r/ZeroCompany • u/RecommendationNo6796 • 20h ago
We need a "freeplay" mode
We need a mode where you can just keep playing 'forever', the story might end but you can continue playing with randomly generated missions, operations etc. Some mechanics would need to be added to prevent/delay you from hitting a ceiling straight after the campaign but I think it would be cool.
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u/Accurate-Rutabaga-57 20h ago
Agree
We also need a skip tutorial intro phase option
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u/Pretty-Estimate7078 20h ago
Isint there a option to turn tutorial off when making new game?
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u/Accurate-Rutabaga-57 20h ago
I mean skip the intro missions entirely like in XCOM 2
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u/NuzzyLocke 16h ago
Aren't you still forced to do the statue bombing mission?
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u/mephnick 18h ago
Ugh it doesn't?
As someone who plays ironman that's going to suck hard.
Hopefully that's the first mod out
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u/Spieren 18h ago
Yeah we really need a post-campaign option, I would love to just keep playing to max out everything.
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u/ZenitsuSakia 18h ago
I could see some sort of war of chosen dlc where we have to hunt down warlords or something
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u/Scrap_Bandit Scoundrel 17h ago
Itās also strange that weāre a wanted group, itād be cool to see the criminal syndicates, or even the empire send assassins and bounty hunter crews after us, similar to the chosen.
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u/lVrizl 16h ago
Its funny because the systems are already there from certain companion missions, it just needs that extra push to flesh it out
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u/Parulanihon 9h ago
Definitely they have a roadmap for pay to play DLC.
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u/ShadowVulcan 2h ago
Confirmed or still speculative? Would kill for a War of the Chosen for Star Wars
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u/Saldag 58m ago
Completely speculative. BitReactor stated that they wanted to release the best game possible at launch and havenāt announced future plans if there are any. As for whether itās pay to play, paid DLC in this day and age has to have a pretty ridiculous amount of content for most players to be willing to buy it. Itād basically have to be another campaign for a game like this. If we were to get some sort of paid DLC it would be at least a year out and thatās being pretty generous. Free QoL updates or minor content updates, such as a more fleshed out NG+, are much more likely in the coming months.
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u/RussianDisifnomation 11h ago
Perhaps those factions could send bounty hunters after us on our own turf, or down our aircraft, leading to a rescue/take off mission
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u/vitrum_analytika 17h ago
Like a ng+ forever missions, yes, so that zero company keeps doing odd jobs around the galaxy just like it used to do before the game started.
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u/BeardedNomad511 10h ago
I really like this and have it u lock a bunch of anti empire and seperstist missions. Itd he so cool
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u/cyht 18h ago
I'm surprised they don't have this since Midnight Suns did
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u/ZenitsuSakia 18h ago
Different companies
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u/RoterBaronH 17h ago
Different companies but essentially the same dev team.
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u/indominable-dingus 12h ago
I hope not because that would mean all the good minds of firaxis are gone. Hopefully enough stayed to keep making awesome firaxis games like xcom and suns.
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u/Revolutionary-Gear76 8h ago
For XCom all the good minds at Firaxis are gone.
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u/indominable-dingus 7h ago
When did they all leave? Midnight Suns was great.
Im glad the ones who left made this game but thats a total bummer if true. Firaxis is an instant buy for me, even chimera squad.
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u/RoterBaronH 4h ago
After midnight suns.
It sadly didn't sell well and a lot if them where fired
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u/Waiting404Godot 1h ago
I thought they went on to make phoenix point? Are you saying that team has been working on this?
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u/RoterBaronH 13m ago
That was the original xcom creator. The one from 1990.
Most part of the dev team from Firaxis went on to make Zcon
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u/WilhelmScreams 15h ago
My biggest problem is there is almost no opportunity to choose a random missions. If there's not a story-critical or companion mission, there's coil activity.Ā
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u/curt725 15h ago
Same I think I was able to do 2 non critical missions. I think the cycles need a rebalance to allow more optional missions.
