How Bit Reactor took its original concept and turned it into Star Wars Zero Company

Bit Reactor CEO Greg Foertsch and Animation Director Hector Antunez discuss some behind-the-scenes tales from the making of Star Wars Zero Company.

The Star Wars saga is one that spans eons. What started with a trilogy has expanded into prequels, a sequel trilogy, everything in between, and even centuries before. Many of the stories told since the original trilogy covered the Clone Wars era, covering the events leading up to Emperor Palpatine's rise and the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. Bit Reactor originally had a vision for what it wanted its strategy game to be, but after a chat with the late Vince Zampella and much consideration, the team took a chance and tweaked what it had to fit Star Wars' Clone Wars period, eventually turning their game into Star Wars Zero Company.

During my time at Gamescom, I took some time to speak with Bit Reactor CEO, Star Wars Zero Company Creative Director, and Firaxis alum Greg Foertsch and Animation Director Hector Antunez about their Star Wars game. I asked about tweaking their original vision, the importance of the Clone Wars era to Star Wars, and the legacy left by Star Wars characters from across all mediums, including video games.

(Editor's note: This interview was conducted at Gamescom 2026, prior to the news that Bit Reactor furloughed most of its staff before Star Wars Zero Company's launch.)

Shacknews: Star Wars has covered so many eras, but what made you want to tell this story in the Clone Wars era in particular?

Greg Foertsch, CEO/Creative Director: The original pitch, actually, was pretty close to the time frame that we did, but once we started looking at the game, once we got introduced to Lucasfilm, one of the first things we did was sit down with them and go through, narratively, where we wanted to be. They tend to come at things from, at least from our experience, very much where they're like, "What does the game need? Let's start there."

And so we talked about the mechanics that we wanted to do, the bonds and relationship systems that we wanted to build. After looking at everything that we wanted to make, they were like, "Clone Wars probably gives you those tools to tell the story you want and then make the game you want." And so we landed there. It's end of the Clone Wars, nobody trusts anybody, you're not sure who your true allies are. It's a perfect space to tell the story that we're looking for, so it really made a lot of sense for us.

Shacknews: Were there any specific storylines from that era of Star Wars that helped inspire the Zero Company story?

Hector Antunez, Animation Director: Maybe not any specific one, but just the fact that the Clone Wars TV show showed how many different stories you could tell in that time period, it just felt like a rich space to be able to craft around and have it exist alongside the other ones.

Foertsch: And you look at some of our little story arcs, they're like the Clone Wars three-episode [arcs], like with D-Squad, Umbara, and like all these little kind of chunks, so when you get into some of the hero missions or the character-specific missions, it feels like some of those Clone Wars episodes.

Shacknews: I remember hearing that Zero Company didn't initially start out as a Star Wars story, but it was Vince Zampella who asked, "Can you make this a Star Wars game?" Were there any challenges in taking what you originally had and shifting it to a Star Wars story?

Foertsch: I think the first thing I was looking at was a little bit different. Not hugely different, but a little bit different. I think when he asked me about Star Wars, my answer was "It's a different game... but yeah, I can do that." The addition of Star Wars, of that particular IP, kind of broadened the game and it got a little bigger to match what we wanted to do. I think the Star Wars piece actually kind of helped answer the bonds systems and all that stuff that we wanted to do, all that sort of narrative work that we used into the gameplay. Star Wars comes with some answers to a lot of that stuff, and so it strangely made that stuff a little easier to arrive at.

Shacknews: As sort of a follow-up, we kind of touched on it already, what does being a Star Wars game open up to you narratively that you wouldn't have necessarily been able to do with that original concept?

Antunez: Not being able to speak about the original concept, but I think for sure there's a shorthand that we would have with people that have already connected with Star Wars, right? It gives us both a lot to live up to, but a huge space of things that are already recognizable to people. We don't have to teach about lightsabers, blasters, and all those things, and so we can pick up where a lot of that knowledge base is there and then introduce people to our genre, which we love very much. We just happen to be telling a great Star Wars story, as well, in the process.

Shacknews: What has the team learned from taking that XCOM strategy formula and applying it to a Star Wars game? How has Bit Reactor, as a team, grown from this experience?

Foertsch: I think each game that we do, we don't really go into it with, "We're going to reskin the last thing we did" or anything. We come in and now that we've done... I don't know, what... four or five of these games at this point, there's a toolbox that we have to work from. As we look at what the game is, in this case what the IP is, Star Wars, it starts to make some of those answers more clear. Like, there's no grid, [because] it didn't make sense with the IP. Like, if you gotta Force Push somebody, that wasn't going to work. I think the Star Wars part of it brings a lot of... challenges, but also provides multiple answers to pick from. And I think the team's gotten pretty good at deciphering that.

Antunez: A lot of the team early on, we had worked with before on these types of games. As the team grew, although we also brought on people that worked on other strategy games, the tactical games, we brought in people from other studios, other backgrounds, other types of games. But now, we've all made this one together, so now everybody at the studio is an expert in making this stuff, so we're excited to see how we can build from that.

Shacknews: Last question from me, Zero Company is largely about a crew that's pretty much expendable. Like I said in my preview, "Don't get too attached to any of them," because they might die at any time. But one thing that's always been interesting to me about Star Wars, as an IP, has been its legacy of recognizable characters. So are there any Zero Company characters, whether they be main, supporting, or otherwise, who you hope leave a lasting legacy on Star Wars canon?

Foertsch: Oh, man...

Antunez: I think there's a chance they all will. We all have our favorites on the team. Some that we love to hate, some that we just straight up love. I think there's a good chance that this entire group, even all the voices for all the custom operators, the people that you can recruit, there are some very memorable performances there, so it wouldn't shock me if those grew to be some people's favorites.

Foertsch: I think Aurelio is going to have a cult following, the Rodian that dies in the tutorial.

There are so many different caricatures that we've created, these archetypes, that I think there's a lot of characters for people to attach to and then customize a little bit, and then get into battle, and care about. It's funny, even in the office, as people go around, and it's like we go in waves as each character really got polished, and finalized, and balanced. The number of characters that people were like, "Man, this character's great, I love using this character."

At least on the Operator's side, I think Neesh and Runa, I mean Vic [Michaelis] did such a great performance with Runa. I think Runa... she's a Star Wars character now that I think people are going to want more of.

Antunez: Yeah, we've been living with these characters for years and we're still running around quoting them up to each other.

Star Wars Zero Company is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Sign up for our monthly roundup of exclusive content, top stories, and updates from Shacknews - once a month, no spam.

Shacknews staff does not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their content. Shacknews strictly prohibits the use of its content for AI training or to generate text, including text in the style or format used for this publication. Shacknews reserves all rights to this work.