Star Wars Zero Company adds new difficulty options that can bring it closer to XCOM
Turning up the heat a little.
The 1.2 patch for Star Wars Zero Company introduces a new granular difficulty system alongside the original easy, normal, hard, and ironman beskarboy levels. These options focus more on creative and tactical tweaks rather than just increasing enemy power. Players can now remove the injury system, allowing downed operatives to be instantly killed.
Alternatively, they can lower the injury allowance before permadeath or introduce a risk of death when downed. The patch also allows for lowering or eliminating health scaling, making operatives more fragile by the game's end. Additionally, it enables restricting the respec function, limiting class and weapon swapping.
These changes are seen as sharp, targeted modifications that make the game harder by limiting options, forcing players to think and play more creatively. The game's normal difficulty, with all these modifiers, is considered a more interesting challenge than the shipped hard mode. The developer, Bit Reactor, appears to have learned from previous games like XCOM, opting for smoother gameplay over bloated enemy health bars.
The patch is particularly well-received by those who found Zero Company too easy, as it offers a way to adjust difficulty levels without resorting to a full jump. One notable omission, however, is the fog of war, which is a feature present in classic tactics games like XCOM but not in Zero Company.
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