Good art generally requires risk-taking and good business is generally risk-averse—sucks for you if you’re trying to make a big budget videogame based on one of the most popular movie series ever made in a relatively niche game genre, but them’s the breaks.
Unless you’re Bit Reactor, of course, then you’re doing just that. Founder Greg Foertsch told PC Gamer associate editor Ted Litchfield in a recent interview that he has Lucasfilm and Respawn to thank.
“Looking at some of the things going on in the industry, it’s very derivative. Art is always that way. Games are no different. But I think, looking at the boldness with which both Respawn and Lucasfilm looked at us,” said Foertsch. “You’ve got these two giants taking a chance on someone like us, having the vision and the courage and the conviction to risk that on a brand-new studio.”
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“The faith in us to do something new, to do something outside of their norms. For both places, turn-based tactics isn’t something that they’ve done.”
You might think Zero Company’s being a Star Wars game would cancel out any skepticism about turn-based tactics, but familiar characters don’t always sell a niche game, even if it’s great. The exceptional Marvel’s Midnight Suns—which Foertsch and many Bit Reactor team members worked on—was a commercial flop upon release despite a cast of comic book all-stars and glowing reviews.
While it might still be a roll of the dice even with lightsabers in the mix, they certainly won’t hurt Zero Company’s chances. Foertsch reckons the reason his team is getting a chance to play with such a prominent fixture of pop culture in the genre they’re passionate about comes down to an increasingly rare sort of pluck on the part of Star Wars’ stewards.
“Very easy for them to follow form and keep imitating what they’ve done and what players expect potentially,” Foertsch said. “But here you’ve got these two companies that just had the courage and the conviction to believe in trying something different and giving their audience something new. I think that’s worth mentioning. It’s just not common anymore. And man, I can’t say enough about the support we’ve received from both of those companies.”
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It’s true that it’s not an easy time to take risks. Games are only one player in the increasingly crowded attention economy, and of the 19,000 games that released on Steam last year, almost half of them have fewer than 10 reviews.
If you’re keen to learn more about Zero Company, you can read Ted’s full megalithic feature on the game and check out our explainer that gives you everything you need to know.
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