The squad is prepped for one final mission when Palpatine appears as a hologram. The clone who has fought beside you since the first hours of the game then aims his weapon at a Jedi Padawan, and you’re the one with the controller when it happens.
This is how Order 66 plays out in Star Wars Zero Company, the strategy game from Bit Reactor, and nothing else in the game takes a bigger swing. Spoilers follow, so if you haven’t reached the credits yet, save this for later.
“A lot happens across the galaxy in a snap,” said Dee Bradley Baker, the voice of clone trooper Trick. “It’s a dramatically really interesting moment in Star Wars.”
You commit the betrayal yourself
Plenty of Star Wars stories have covered Order 66. Revenge of the Sith showed it first in 2005, with a montage of clone commanders and their soldiers gunning down Jedi. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars: The Bad Batch both revisited the Great Jedi Purge later. What sets Zero Company apart is that you play as Trick while the attack happens.
Trick goes after his own allies, and that includes Jedi Padawan Tel-Rea if she has survived your playthrough. At the same moment, Republic intelligence officer Bennic moves to arrest Zero Company. Baker described Order 66 as “the heartbreak of the clones,” and being forced to hurt a member of your own squad is about as heartbreaking as it gets.
Scenes like this one could put the game in contention for end-of-year awards, and it would earn the spot.
Bit Reactor had it planned from the beginning
According to creative director Greg Foertsch, the studio set out to “straddle” Order 66 from the earliest stages, because Zero Company’s story covers The Clone Wars and carries on into the first days of the Empire. The challenge was getting players attached to Trick before he turns.
It worked. Trick is among your most capable companions and has been with the team from the start, so he’s likely a fixture in your squad when that mission comes around. His dependability is also part of canon, thanks to his shared past with the protagonist, Hawks.
“By tying Trick to Hawks prior to the game, that [ensures] they have a connection that extends beyond the current version of Zero Company that the player is experiencing,” Foertsch said.
“We felt it was a really unique moment, and something very special to Zero Company,” he said.
Seen from the edges of the galaxy
Jonathan Freeman, the voice of male Hawks, said the Order 66 sequence sums up Zero Company “in a nutshell.” Most Star Wars tales center on the figures who control the galaxy’s fate. Zero Company narrows its focus to a ragtag band of outcasts on a side adventure of their own during the Clone Wars.
“It’s just so cool to take the huge, epic, iconic story [of Star Wars] and pinpoint this very specific important moment and show it happening in real time to people off to the side,” Freeman said.
He enjoyed that the scene shows regular people puzzled by the sudden hologram of their new emperor, a reaction that must have played out in every city and major hub across the freshly formed Galactic Empire. “I think that’s what makes this story special,” he said.
Foertsch said the whole team shared that outsider’s perspective as a goal. “We wanted to show that event from a different lens, and a very different perspective than fans had ever seen before,” he said.
Hawks and Bennic split
Hawks takes the hardest hit from the turn. He and Bennic have grown close over the course of the game, and Order 66 pulls them apart. Hawks remains with Zero Company, while Bennic stays in service to what has become the Galactic Empire.
“The relationships in this script are just so good,” Freeman said, describing them as a “vital” part of both the game and its story. He was happy the pair make up by the end, though unlike players, he knew from day one that they would patch things up.
He credited the developer, saying, “[to] have time for these moments, for the relationships to stand out and to have such consequence and heart, is pretty impressive.”
News arrives at the holotable
Vic Michaelis, who plays Runa, said Zero Company’s Order 66 “feels very Star Wars-ian.” When it happens, Runa isn’t in the hangar alongside Hawks, Trick and the others. She’s at the holotable, her usual spot for most of the game. “I was learning about [Order 66] in real time with a lot of people,” Michaelis said.
Michaelis, like Freeman, is working on Star Wars for the first time but has loved the franchise their entire life. They said some roles are ones “where it’s a job and you’re saying stuff,” and Star Wars doesn’t fall into that group.
“Watching the game come together, with the Star Wars music piped in underneath, it really is like, ‘Oh my God, we are in Star Wars. We’re in Star Wars right now,'” they said. “It is very surreal, and [Order 66] was one of those moments too.”
Baker has been through this many times
For Baker, the scene carries political weight as well as dramatic weight. “Everything flips, and tyranny takes over,” he said. “In some ways, maybe it’s the most important moment in Star Wars, to show how democracy falls and how diabolical authoritarian [rule] can be. That’s an important and relevant moment in our world right now.”
After almost twenty years voicing the clones, he has gone through their betrayal more than once. He noted that The Bad Batch began with it, in a “shocking” moment.
Baker has admitted in the past that he can’t keep track of every clone he’s played the way fans do, and he’s also lost track of how many Order 66 scenes he’s recorded. “Once again, the fans know better than me how many times I’ve been through Order 66, I would imagine.”
Star Wars Zero Company is available now on PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X.