Turn-Based Tactics Spin-Offs Like Star Wars Zero Company Are Always A Good Idea

Turn-based tactics games are the best kind of spin-off. There are very few names that wouldn’t translate well to the genre. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty? Sure, the multiplayer maps are already built to facilitate two teams facing off against each other, with considerations for distance, lines of sight, and cover. GTA? Add in some car combat, and heist levels to earn resources, and you’ve got a winner. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Gears of War? 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Already happened.

So, I was pleased to see that a galaxy far, far away is finally getting a turn-based tactics game in the form of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars Zero Company. There isn’t a ton of information available yet — that’s coming soon — but so far we know that it’s single-player, launching on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC, and is being made by Bit Reactor in collaboration with Respawn and Lucasfilm Games. Bit Reactor is largely composed of former Firaxis devs, so the game is powered by XCOM know-how.

Turn-Based Tactics Games Have A High Floor

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Turn-based tactics games almost always hit the spot for me, whether they’re RPGs that happen to have tactical combat (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3) or pure strategic exercises (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Into the Breach, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:UFO 50’s Bug Hunter). I love this kind of gameplay so much that it can get me all-in on a franchise game ꦐeven when I don’t care about that franchise.

I was extremely sick of Marvel stuff when 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel’s Midnight Suns launched at the end of 2022, and its post-GOTY list release date made it a low priority. But once I got around to it, it ended up being one ofꩲ my favorite games in years. Its satisfying strategic gameplay and the fun haunted castle setting were a great pairing and got me excited about the Marvel license for𝐆 the first time in years.

I like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars a lot more than I do Marvel, but I’ve been experiencing some similar fatigue with the series thanks to the overexposure of the brand on Disney+. I’m basically at th🌸e point where I’ll show up for Andor and little else. But if Zero Company is good? I’ll be all-in on Star Wars again.

Going tactical works for basically everything. Action game franchises, like Gears of War, worked well as Gears Tactics. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:John Wick Hex got decent reviews. The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are starring in a forthcoming tactics game from Strange Scaffold, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance even got a tactics game not long after the series hit Netflix. RPG series like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy and Fallout have gotten tactical spin-offs, too — sometimes multiple. Even Mario, the king of action-forward gameplay, got a pair of thinky spin-offs in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario + Rabbids games.

Don’t Joke About My Tactics

You know how, on April Fools Day, developers will make joke posts about how they’re making a dating sim based on their property? The joke is that players are unrelentingly horny for their characters and that the developers are finally giving them the supposedly low-effort thing they want. Sometimes they even actually make the visual novel in question, like when Sega released 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog in time for April Fools in 2023.

♛It wasn’t released on April Fools, but I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator got attention the same way: actually doing the thing that plenty of others have joked about.

The joke speaks🗹 to an underlying truth: a solid section of fans absolutely want to play those games. Turn-based tactics games are never positioned as a joke and they’re too high-effort to release on🌸 a lark. But in the same way that a subset of every franchise’s fans will eat up a dating sim, every franchise has fans who will show up for a tactical spin-off. I’m glad Star Wars is giving the people what they want.