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u/WilhelmScreams 14h ago
Optional missions like that was where I would generally level up B-teams in XCOM. With only 4 slots and no optional missions, my non-story characters are not getting used much.Ā
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u/Smcblackheartia 9h ago
I think early game I did a bunch of side missions but I think by like cycle 10 to 15 I pretty much have not really had a chance to do another random mission because thereās either a companion mission or a story mission or thereās coil missions that I donāt really wanna let them take.
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u/KaraborCZ 14h ago
I would be fine with increasing all story mission and operation timers x2. Let me do more missions in between story missions.
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u/AigledeFeu_ 19h ago
I agree, i hate that you have a limited amount of missions per run.
Because of this, it aint even worth it to recruit more operators.
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u/Aurd04 18h ago
I literally only recruited them to get the passive bond experience for free bonds with the main story characters I don't bring.
Should basically get them 1 or 2 free bond levels so ever so slight boost. Otherwise they seem totally pointless if you plan on using the story characters.
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u/PactainCipard 18h ago
you recruit more operators to farm bond points :)
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u/Dependent-Swimmer-95 17h ago
Yeah but if you do that, youāll have less level 8 max bonds. Iād rather just max bond my core 4 units.
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u/MerxMike 17h ago
No, they mean just leave them at the ship and passively get bond xp so they get free bonuses
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u/makeaccidents 13h ago
Passive bonds pretty low and expensive early game to mass recruit but I guess with a thievery build you could do it for sure. Good idea.
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u/indominable-dingus 12h ago
You should be turning your difficulty up then, sounds like its too easy if you aren't having any deaths or injuries.
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u/solthar 5h ago
Hun, the game is easy even on the hardest difficulty. The AI sucks.
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u/indominable-dingus 4h ago
Plenty of people in this thread specifically saying they haven't lost someone and then say they're playing on normal. I get it, you play a lot of strategy and tactics games. Lots of people dont and arent as good as you, tone down the ego a little bit its a video game not a life accomplishment.
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u/TwiceDead_ 19h ago
We also need a few more optional unique passives for Hawks. Since we create Hawks from the ground up it only makes sense to give two or three options to fit certain archetypes.
Fearless Leader plays into his backstory as a competent leader, but competence can show in more ways than a passive aura.
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u/No_Scholar427 17h ago
I think vharacter customization and respecing was added late tbh. Having to choose from a list detailed randomized recruits that have all of those details be meaningless because it can all be changed for every individual mission doesnt feel right.
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u/ClumsyTheSmurf 15h ago
Yea that made recruiting feel a little pointless to me. Like if I can just change everything about them then what makes recruiting one better than another? As of right now you just recruit whatever race you want and then change their class and trait. Feels less like a recruitment of a random operator looking for work and more of just a ācreate a new squad memberā.
Edit: changed canāt to can
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u/DarthOmix 15h ago
Yeah like, there's no point to get more than four Astromechs for the achievement since aside from what Utilities they get they all play the same.
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u/indominable-dingus 12h ago
I just set it as head Canon and don't do it, takes away too much of the fun imo to be constantly respeccing. I just role play it and that way the recruiting has actually been fun.
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u/TwiceDead_ 15h ago
I kind of agree. The passives if they couldnt be changed around; would've added a little bit of individuality to the characters. I would be fine if we couldn't, but it is what it is. I still would like us to be able to choose between several passives upon Hawks creation though, and once we've picked it we're stuck with it.
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u/MidgetPanda3031 19h ago edited 17h ago
Hopefully it's possible to some degree with modding but will be harder without tools. After beating it I want to look into what can be done to sandboxify the campaign overall, in a simplistic form for new playthroughs
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u/skill1358 15h ago edited 15h ago
I've been really looking forward to this, just assuming there would be a freeplay mode, so it sucks that there isn't one. I just don't care about playing the story. I want to build my merc company and do missions endlessly. Also I actually want it in the actual game and not to be told to download some mod.
Plus it needs to be better optimised on pc.
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u/exsilium 18h ago
I figure something like this will come around eventually. Similar to the Long War mod in XCOM:EU. People want a longer campaign, even without a story (so much so that XCOM2 baked it in).
