What Are Star Wars Zero Company's Difficulty Options?

Published Sep 3, 2026, 11:14 AM EDT Collin is a Guides Staff Writer at TheGamer who has been writing guides for nearly ten years. He is also a professional game/level designer. More importantly, he's still waiting for a new Ape Escape game to release. Star Wars Zero Company can be quite a difficult game if you're not experienced in tactical strategy games. Enemy encounters can be tricky and often punishing if you're poorly prepared. This can make some encounters quite stressful, since it's possible to get crucial operators injured or even outright lose them when permadeath is enabled. Thankfully, Zero Company offers multiple difficulty options for both your overall playthrough and individual missions. Here's a full breakdown of all the different difficulty options, so you know which one will suit you best. Every Difficulty Option When you start a campaign, you will have the option to select from four different difficulty settings: Story, Normal, Hard, or Expert. Story is the easiest mode and is best for those who just want to experience the game's campaign with basically no friction. The enemies will deal significantly less damage and won't be as accurate in combat, which is a pretty substantial nerf. Unless you really want an easy time and basically no challenge at all, I wouldn't pick Story mode. Normal is the recommended difficulty for anyone playing the game for the first time. All weapons will have normal accuracy, but their ranges are pretty generous, which can make some blaster archetypes quite strong. The game recommends Normal for those who are new to tactical strategy games, as it can still put up a bit of a challenge in some sections without being overwhelmingly punishing. Hard is where I suspect a lot of people will land on for their first playthrough — especially if you're experienced with franchises like XCOM. Enemies will deal more damage and be harder to kill, while the ranges on your blasters are going to be way more punishing. You'll need to really think about your positioning, as it's easy to lose an operator if they get caught out in the open. Additionally, the Bacta Tank is disabled in Hard mode. This is a way to instantly heal an operator of all their injuries, instead of needing to wait a full day for them to recover. Your operator bonds will also start lower, so be prepared to really rely on Operations and take them on missions if you want to improve them. The last main difficulty setting is Expert, and I do not recommend this for your first playthrough. Enemies hit extremely hard and are way more durable, which can be pretty tricky when you're up against Super Battle Droids, Droidekas, or some of the beefier Coil enemies. Your weapon ranges are going to be significantly worse, so you'll really need to rely on using cover to close the gap. Just like with Hard mode, the Bacta tank will be disabled, and all operator bonds will start much lower than on Normal. Finally, there is Beskar Mode, which can be toggled at the start of a new campaign on any difficulty setting. This is a permadeath game mode that has a single save file which constantly overwrites itself as you progress. If you lose Hawks or a key story character such as Trick, the entire run just ends. Every choice you make could directly result in you having to start the entire campaign over again. You can also disable permadeath mode in the main menu if you don't want to risk losing your operators! It will be on by default when you start the game on any difficulty. Once you're in-game, there are three separate difficulties for the missions you'll go on: Risky, Dangerous, and Extreme. Risky is the easiest and often won't pose much of a challenge for any operator teams. Dangerous is considered normal and makes up the vast majority of missions you'll go on. Expect to encounter Elite-tier enemies here, but most missions will only consist of a single encounter. Extreme missions are the toughest, often consist of multiple encounters, and often include a boss. You'll want to ensure you're bringing the best operators you have on these missions, as they are typically unforgiving and require a bit of planning. A lot of the key story missions are also Extreme difficulty, so this isn't a difficulty you can really avoid.