This became especially obvious after the weak box office performance of the film The Mandalorian and Grogu. The project finished its release with the worst box office performance in the history of the series.

Of course, this doesn't mean that everything was bad in the sequel trilogy. One of the highlights was Daisy Ridley's Rey. Especially her connection with Kylo Ren.

Unfortunately, she also became a victim of the lack of a clear development plan and constant scenario changes. As a result, the heroine was mostly used as a plot device, forcing her into the frankly strange role of Palpatine’s “granddaughter”. Even her adoption of the Skywalker surname at the end of episode nine seemed a bit pointless. Sure, it was a nice gesture - but what did it really do for the character?

Ultimately, Rey's storyline turned out to be nothing more than a classic "hero's journey" secondary toStar Warsas a whole. Luckily, the franchise now has a great opportunity to give Rey a decent story. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the saga, so plans for the future are expected to be revealed.

The new era of Star Wars will change the role of Rey

The next confirmed film in the franchise's release schedule will be the standalone adventure Star Wars: Starfighter (Star Wars: Starfighter) from Shawn Levy. This will be the first story set after the events ofThe Rise of Skywalker . Rise—five years after Rey and the Resistance defeated Palpatine.

This means that the authors ofStarfighterhave received relative freedom of action.They were not constrained by the need to lead the narrative to specific events or look back at other storylines.

While it's unclear whether Rey will appear in the film (a cameo is a possibility), the film's status as the starting point for an entirely new era opens up the possibility for Rey to return anyway. She can finally forge her own path.

No longer just a puppet whose existence was essentially directed by Palpatine, or just a protégé of Luke Skywalker, Rey will have a chance to make her mark on history. At Star Wars Celebration 2023, Lucasfilm announced the development of a film with the working titleStar Wars: The New Jedi Order. Although the film seems to be stuck in limbo, the prospect of its release is still exciting. In whatever capacity Rey appears in the new era ofStar Wars, she will be the one to set the tone. Instead of following in the footsteps of other characters, she will shape an entire generation of Jedi.

The franchise has already dropped some interesting hints about how different Rey's experience will be with the new Jedi. In the recently released novelStar Wars: LegacyRey questions the wisdom of the Jedi to renounce all emotional attachments. This issue has long been the subject of controversy among fans. If the Jedi of the Rise of the Republic era were more lenient, the Jedi of the prequels were extremely strict. These directly contributed to the fall of Anakin Skywalker.

Official sources assigned the period after the events of the filmThe Rise of Skywalker. Risingtitled “The Age of the New Jedi Order.” This indicates that no one gave up on Rey. Let's hope that the beginning of this new era will open up bright prospects for the heroine.

The premiere ofStar Wars: Starfighterwill take place on May 27, 2027.

In the case of KOTOR Remake, the situation is especially significant. The video again uses footage from the very first trailer with Revan, so five years later, players were essentially shown the same scene that they saw at the announcement. At the same time, the appearance of the game in the selection at least confirms that the project has not been cancelled.

The KOTOR remake went through a difficult period of development and a change of team, which is why there was practically no information about it. Now Lucasfilm is again mentioning the game among its future projects, but the company has not disclosed any new footage, release date or details about the current state of development.

The situation is similar with Star Wars Eclipse: the game also appeared in the video with long-familiar footage. So far, it turns out that five years later, both projects are alive primarily thanks to rare reminders from Lucasfilm of their existence.

A new PC mod called Mission and Campaign Time Control allows players to freeze the campaign time during tactical missions, allowing for the ability to complete multiple missions that would normally compete for the same limited cycles. The mod, created by Nexus Mods user Caites, was uploaded on September 1st and has already been updated for Zero Company patch 1.1.

In other words, one of the most thoughtful restrictions on Zero Company's advertising campaigns can now actually be disabled.

Zero usually forces you to choose.

This is important because a timer is not just an annoying clock sitting in the corner of the screen.