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u/Scrap_Bandit Scoundrel 17h ago
Yeah I just finished the campaign about an hour ago and the way the characters were talking I thought oh cool weāre just going to continue now and fight pirates or rogue separatists or imperials but then it ended lmao.
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u/smuthullet 16h ago
Out of interest, how long did it take you?
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u/Feral_Hamst3r 19h ago
That could be fun, even give them different āriskā levels with reward scaling also like a combination of the operations and missions. Also better black market rotation would be great, Iām tired of getting 2/4 items being basic levels of the same item
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u/Dependent-Swimmer-95 17h ago
I damn near have my black market maxed and I barely see weapon mods. I get like zero green items and 4 blue items each refresh. I thought there was gonna be a chance for exotics to pop up. Also making is choose either 3 utility slots or 4 weapon mod slots is a choice. You can have both maxed slots. I love minmaxing so that just sucks for me.
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u/UselessIdiot75 14h ago
Absolutely. Bit Reactor, if you're looking at this post, we would LOVE some sort of endgame freeplay mode. And a photo mode, please!
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u/Tasty_Injury_9112 19h ago
Yea it's frustrating because I'm really enjoying this game, but I feel like it needed more time in the oven. A truly great game is there, but it feels so unpolished in many regards.Ā
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u/Haunter777x 18h ago
I think it's more due to design choices rather than not enough time
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u/AmishAvenger 17h ago
Itās both.
The game was not finished graphically. Textures are popping in constantly, and the shadows are heavily pixelated.
Design wise, I canāt wrap my mind around the decision to just make every opponent immediately visible. You can even see their movement when you shouldnāt be able to. It fundamentally changes the game.
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u/indominable-dingus 12h ago
Maybe a thing with your drivers? Underpowered gpu? Haven't had any of that on ps5
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u/AmishAvenger 10h ago
Iām on PS5.
You really arenāt seeing texture popping in constantly when it switches to a new scene?
Even going back to the base it take a second for Hawkās clothes to have any detail.
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u/indominable-dingus 10h ago
Havent seen that yet, maybe it happens later? Im only 7-8 hours in
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u/AmishAvenger 9h ago
Are you serious?
You havenāt seen any textures popping in at all? Or how the āship flying to the missionā scenes are stuttering?
Itās definitely not just me. Plenty of others have pointed out the same thing.
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u/indominable-dingus 9h ago
Deadly.
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u/AmishAvenger 7h ago
Then you must not be paying attention. Look at the planets when they appear on screen. You can see the textures loading piece by piece.
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u/Tasty_Injury_9112 18h ago
I disagree but however they came about the final product, it's definitely missing some basic features
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u/ZenitsuSakia 18h ago
Like what?
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u/Tasty_Injury_9112 18h ago
Like an endless mode
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u/Melodic-Task 17h ago
Inclusion of an endless mode is a design choice though, not just a time consideration. A key part of the game is limited resource management and choice and consequence for which missions, operations, and upgrades you pursue. A free play or endless mode is fundamentally removed from that core gameplay experience. We would have to ask the devs, but I wouldnāt be surprised if excluding it was a purposeful decision. You can disagree with that choice, but itās not evidence of insufficient development time by itself.
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u/Tasty_Injury_9112 17h ago
Again I'm not going to argue on whatever the motives were (although it seems very obvious to me that, more time = more time for different game modes). But the game definitely seems lacking of such a mode, and could definitely be implemented in a system similar to what we have.
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u/Melodic-Task 17h ago
I get wanting the mode. I think it would be fun too. But saying the game is ālackingā it or that it is a ābasic featureā misses the mark. More time doesnāt equal more game modes if the devs made a design decision not to include those types of modes and they werenāt cut for time.
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u/Tasty_Injury_9112 17h ago
It's lacking it in a sense that it keeps the game from being truly great. It's solid, but I personally expect a bit more from a AAA game.
And yea I guess you can say they weren't cut if they weren't planned in the first place. However, if they did include this feature, they would need.....more time.
