Star Wars fans should have high expectations for strategy game from XCOM veterans

The Star Wars first-person shooter that Respawn was working on may be gone, but fans of the franchise eagerly awaiting new games should be happy to hear about the latest developments of the tactical strategy game in the works at Bit Reactor.

According to an interview conducted by PC Gamer, the Star Wars title will be heavily inspired by XCOM. 15 members of the Bit Reactor development team are veterans of the turn-based strategy franchise from Firaxis, representing “about a third of the studio,” according to co-founder Grey Foertsch.

When speaking to PC Gamer, Foertsch described many of the tactical strategy games the developers had worked on in the past as “just like tips of icebergs,” indicating that the veterans at Bit Reactor likely have some ambitious plans for what they want to do with Star Wars. Aside from pushing the genre forward, lead animator Hector Antunez also spoke extensively about making the game more accessible and “getting it in more people’s hands.”

The tactics-based style of strategy game is an all-new galaxy to explore when it comes to Star Wars. The franchise has seen roughly half a dozen strategy games over the past couple decades, with the most recent being Empire At War from 2006, but none of them explored this particular genre.

Both the leadership team at Bit Reactor and the PC Gamer interviewer Robin Valentine are massive fans of the rebooted XCOM series, and for good reason. The games reignited passion for the turn-based strategy genre, leading to much bigger franchises adopting the genre in the years following, like Marvel’s Midnight Suns and Mario + Rabbids.