Patch 1.2 is the update Zero Company players asked for in launch week. It went live on Thursday, October 15, with three big changes: optional Campaign Modifiers that make a new campaign much harder, a cheaper Den (every recruit now costs 100 Credits and most upgrades cost half or less), and the game's first balance pass, which reins in Cly, the Scout and the Astromech. It also fixes a long list of Overwatch bugs, including enemy shots that hit 85 percent of the time at any range.
What it does not do: add missions, a post-game or New Game Plus, touch the Infinite Coil's health and healing, or mention the Intel 13th and 14th generation crashes.
What changed, in one table
| Area | Before 1.2 | After 1.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Challenge | Four difficulties, Beskar Mode, permadeath on or off | Plus 20 optional Campaign Modifiers for a new campaign |
| Recruits | Price rose with every hire | 100 Credits, always |
| Crew Quarters I to IV | 400 to 1,000 Credits each | Free |
| Focus Point I to III | 3,500 / 4,750 / 6,500 | 2,000 each |
| Cly | No limits on her best tricks | Combat Jump once per turn, Electroweb Dart three per turn |
| Scout's Tactical Timing | 20/40/60/80/100% by tier, Advantage from any attack | 30/40/50/65/80%, Advantage from ranged and melee attacks only |
| Astromech | Self-Repair and Built-In Comlink with no cap | Self-Repair twice per combat, Comlink three per turn at max rank |
| Call for Backup | No hotkey | Bind it to any key |
Campaign Modifiers: the headline feature
Bit Reactor's notes say players wanted to raise the difficulty "particularly around Injuries and Permadeath," and this is the answer. Start a new campaign, open the Difficulty Settings menu and press Additional Campaign Options. You can pick:
- Deadlier Injuries. Two Strikes kills an Operator defeated while already injured; Instant Death kills on the first defeat, with one exception per mission for Trick.
- A chance of death on every Down. A flat 20 percent, or a risk that climbs to 40 and then 80 percent each time an Operator survives one.
- Less health growth, down to none at all from Focus Points.
- Less Advantage, from area attacks, assist attacks or damage in general.
- Tactical rules: assist shots that can miss, enemy critical hits, and a 99 percent cap on your own shots.
- Lockouts on respecs, weapon swaps and the recruit re-roll button.
They switch on after the tutorial and can only be chosen when a campaign starts. Bit Reactor's own advice is to play the default rules on Normal first, and we agree. Every option, what it does and the setups we would pick are in our difficulty settings guide; the death rules in detail are in the permadeath guide.
Do you need to start a new campaign?
Only for the modifiers. The notes tie Campaign Modifiers to a new campaign and say nothing that limits the other changes, so the new prices, the balance changes and the bug fixes should apply to a campaign you already have. That is our reading of the notes rather than something Bit Reactor spelled out.
If you were mid-campaign on 1.1, the patch helps you more than it hurts. Recruits are cheap, the Upgrade Facility is finally affordable, and the Overwatch fixes mean enemy shots now respect range. The nerfs only bite if your squad leaned on a multi-Astromech Action Point loop, Cly jumping several times a turn, or a Scout farming Advantage with grenades. Our starter guide has the new prices and where to spend first, and the classes guide covers the nerfs.
The fixes you will notice
- Overwatch works the way it says. Enemy trooper and enforcer Overwatch shots often had an 85 percent chance to hit at any range; that is fixed, along with cones that showed coverage the shot could not take, cones on the wrong spot, and invisible trigger zones.
- Open Fire shows the real odds. Its second and third shots gave flanked enemies their cover bonus, so hit chances were "significantly lower than those presented in the UI," in the notes' words.
- Softlocks. The Utility Tutorial, saving in the elevator on Retake Lunata, and an epilogue mission that blocked progression.
- The Bacta Tank is no longer lost when you drop from Hard to an easier difficulty.
- Clones stop resetting to their default appearance.
- On PlayStation 5, EA's copy of the notes adds two fixes: profile names not saving, and the Character Databank being deleted once enough Operators were created.
- On PC, "various performance issues" and a crash when quitting from the main menu. Our crash-fix guide is still the place to start if you stutter.
Against the launch-week complaints
In September we sorted what players were complaining about, and patch 1.1 touched none of it. Here is the same list against 1.2.
| Complaint | Patch 1.2 |
|---|---|
| Cly and the action economy make Expert easy | Addressed. Cly, Scout and Astromech limits, plus Advantage modifiers for a harder run |
| The Infinite Coil are a chore | Bug fixes only. Shared Suffering and Resonance now behave; their health and heals are unchanged |
| Not enough missions, nothing after the credits | Not addressed. Modifiers make a second campaign worth more, but there is no new content or New Game Plus |
| The economy is tight | Addressed. Flat 100-Credit recruits, free Crew Quarters, Upgrade Facility prices cut across the board |
| Timers on everything | Unchanged. One fix stops an Operation objective that never expired |
| Crashes | Partly. Performance and stability fixes; the Intel 13th and 14th generation problem is not mentioned |
| Three Injuries is too forgiving | Addressed, optionally. Two Strikes and Instant Death |
Two of the six biggest complaints are dealt with, and the economy complaint more completely than we expected: the notes say players were not using the Upgrade Facility "often because they lacked enough credits." The Coil, the timers and the lack of anything after the credits remain.
Did it bring players back?
Not on its first afternoon. Zero Company's Steam high on Thursday was 2,260 at 3pm Central, against 3,061 at the same hour a week earlier, which is the same weekday slide it has been on since launch. Patch 1.1 produced no bump either. Patch days are a poor test, since people who have finished a campaign need a reason and an evening to start another, so the number to watch is this weekend against last Sunday's 4,433. Steam reviews stood at 84 percent positive across 23,274 on Thursday afternoon.
Should you go back?
If you finished a campaign and want more: yes. Start a second campaign on Hard with Two Strikes, Enemies Can Critically Hit and No Perfect Shots, which is the run the game was missing.
If you are mid-campaign: keep going. The cheaper Den and the Overwatch fixes help you now; save the modifiers for the next run.
If you have not bought it: 1.2 makes the game better without changing what it is, a Clone Wars squad tactics game that is easy on Normal and generous to replay. Our review still stands. Intel 13th and 14th generation owners should still read the crash-fix guide first.
Sources
- Patch 1.2 notes, posted on Steam at 10:26am Central on October 15, and EA's copy on its Zero Company news page the same day, which adds the two PlayStation 5 fixes. Neither copy lists platforms.
- Player numbers from SteamCharts' hourly record for the game; a single zero reading at 11am Thursday, around when the patch went live, is left out.
- Steam review totals from Steam's review API, all languages, read at 3:55pm Central on October 15.
- The launch-week complaints from our September 5 roundup of r/ZeroCompany.