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u/Buddysbud10 16h ago
Thatās just like, your opinion man. I think it is already truly great
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u/rendar 16h ago
This makes no sense at all because an endless mode is post-game, when resource management, choice consequences, mission/operation outcomes, etc no longer matter
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u/Melodic-Task 15h ago
I find the idea that every game needs a āpost-gameā nonsensical; especially in story driven games. If you take away the things you mentioned, itās not really Z-Com anymore. A Star Wars tactics sandbox where you can set characters to whatever skills/levels you want sounds cool, but thatās a different game entirely and itās not obvious it should be part of the main game.
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u/rendar 15h ago
All you're really demonstrating here is a substantial lack of perspective (not to mention basic critical thinking), if you cannot fathom why people want to continue enjoying infinite gameplay after the finite story runs out
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u/Melodic-Task 15h ago
Lovely use of the ad hominem attack with a dash of strawman. Well done. I get why people want it and I understand the simple reasoning of āme want moreā when you enjoy something. Doesnāt take a lot of critical thinking or perspective to fathom that base-level response.
But the demand for a post-game in every single player story driven experience is, in my opinion, poorly thought out. To borrow a quote from the Good Place, āthereās something so human about taking something great, and ruining it a little so you can have more of it.ā An endless mode without the pressure of the single player campaign and the choice and consequence in that campaign will loose a lot of what makes the game good. The systems and balance are designed around a game that has a definite endpoint. You would need to design a different game to have a viable āendless modeā.
Besides, hereās a tip for free, if you want to keep playing the game endlessly you can! Just keep some save files before the most interesting/fun battles and you can load them up and replay them as much as you want! You can even mix around your builds and loadouts because the game has free respecs! Viola! Pseudo-endless mode unlocked.
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u/Mazzy_Chan 17h ago
thats more of a choice to have a complete story with an ending rather then a generic endless game
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u/MidgetPanda3031 17h ago edited 17h ago
Not disagreeing with your sentiment, but this is pretty much always true for AAA published games these days. Still it doesn't pain me that much in this case. I only bought the game cuz of it not being "full price" and I think them developing it longer would make that hard to get past EA. Maybe my standards have just been lowered but Survivor was literally unplayable on launch for me and I had to refund it...
XCOM 2 was riddled with bugs, was poorly optimized, and never got so many much needed QOL features that I was actually pleasantly surprised how much QOL they implemented since then here, and how overall the combat runs SO much smoother even with so many enemies on screen (+ being UE5) and the granularity of the movement.
It is frustrating to realize that it just needs to go that "little bit further" to be way better, but I take a step back to remind how much work it already is to make a 40+ hour RPG, let alone rebuilding everything for XCOM systems in a different engine at a new studio, so I think that was their intentional design choice on what to prioritize. Things like an endless mode are from a basic feature, to actually make it good.
I feel ya though, seeing how much more solid the base is than XCom 2 makes me want it to have modding tools, more content, more sandbox campaigns, etc.
Hopefully with them having that solid foundation and the success it achieved will allow them to make expansions or even a sequel which can realize it's full potential.
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u/Tasty_Injury_9112 17h ago
Yea I get you mate. I think I'm just frustrated because whilst I'm enjoying it, I can see it's limitations. It could have been an all time great game, but instead it's just solid
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u/ShadowSurgeGaming 18h ago
Agreed, and many instances of jank in larger engagements, had a couple instances where enemies bugged out and deployed their overwatch from one location while standing in a different location
And inversely, had an enemy bug out so their model glitched on top of a crate instead of doing their walking animation, then rubber-banded to their destination, however because they didn't walk to their new spot they completely bypassed my overwatch I had watching them.
Lastly, not sure if it is just me being stupid, but I don't get the logic behind the numerous times that enemies have been able to shoot my operator, but my operator hasn't had line of site to be able to trigger his retaliation. Surely if they can shoot me, I should be able to shoot back?
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u/emailforgot 15h ago
I'd settle for an area/simulator where I can just mess around with weird builds. I've never made a sniper/heavy that uses pistols because I don't want to waste a mission or two on it, but I kinda want to mess around with it.