The Zero Company campaign uses cycles as a unit of time. Completing a tactical mission usually moves the campaign forward, while missions lying on the holographic table have their own expiration timelines. If something is left unattended for too long, it can disappear forever.

As a result, the campaign constantly asks the question: what matters most? Are you looking for a valuable reward? Are you on a crisis mission? Are you completing your main task?Are you spending another cycle helping the region before things get worse there?

You can’t just clear the card.

This pressure coexists with systems such as permanent death and injury to operators, where mistakes and difficult decisions must leave a mark on the campaign. Zero Company gives players a lot of freedom when forming a squad, but it is much less interested in ensuring that every opportunity remains available until you want to take it.

This mod significantly changes these relationships.

The Fantastic Four are essentially telling the Galaxy to wait.

With mission and campaign time management features installed, players can press F4 during a mission to freeze the campaign time. Complete the battle while time is frozen and the cycle does not advance.

This means that you can later select a different mission without the usual cost of moving strategic time forward. In practice, mutually exclusive possibilities can suddenly become significantly less mutually exclusive.

There's also an F2 command to manually advance to the next day in the Lair, so players don't have to permanently interrupt the campaign.

The modification even includes a separate function for automatically completing missions. Pressing F8 allows you to instantly complete the mission while still receiving rewards and cutscenes, although the mod's creator notes that some interactions with Bond may be skippable. It is primarily intended for repeat playthroughs, quickly running through familiar content, or bypassing missions affected by a persistent bug.

The labels have fairly large warning notices.

This is not an official campaign statement, and Cates makes that very clear.

The time management feature is described as experimental and players are encouraged to make additional saves. Some missions containing important story events may become stuck if the campaign time is paused, and the combination of freezing time and the auto-win system may cause mission reports to appear incorrectly in the Lair.

Crisis missions require special care. The game's creator warns against using the time stop feature to bypass some crisis missions, as the game may simply regenerate them later.

So it's less of a “install this and forget about campaign timers” and more of a “here's a very powerful button; It might be worth saving your changes before clicking.”

This advice is still relevant in most areas of life.

The Zero Company modification is developing very quickly.

What makes this mod especially interesting is how quickly the Zero Company community moved from cosmetic changes to something more.

The concept of mission and campaign timing management goes further because it changes something fundamental about how Zero Company thinks a campaign should feel.

By removing the timer, it will undoubtedly be easier to watch more content in one go. This will also relieve some of the tension that comes from knowing that choosing one mission may mean potentially sacrificing another.

Neither approach is necessarily “correct.”

This, in fact, is the meaning of PC modification.

Zero Company was created by Bit Reactor, and difficult decisions were made to create it.

In less than two weeks, someone has already added the option not to do them.

According to the developers, the skim speeder has the lowest acceleration dynamics among the three repulsor classes, but after gaining speed it is able to overtake the others and maintain a high pace on long sections of the track.

The main feature of the vehicle is the “Knife Edge” ability. It allows you to tilt the vehicle almost on its side, making turns along a narrower trajectory without a significant loss of speed. That is why the skim speeder is considered the most technical and maneuverable option for experienced pilots.

The developers emphasize that there is no ideal racing trajectory: each type of vehicle is revealed on different lines of movement, which is why the races become more diverse and unpredictable

Star Wars: Galactic Racer will be released on October 6 on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. The game will offer a single-player campaign with roguelike elements, arcade modes, deep vehicle customization and multiplayer races.

After the commercial failure of Marvel's Midnight Suns, it seemed like we could give up on big-budget turn-based tactics. The genre is already quite niche, and even if the Marvel brand didn’t help attract a large audience, then it’s all the same. However, everything turned out to be not so gloomy - Star Wars Zero Company, which plays in the same genre, judging by Steam statistics, is selling quite well and fully satisfies the needs of XCOM fans, offering exciting tactical battles and greatly complementing the rich Star Wars universe with new characters and conflicts.

