Bit Reactor cautions players to handle her carefully because replacing the one available Jedi may prove difficult, to say the least.
Jedi play a key role in most Star Wars adventures, but even a single Jedi can have a significant impact. If we overdo it, the result will resemble Attack of the Clones or Star Wars: Galaxies after the New Game Enhancements—the charm and mystique of those cloaked space wizards will be drowned out by a sea of lightsabers. With its new tactical game, Star Wars Zero Company, Bit Reactor seems to understand this well. According to a recent Ask Me Anything, or AMA, session organized by the studio, there will only be one Jedi operator in the entire game.
As Bit Reactor has previously noted, permadeath is one of Zero Company’s key features: the protagonists of our adventure can die at any time. For most classes, we can recruit other operators to fill that role. However, in the era in which Zero Company is set, Jedi are reportedly extremely rare. What does this mean for Tel-Rea, the Jedi Padawan operator in Zero Company? Can players recruit other Jedi operators if she dies? Lead designer James Brawley responded that Tel-Rea is the only Jedi Padawan-class operator in Star Wars Zero Company. Therefore, we need to ensure that nothing unfortunate happens to her.
Although permadeath is an important element of Zero Company, it is not mandatory. At certain difficulty levels, players will be able to turn it off. Even if we enable the permadeath option, the characters created by the writers of Zero Company are integrated into critical parts of the story during their introductions. However, once the game really gets going, they become highly vulnerable, and it’s up to us to keep them alive and ensure they remain part of the team.
Bit Reactor did not make the decision to take permadeath to its logical extreme lightly. Narrative director Aaron Contreras previously told PCGamer that the team debated whether to let the game’s unpredictable nature limit the role of the writers’ characters in the story. However, Contreras added that he ultimately lost that debate—and it’s a good thing he did. Zero Company is set to be released next month, so we’ll soon find out for ourselves whether Bit Reactor made the right decision.
Source: PCGamer