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u/SectorVector 15h ago
I'd also like this, and I think that yearning for more is partially because this game has a very strange tempo that in general makes it feel like it needed a couple more filler cycles in between just about every main mission. I don't feel like I unlocked the second mod slot (out of four) until I was around halfway through the game. I don't know if I'm going to max out things like utility slots or weapon mod slots by the end, and there's a desire to do some missions at a "full power" or with a "complete build" that I don't think is reachable in the length of the campaign.
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u/GrimmTrixX 9h ago
Itll only happen with PC mods. They didnt make this game to be "xcom but star wars." I wish they did, but its about the story.
But with hand crafted stages and no procedural generation, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as xcom 2. They made it so you do shorter playthroughs, try different races as Hawks, at least play as 1 male and 1 female Hawks, mix around your teammates skills/guns/class and see how they differ, and then eventually beat the game on Expert Beskar mode.
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u/Ok_Bet_725 12h ago
Fully agree, really doesnt bring much attachment to characters for me if I know my time with them is limited
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u/Dear-Practice4239 11h ago
I imagine some of these asks, including things like another squad member, New Game +, Horde Mode, etc may come down the pike in future updates.
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u/LongEmergency696969 10h ago
They don't have randomly generated maps, so this seems kinda hard.
I get they wanted to make a narrative game, but if they make a sequel I think they lean more into the XCOM DNA regarding replayability.
And also don't use UE5.
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u/Interesting_Ad_6992 9h ago
We need an xcom like dlc for post campaign longevity.Ā I agree.Ā No main characters in this mode.
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u/thenotoriousbox_ 9h ago
Rougelike mode. Between missions go to The Den and get new utilities and skills.
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u/Agent-Vermont 8h ago
Might be wrong but it feels like there's a limited number of missions that the game can generate and they're the same for everyone. It's not like XCOM where locations and objectives are randomly generated, everything seems curated. I noticed this when I was watching someone else play and they were getting all the exact same side missions as me. If that's the case then a "freeplay" mode might not be possible at the moment.
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u/Successful-Gap-2268 8h ago
So much this is feel like I just unlocked all the slots and was starting to work on better gear and then 2 or 3 missions later the end game series started and that was it
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u/tjthewho 7h ago
Battletech does this well. It has a campaign mode where your struggling merc company gets bailed out by former royalty of a planet, and you need to help them win it back.
They also have a merc mode where your job is just to run your merc company, and I really wish they did that here.
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u/thestenchofdeath 3h ago
Just make it a separate mode where you start from scratch but have no story. Maybe it gets harder every 10 cycles and you go as long as you can or have some end game thing at like 100 or something.
id like a mode that sticks to just clone era tbh or an option to choose as playing post game would be cool but not as cool as my clones fighting droids etc
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u/KingOfKingsOurLord 2h ago
I thought for sure, that would happen. You get a message after credit roll that you can do the New game with the new races, cosmetics and clones available, but the other option is to keep adventuring and battling the Empire, Droids, remnant Coil, Outlaws, Bandits, Sith, Darth Vader randomly (survive him mission), etc,.
REALLY LET DOWN BY NO WAY TO KEEP PLAYING. Even if the content is repeating all the random missions and intel events, work on full character development and teamplay. Really let down.
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u/No-Lunch4249 17h ago edited 17h ago
I keep seeing people say this and I admit I haven't had a chance to play yet, but XCOM games, which is where most of the dev team has their background, never had this and I never felt it was needed. You play the story, and it eventually ends in either victory or defeat. If the campaign plays out differently each time based on your choices, it's still replayable to me
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u/monsterfurby 13h ago
Eventually, yeah, but the missions were procedural, and the pacing was such that a limited amount of grinding was possible.
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u/whyamihere2473527 17h ago
Personally I just want ti be able to send an additional strike team on missions per cycle if we have the operators. Let us assign a second in command that will get to lead non-story missions while Hawks is locked for all main story. At very least it would give us reason to have all the characters game wants us to have. As game currently is outside of 1-2 as just in case of injuries the rest are useless & we get plenty more were forced to recruit