Yourself with a mustache

To understand a little better what era of Star Wars Zero Company is talking about, you can watch the animated series The Clone Wars - it tells the story of the protracted conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Separatists. Although the game's protagonist named Hawks has never been mentioned before in the universe, he is known to have served as a company captain under the command of General Pong Krell, who is considered one of the most unpleasant antagonists in the series due to his methods of warfare. He acted badly with Hawks - he sent his company to an obviously disastrous battle with the separatists: almost all the soldiers died, and the Republic made Hawks, not Krell, to blame. This was followed by a military tribunal, dismissal from service and the emergence of Zero Company, a detachment of mercenaries led by Hawks.

Hawks' standard appearance was a success, but if desired, you can greatly change it and even put a helmet on him

You might think that after all this Hawks went over to the side of the enemy, but no - he continues to work in the interests of the Republic, albeit unofficially.His new opponents are the cultists from the Infinite Spiral organization (again, a completely new name in the Star Wars universe) - separatist fanatics obsessed with the idea of ​​​​spreading the Shadow Plague throughout the galaxy, with which every cultist is infected. Its essence lies in the fact that the virus forcibly creates a Force connection with the leader of the cult - the charismatic villainess Kundry Fat - and not only makes the victims her followers, but also turns them into super-soldiers with superpowers. True, the probability of death in case of infection is approximately 50%, but there are still enough surviving cultists to cause concern among the Republic and a desire to destroy the Endless Spiral.

Hawks will not only have to fight these scoundrels, but also carry out other assignments throughout the galaxy that representatives of the Republic ignore. You can’t cope with this alone, so the leader invites other poor fellows into his squad who, for one reason or another, cannot officially enter the service. There is the bounty hunter Klay, who has long been trying to defeat those who destroyed her Mandalorian clan. There's former boxer Kabb with a cybernetic arm and the ability to juggle rhymes on the fly in every dialogue. There is Baroness Jay, whose mining stronghold was just captured by the cultists whom we will hunt. The company is diverse, and all the characters are interesting enough that you want to know their backstories, go through their side missions and spend more time with them between outings.

Sometimes decisions will have to be made even in dialogues with companions

We will take all these heroes with us on missions, but first of all we need to create our own Hawks. Choose a race (from human to Zabrak - there is a wide choice), decide on appearance and clothing (there are even more options) and take one of eight classes, which differ in passive and active skills. The marksman, for example, has an increased chance of a critical hit and can make repeated shots.The Heavy attracts the attention of enemies within a certain radius and withstands more hits and shots due to increased maximum health. And a scout, when defeating enemies, sometimes gives the team an additional advantage point - this is a combat resource common to everyone, which is spent on powerful special skills like firing a rocket launcher or firing a salvo at several targets at once.

If you don’t like the class, you can easily change it almost at the very beginning of the game, and this is also true for the weapons that we take at the character creation stage. Guns differ primarily in how many action points are spent on their use. Each character, including Hawks, has only three of them for all actions within one turn. For example, a shot from the simplest blaster pistol will require only one point - but its damage is not the most impressive, nor is its range. But the long-range blaster, which “eats” as much as two points, serves as a kind of sniper rifle and is the most powerful of the entire list. There is also a repeater - something like a machine gun that demolishes cover - and a blaster rifle, with which you decide how powerful a shot you want to make and how many points to spend for this.

Why shoot enemies one by one if you can defeat them all at once?

Simply space

Fans of turn-based tactics will already fall in love with Zero Company at this stage, seeing an unlimited number of character customization options. But this is just the beginning. Then you will get acquainted with the unique abilities of story companions, you will hire new fighters with your preferred skills, and you will open a black market with weapon modifications that affect characteristics. You will begin to improve your relationships with your colleagues by going on forays with them over and over again, and as your connection level increases, you will be able to choose bonuses - for example, you will both be able to move further in battle or deal critical damage more often.You will start pumping up the central location, which will reduce the prices of goods in the store, open more cells for hiring new recruits, and so on.

