Star Wars: Zero Company will feature a varied roster of characters as part of the main squad, including a Mandalorian, Jedi Padawan, and an astromech droid–but for the main protagonist of Hawks, players will be free to customize that operative. Speaking to GameSpot, Bit Reactor creative director Greg Foertsch revealed that players will have a selection of options to help fine-tune the look of Hawks, ranging from gender and voice through to their species in the Star Wars galaxy.
“You can live through that character however you want,” Foertsch said. “If you want to change the species, you can. If you want to change their voice, you can.”
The driving theme behind Hawks will be their origin story as a former Republic officer and how they’re forced to assemble a motley crew to take on a dangerous adversary while the Clone Wars rage on in the background. While Hawks has been designed to have just enough of a personality for players to imprint themselves on, Zero Company’s roster of “authored characters” will all have their own distinct backstories and personalities that players will discover as they progress through the game. One of these allies is Tell, a Jedi Padawan on a quest to finish her fallen master’s final mission, and there’ll also be some friction between the rest of the crew due to natural rivalries and animosity.
Interestingly, players will be able to strengthen the bonds between these operatives, resulting in powerful synergy skills that can help turn the tide of battle. “With the authored characters, I think something that the team at Bit Reactor has done a really great job of is sort of weaving in the different perspectives that you would expect them to have on the galaxy and the Clone Wars, with this specific story and this adversary that your company is going up against,” Lucasfilm Franchise Content and Strategy creative executive Kelsey Sharpe added.
“It’s like a little bit of intrigue–the more you know about Star Wars–but also if you don’t know Star Wars, just from watching that trailer you kind of see how they bounce off of each other and you go, ‘Oh, this isn’t the fun times gang that I thought they were,’ right?”
For more on Star Wars: Zero Company, you can check out the reveal trailer from Star Wars Celebration Japan and read up on how the developers behind it are looking to create an approachable entry in the tactics genre.
