(Image credit: Electronic Arts / Lucasfilm Games)
Electronic Arts is releasing Star Wars Zero Company on August 27, 2026 for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. The game is being developed by Bit Reactor, together with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games. This is not another Jedi action game in the spirit of Jedi: Fallen Order, but a turn-based tactics game about guiding a small unit of operatives through the Clone Wars.
That is a welcome sideways step. EA is often associated with huge sports franchises, online services and annual releases, but this has something very old-PC about it. A base where decisions matter. A squad that slowly starts to feel important. Missions where position, timing and risk do more work than reflexes.
The official pitch focuses on tactical operations, investigations and an original story set during the Clone Wars. Players build a team around Hawks, drawing from different archetypes: smugglers, droids, clone troopers and even a Jedi. It sounds like a box of toys, but the kind where the most interesting question is what happens when a mission refuses to go cleanly.
That is where Star Wars Zero Company could become interesting. The best tactics games do not simply let you win or lose. They make you carry small mistakes into the next mission. A character gets injured, a useful synergy unlocks too late, a base decision suddenly feels less clever than it did five minutes earlier.
Whether EA and Bit Reactor can hold that tension is something we still need to see. Pre-order pages always sound as if every system has already clicked perfectly into place. Still, the direction is promising: Star Wars has enough worlds, factions and morally grey missions to be more than a line of shooting galleries with familiar helmets.
For GamingPlanet, the format is the interesting part. Turn-based tactics is not a genre that suddenly appeared in 2026. It has roots in PC classics where every tile, corner and action point mattered. Think not only of modern XCOM, but also of older strategy and squad games where planning often took longer than the actual fight.
That makes Zero Company a notable EA release. Not because it tries to look nostalgic, but because it ties a modern licence to a genre that still depends on patience. You study the battlefield, move your people, hesitate, move someone again, and only then press the button.
If that lands well, this could become a Star Wars game that runs on more than recognition. Not just another known planet or cameo, but the question of whether your odd little group of operatives can make it through a mission together.
It is also a useful reminder that Electronic Arts is not only a name from old blog archives. In 2026 the publisher is still very much part of games, from sports titles to new Star Wars projects. For a site that preserves game history, that line is exactly the interesting bit: the same publisher that once put boxes on store shelves is now releasing digital tactics games for modern platforms.
That transition does not have to be romantic. Physical releases, manuals and big PC boxes still have a presence that a digital pre-order can never fully replace. But history does not stop because the packaging changes. Sometimes it simply continues, with a squad menu, a lightsaber and an August release date.
Sources: EA Coming Soon, Star Wars Zero Company official site.
