Star Wars Zero Company Hits 1 Million Sales - But Is That Enough?

Star Wars Zero Company reportedly sold 1 million units, with 70% on PC. But with Bit Reactor's staff furloughed, does commercial success even matter?

Did you pick up Star Wars Zero Company when it dropped in late August? If so, you're part of a pretty big club - market-data firm Alinea Analytics estimates the game has sold 1 million units.

Analyst Rhys Elliott shared the estimate on Twitter, and the platform split is telling. Roughly 70% of sales came on PC, which makes sense for a turn-based tactics game. PlayStation followed at about 20%, with Xbox bringing up the rear at around 10%. Elliott called the performance "respectable for the genre and during such a crowded period" - and he's not wrong, given it launched alongside heavy hitters like Onimusha: Way of the Sword and The Blood of Dawnwalker.

There's a catch, though. Elliott also noted that Zero Company's appeal is almost entirely Western, with less than 5% of players based in Asia. That's a surprisingly narrow footprint for a Star Wars game, a franchise with massive global reach.

Here's where things get weird. The sales news lands just weeks after developer Bit Reactor furloughed a large portion of its staff. It's still unclear when - or if - those folks will be able to resume work at the studio. So even a million copies sold doesn't guarantee a smooth road ahead.

A strong commercial showing would presumably make publisher EA more interested in greenlighting a sequel. But EA itself is in a strange spot right now, having just been taken private as part of a deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. Timing, as they say, is everything.

All that uncertainty aside, the game itself is worth your time if you enjoy XCOM-style tactics. In GameSpot's 8/10 review, Steve Watts praised developer Bit Reactor for setting "higher ambitions than simply slapping a Star Wars skin on a template," highlighting its smart tweaks to the XCOM formula.

So what do you think - does 1 million sales signal a bright future for Zero Company, or does the Bit Reactor situation put a sequel in jeopardy? Will you be picking this one up?