The Long Game: 4 Tactics to Master Early in Star Wars Zero Company - IGN

We’re back for another installment of our The Long Game series, where we focus on things you can invest in early in games that will pay off in the long run. Today we’re diving into Star Wars Zero Company, the turn-based tactics game from Bit Reactor that drops you into the twilight of the Clone Wars.

Zero Company gives you lots of ways to customize your team, including a variety of specializations (aka character classes), different weapon types, weapon mods, and equippable items that can define each character’s playstyle. You can swap all of these things at the Den at any time, giving you flexibility and allowing you to experiment with different builds for characters and teams.

But regardless of what builds you use, there are some things you’ll need to get a handle on no matter what. Zero Company is a great introduction to the turn-based tactical genre, but it throws a lot at you during its tutorial missions. If you’re new to the genre, it can be tough to remember everything or realize how important some of the basics are.

That’s what we’re here to help with today. These are four things that you can utilize from the opening chapters all the way to the end of the game, and mastering them early can really help your missions run smoothly.

Overwatch Is Your Friend

Aggressively attacking on your turn is a big part of combat, but don’t forget about Overwatch. It’s available on every turn to almost every member of your team (notably not the Padawan or Astromech droids). It allows you to create a cone-shaped area on the battlefield, and that character will automatically shoot at an enemy that moves or takes an action in that area.

So when you’re in a situation where every enemy is hiding behind cover and you don’t have enough AP to flank them, Overwatch can come in clutch. It lets you attack enemies during their turn when they run out into the open. But pay attention to the colors of your Overwatch cone as you’re creating it. Blue sections are areas where you’ll shoot at enemies, but grayed out zones are blind spots where cover is blocking your line of sight, meaning you won’t fire a shot at an enemy in that zone.

Overwatch is capable of extending over a significant distance, but the longer you extend, the lower your accuracy will be. You can see your percentage chance to hit as you’re choosing where to place your cone, and it will continually drop by 5% the farther you reach. So you want to find a happy medium, where you’re covering enough space to be confident an enemy will run into that area, but not extending so far that your shots will probably miss.

Overwatch is particularly useful when enemy reinforcements are on the way. You’ll get on-screen prompts letting you know where they’re coming from, so you can set up firing squads and greet the arriving enemies with blaster bolts before they ever have a chance to attack. It’s also important to remember that putting a character into Overwatch will use all of their remaining AP, and the number of enemies they can fire at is equal to how much AP they spent. So you can attack up to three enemies with one character’s Overwatch if you position it well.

Bringing Backup Builds Bonds

The tutorial missions will introduce you to the Call for Backup system, but it might not convey just how pivotal this will be for the whole game. In every turn of combat, a member of your team will get the ability to request backup, where you can choose any teammate to pair up with and attack the same enemy back-to-back.

The character that can request backup is random on each turn, and they’re noted by an icon you can see on their portrait in the bottom left corner of the screen. You should make use of this on every turn, because it’s a free attack that costs no action points. And even better: the backup character’s attack is guaranteed to hit.

The only caveat is that both characters need to have line of sight on the same enemy in order to pull off a combo attack. Once you’ve chosen an ally to back you up, you can double check their status in the top right corner of the screen when you’re lining up the first attacker’s shot. If the backup character doesn’t have line of sight, it will say so. If they do, it will say “Assisting,” meaning they will successfully attack.

There are many strategic uses for these assisted shots. The assisting character will follow up on any attack, not just a regular blaster shot. There are multiple specializations that have extra powerful attacks, and assisted shots will fire after those too. You can use this to pile up a ton of damage at once on exposed enemies, which is especially useful against ones who can counter attack, since you want to finish them quickly. Or since the backup shot is guaranteed to hit, you can use it to finish off an enemy that’s low on health and is trying to hide far away behind cover.

The biggest long-term benefit of backup shots is that they gain bond points for the two characters who team up. In Zero Company, the progression of your characters is defined by their bonds. Bond levels will allow you to choose cross training to give the same benefit to both characters, which is how you’ll add to their stats. If you use backup on every turn, you’ll gain bond levels very quickly, and reaching max bond can unlock build-defining boosts, so you want to get there as early as possible.

Make Sure to Take Advantage

Advantage is a resource shared by the whole squad that powers some of your best abilities. Whenever you damage an enemy, whether it’s with a regular shot or a utility item, you gain Advantage. So that means if you hit three enemies with a grenade, you get three Advantage all at once. Your current Advantage is displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen, and it maxes out at 10.

There are upgrades you can purchase in the Den that let you start every battle with some Advantage already banked, which can help you start combat with some momentum, especially if you’re a fan of Cly the Mandalorian. And if you’re in a multi-part story mission, your Advantage points will carry over from one phase to the next.

If you plan things well, it’s very easy to build up Advantage quickly, so you don’t need to be shy about using it. And remember that characters can still use their Advantage abilities even after they’ve used up all their AP for that turn. Different ultimate abilities use a different amount of Advantage, so pay attention to how much each costs so you can use them effectively.

Some abilities that use Advantage, like the Soldier’s Rocket Strike or the Assault’s Sweeping Salvo, are for straightforward damage dealing. Others, like the Medic’s Morale Boost or the Heavy’s Bulwark, are for support or to manipulate the enemy. But they’re all useful in the right hands, and you should use them frequently.

Equip Your Utilities

Utilities are items you can equip on characters at the Den. Unlike Advantage, they’re specific to the character they’re equipped on and can’t be shared with teammates. When the game begins, characters will have one utility slot, but you’ll unlock more as you progress.

At the start, most of your utilities will be consumables you can use in combat, like grenades or medpacs. These have limited uses, so you’ll want to pick your spots wisely, but they can swing momentum in a fight when used at the right moment.

As the game goes on, the variety of utility items will increase, giving you access to items that can boost stats and help boost your build. There are items that give you extra defense, increase movement distance, improve your accuracy, increase crit chance, and make you immune to certain status effects. And there are even secondary weapons that unlock unique attacks, like flamethrowers, gas canisters, and scatter guns.

You’ll get utility items as rewards for operations and tactical missions, some of which will be randomized. You can also buy them from the Black Market, which you’ll unlock early in the game, and you can use Den upgrades to increase the odds of getting rare ones. Higher tiers of stat-boosting utility items can give you significant buffs, so don’t ignore them. And don’t forget to equip them either, they don’t do any good just sitting in your inventory.

And there you have it, four tactics that you’ll be able to make use of throughout the whole game. If you’ve been playing Star Wars Zero Company, what have been some of your favorite builds? Let us know in the comments. For more coverage of Zero Company, check out our review and what we wish we knew before starting. And for future entries in The Long Game series, stay tuned to IGN.

Article authored by IGN Global and presented by Charles Schwab. IGN Global and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. are separate, unaffiliated companies.