Yes, you can take anyone into your team (if the mission conditions do not prohibit it), but you still try to go on forays with story characters - their abilities are too good, and they become even better after leveling up. Trick’s ability to get to his feet in case of severe injury helps a lot, since he doesn’t have to run and save him, and after leveling up his skill, he also doesn’t get fractures in such cases, so there’s no need to put him in the hospital. Jay finishes off a target that has little health left once per turn without spending turn points on it, and this is already a wonderful “passive” - but then she will be able to do this twice per turn. What can we say about Tel-Rey, a Jedi Padawan who uses the Force to repel and disorient opponents, and also deflects enemy blaster charges with her sword.

Sometimes, in terms of accuracy, our fighters can compete with imperial stormtroopers

All this opens up endless possibilities in battles, and you try to think carefully about every move. It must be remembered that, for example, Kabb's melee attack restores all the action points he spent if the target is defeated. And Tick is capable of throwing grenades very far. It is advisable to inspect the surroundings and look for ways to quickly eliminate especially tenacious targets - for example, pushing them into the abyss with a strong blow. Sometimes it is more logical to take not four characters with guns on a sortie, but three, adding a car mechanic droid to their company - he does not shoot, but he carries with him a bunch of grenades (including repellent ones) and gives additional action points to his partners. You begin to make even more tactical decisions after a few hours of play, when you increasingly come across cultists who, in the event of death, transfer passive bonuses to other enemies.Who should be eliminated first? Who should you focus on? But there are also mini-bosses here!

The only disappointing thing is the small variety of missions, especially if you dive into side quests and complete optional orders. Either we destroy waves of enemies, then we defend a point, destroying waves of enemies, then we evacuate someone, destroying waves of enemies... The combat system never ceases to entertain, but sometimes you involuntarily let out a tired sigh, especially in the second half of Zero Company. It helps that before starting the next task you take part in a fun “game within a game”, interacting with the table in the center of the base. In one tab you select contracts, spending energy and making decisions that affect not only the attitude of your colleagues towards you, but also your rewards. In another, you upgrade your relationships with different factions in the galaxy, receiving gifts from them. And from time to time, crisis situations arise - you are offered a choice of two unpleasant options that affect the gameplay in the next outing, and you have to choose the worst of the evils.

The variety of locations where battles take place is quite large

Star Wars Zero Company was worked on by veterans of Firaxis, a studio that had been working on the XCOM series for a long time, so there was no doubt about the quality of the game - these people know a lot about tactical strategies. Here you not only enjoy the tactical gameplay (although sometimes you have to put up with failures with a 90% chance of hitting), but you also delve into the menus with great enthusiasm: customizing and leveling up your squad, trying out different classes and changing equipment, which gives new opportunities in battles. It's a bit of a shame that Marvel's Midnight Suns didn't get as much attention and is considered a flop, but the game was great and just as exciting.But Zero Company proved that the audience has not lost interest in this kind of strategy.

Advantages:

• an interesting story with nice characters in Hawks' squad and a very charismatic villain;
• a wide variety of classes, equipment and options for leveling up heroes;
• exciting tactical gameplay that rewards thoughtful play using the environment and character abilities;
• a fun “game within a game” involving participation in operations and factions on the galaxy map.

Disadvantages:

• the monotonous tasks in missions begin to get a little boring towards the end of the game;
• standard quirks for XCOM with misses on enemies standing almost close to your fighters.

Rating: 9.0/10

Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, in a new video on his personal YouTube channel, spoke about the problems with the original version of the long-suffering remake of the iconic role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic from BioWare.

Recall that the remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was presented in September 2021 and was created by Aspyr Media, but amid problematic production, it was transferred to Saber Interactive in the summer of 2022.

According to Schreier, one of the fundamental problems with Aspyr's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was the lack of a clear vision. The team couldn't decide how radical the rethink should be.

“Lack of communication and clear decisions on how much of a remake and how much of a remaster the game will be. This was a constant source of tension at least between management and the people hired,” Schreier said.