy it would have been for both companies to simply “follow form” and imitate other popular moves in the industry, since that would have likely guaranteed more sales for the game.

“But here you’ve got these two companies that just had the courage and the conviction to believe in trying something different and giving their audience something new,” he said. “I think that’s worth mentioning. It’s just not common anymore. And man, I can’t say enough about the support we’ve received from both of those companies.”

Just last month, Foertsch had also spoken about how a random phone call from Vince Zampella led to him pitching the entirety of the project on the spot, to which Zampella only asked if it could be possible to make it a Star Wars game.

“I’d left Firaxis after about 22 years of working there and making strategy games my whole career,” said Foertsch. “I knew I wanted to stay in the strategy, the tactics space?. I’m sitting in my office with the lights out and my computer on, my wife’s asleep, my kids are asleep, and the phone rings,” he continued. “It’s this number that I don’t recognize. For some reason, I answered it, and the voice on the other end said, ‘Hey, Greg, this is Vince Zampella. I heard you have a game you want to make. Can you tell me about it?’”

Unveiled back in April 2025, Star Wars Zero Company is a turn-based tactics game coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S later this year. The story will be set between the events of Episode 2: Attack of the Clones and Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, and will likely give players a new look at the battles that have already been covered at length in other Star Wars media.

Foertsch has also spoken about the grittier atmosphere of Star Wars Zero Company that was inspired by Rogue One and The Clone Wars.

Kurakasis talks about how they came to this conclusion, which revolves around the fact that Lucasfilms had registered domains with the title earlier this week. These domains include indianajonesandthegreatcircle.com, and indianajonesandthegreatcirclegame.com, among many other registered domains.

Bethesda, Microsoft, or Lucasfilm haven’t made any sort of official announcement regarding the game’s title or release date. Rumours from earlier this week, however, indicate that the game is set for release some time this year. We also know that it will get its first gameplay trailer and details revealed during the upcoming Xbox Developer_Direct showcase event, which is slated for January 18.

Other games set for the showcase event include Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Avowed, and Ara: History Untold.

I might have found the official title of Bethesda's Indiana Jones game developed by MachineGames:

INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE

Lucasfilm registered several domains on January 9th, 2024, with that title, such as:
https://t.co/PtXjpar7N1 (this one leaves no doubt that it… pic.twitter.com/XGVVyasrbM

— Kurakasis (@Kurakasis) January 10, 2024

There’s been a remarkable turnaround of form for Star Wars games under EA’s management of late. Star Wars Battlefront 2 has, over time, turned into a significantly better game that it was at launch, while Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – a single player-only narrative-driven title with no microtransactions – has seen enough critical and commercial success to force EA to reconsider their approach to the series.

However, if things had turned out differently, it’s entirely possible that Fallen Order either would have been a very different game from the one it released at, or possibly would not even have existed at all. That’s because, as game director Stig Asmussen points out, Lucasfilm – the owners of the Star Wars property – were initially quite reluctant to let Respawn Entertainment make a game centred around Jedi.

While speaking during the AIAS Game Maker’s podcast, Asmussen revealed that the Lucasfilm view the Jedi as “the Holy Grail”, and that as such they were initially opposed to the idea of letting Respawn make a game where players would play as a Lightsaber-wielding Jedi (transcribed by GameSpot).

“They weren’t super comfortable with the idea,” Asmussen said. “I pitched, ‘Hey what if we do a game about Jedi and Force powers, and they were not super comfortable with that. They threw it back and said, ‘What about blasters and bounty hunters?’ That’s not the background of the team we’ve built; you might as well ask me and us to start building a racing game at this point. I don’t think anybody’s going to be happy with the results of that.”

“What I came to learn is for them, Jedi is the Holy Grail,” he explained. “To make a game about Jedi, you gotta earn it. There was a little bit of a back and forth but they could see where I was coming from.”

Asmussen went on to talk about the constant back and forth Respawn and Lucasfilm had about the game and their creative vision for it throughout the development process, with several of Respawn’s ideas being met with a “hard no” from the holders of the property. He explained that though that was, of course, a source of frustration for him and his team, he ultimately understood that as the owners of such a massive property, their decisions made sense.

It ultimately turned out great, of course- Fallen Order captures the essence of the Jedi, Lightsaber combat, and of Star Wars excellently, and that is clearly being reflected in its reception and sales. In fact, it seems like the studio is already working on a sequel– so it’s fair to say that the trust between Respawn ad Lucasfilm has probably grown.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out now for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

The original Star Wars Battlefront (well, the 2015 one, not the original one) did not have any single player campaign. The single player campaign, however, seems to be the focus of the marketing this time around, with the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront 2. It seems, however, as though some fans are still wary- many are apparently afraid that the campaign will just be tacked on, leading to EA trying to tackle the question head on to help dispel the fears somewhat.

“I think it shows a commitment to the single player mode that they came to us and Motive to create this campaign,” said EA Motive Studios’ Content Producer Paola Jouyaux to PlayStation Lifestyle. “EA are completely dedicated to building this game mode.” According to Lucasfilm’s Douglas Reilly, EA has its three best studios assigned to the game, including EA Motive, who have “tremendous experience making action movie-based narratives.”

Everything I have seen of the campaign looks good to me so I am not worried for now. Star Wars Battlefront 2 launches in November this year for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Lucasfilm has revealed that all Star Wars books, comic books, video games and any other forms of media interpretation of the sci-fi franchise are non-canonical to the story, and only the six movies released so far and the Clone Wars TV show are canon.

This means that games which were considered important to the Star Wars mythos previously, such as Knights of the Old Republic and The Force Unleashed, are now actually non-canonical. All expanded universe (EU) iterations are non-canon.

“While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the expanded universe consistent with our film and television content as well as internally consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU,” an official blog post said. “He set the films he created as the canon.

“This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align.”

“Now, with an exciting future filled with new cinematic instalments of Star Wars, all aspects of Star Wars storytelling moving forward will be connected,” the blog continued. “Under Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy’s direction, the company for the first time ever has formed a story group to oversee and coordinate all Star Wars creative development.”

There’s much more talk on the upcoming Star Wars films- not just the main three episodes to be directed by J.J. Abrams, but other possible films as well, in the blog post, so those who’re interested should take a look through the link above.