Star Wars Zero Company Has Sold an Estimated 1 Million Copies, and Most of Bit Reactor’s Staff Are Still Furloughed
Star Wars Zero Company launched on August 27 to the best reviews a major Star Wars game has seen in over two decades, and now it looks like the sales are catching up to the critical reception. A new third-party estimate puts the tactics game at roughly 1 million copies sold, even as developer Bit Reactor is still working through the aftermath of furloughing most of its staff just weeks before launch.
An Estimate, Not an Official Number
The figures come from analytics firm Alinea Analytics, whose analyst Rhys Elliott published a report on September 22 estimating that Zero Company has generated around $50 million in revenue since launch. Elliott wrote that the game “has made about $50M since launching on August 27,” splitting the roughly 1 million estimated unit sales across platforms at about 69.9% on Steam, 19.9% on PlayStation, and 10.2% on Xbox. Neither EA nor Bit Reactor has officially confirmed the numbers.
Zero Company’s tactical combat has drawn comparisons to Bit Reactor’s XCOM pedigree since launch.
Most of the Team Is Still Furloughed
About three weeks before the game shipped, Bit Reactor furloughed most of its employees and terminated its contractors after the studio ran out of most of its money ahead of launch, a decision later detailed in a lawsuit filing and confirmed by a Bit Reactor representative. Some reports citing unnamed sources have put the reduction as high as 80% of staff, though that specific figure hasn’t been confirmed on the record. The Bit Reactor representative said the furloughs were the studio’s own decision, not something directed by EA or Lucasfilm Games, and that the team hoped to bring furloughed workers back with restored pay, noting that “a successful launch of the game could be impactful.”
No Word Yet on Bringing the Team Back
Despite the milestone, neither Bit Reactor nor EA has announced that furloughed staff are being brought back, and it’s still unclear whether the furloughs will turn into permanent layoffs. It’s a rough backdrop for a game that critics have otherwise embraced, with Zero Company sitting in the mid-80s on Metacritic and standing as the best-reviewed major Star Wars release since Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II back in 2004, as we covered in our full review of Bit Reactor’s tactics debut.
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Picture Source: Electronic Arts
