There's no fog of war in Star Wars Zero Company, and it changes the XCOM formula
There is a special ritual familiar to anyone who has played XCOM long enough. We move one soldier forward. Nothing happens. Move the other one a little further forward. Still nothing. We switch everyone else to observation mode, look suspiciously at the completely harmless-looking doorway and complete the move. Repeat until three aliens suddenly appear from behind a van and a carefully prepared military operation turns into an administrative investigation.
Star Wars: Zero Company will get rid of this.
One of the most interesting things to come out of the latest review is that Zero Company doesn't have the traditional "fog of war" . Enemies on the tactical battlefield are revealed from the start, rather than waiting in the dark until your squad gets close enough to spot them. Creative director Greg Foertsch explained that "fog of war" was one of the common strategy systems that Bit Reactor felt simply wasn't right for this particular game.
This seems to be a minor change. Actually this is not the case.
From our preview of Star Wars Zero Company we got the impression that Bit Reactor's main problem was getting out from under the massive shadow cast by XCOM. Removing one of the most fundamental sources of tension on the battlefield in XCOM is exactly the kind of decision that begins to show how Zero Company wants to be different from others.
The battle begins with a challenge, not a surprise.
In XCOM, uncertainty is part of the weapon. You not only fight visible enemies, but also fear invisible ones.Aggressive moves can reveal another group of enemies at the worst possible moment, so cautious players learn to push forward, protect their flanks, and treat every unexplored corner of the map as if it were taken over by some nasty force.
Zero Company changes the rhythm of the game as the battlefield essentially unfolds right in front of you. According to Wccftech, enemies are immediately visible, allowing players to position their four-man squad around a viable threat from the start. Thus, the tension shifts from the question“What is hiding there?”to the question“How do we deal with all this?”
This seems quite appropriate for the tactics game that Bit Reactor is developing. Zero Company places great emphasis on squad composition, abilities, and teamwork. The developers seem to want you to look at the entire tactical puzzle and work out how your Operators interact with each other, rather than spending your first turns carefully solving the puzzle one square at a time.
The new Support mechanic reinforces this idea. The operator can ask another squad member to open fire on the same target during the active character's turn, effectively creating coordinated attacks outside of the normal rhythm of simply moving four separate squads one after the other. This fits well with the Bond system and squad relationships, where characters who fight together gradually become better at fighting together.
This is where the lack of fog starts to make sense. If Zero Company wants combat to revolve around combos, relationships, and action point manipulation, then hiding half the enemies until someone comes around the corner might just get in the way.
Essentially, the game says:here is a disaster. There are four of you. Fix it
Very Star Wars-inspired.
Knowing the enemy's location does not mean knowing how to win.
The obvious problem is that removing the fog of war might make it easier to play Zero Company.Information is power in a tactical game, and being able to see all of your opponent's forces eliminates one of the most frustrating ways for a plan to suddenly go awry.
But Bit Reactor appears to be taking the uncertainty elsewhere. For example, Overwatch is not just your typical omnidirectional security system. Previous analyzes indicate that return fire occurs within the firing zone, with the number of action points spent affecting the number of enemies that can be hit, and the width of the zone affecting accuracy. Positioning still matters a lot. Just for obvious reasons.
There is also an interesting contrast with the pre-battle reconnaissance system in Zero Company. In some story missions, Hawks can conduct reconnaissance before combat, gathering intelligence and potentially earning advantage points that carry over into the tactical encounter. So the game hasn't given up on exploration. She simply moved some of the intelligence before the battle, rather than using the darkness on the tactical map as a substitute for information.
This is a subtle but important difference. Intelligence becomes preparation. Fight - execution.
Whether this will work throughout the entire 30-40 hour campaign, time will tell. Removing hidden enemies means that Bit Reactor will require developers to design encounters, reinforcements, objectives, and enemy abilities to ensure there are enough surprises of its own. A battlefield where every decision is obvious within ten seconds won't remain interesting simply because the clone troopers look great solving problems.
Zero Company still looks like XCOM.
Increasing similarities with XCOM are being created by people who don't mind arguing with XCOM at all.
And this may turn out to be much more interesting.