The campaign

What are cycles in Zero Company?

The campaign clock. Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle, and missions and Operations expire after a limited number of them.

Preview-reported

Confidence: Strongly supported
Verified: 14 September 2026
Version: Retail 1.1, 9 September 2026 — official patch notes

The short answer

The campaign clock. Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle, and missions and Operations expire after a limited number of them.

In full

What that means when you are planning

One previewer reports you can run only one full combat mission per cycle, which makes every cycle a choice about what you are giving up rather than a schedule to work through.

Things that cost cycles: healing an Injury in a standard Medbay bed takes one, and the instant alternative, the Bacta Tank, can be used once per cycle from Patch 1.1. Things that expire: missions and Operations both, permanently. Recruitment offers a new selection of Operators each cycle, so passing on someone is not always a decision you can revisit.

The clock runs against you in a second way. Enemy factions strengthen over the campaign regardless of what you do, and ignoring certain Operations grants them upgrades that persist all game. One previewer reached cycle 7 in roughly eight hours.

Open questions

Points the shipped game has not yet answered for us, or that need a controlled comparison to state as fact — recorded rather than guessed at.

How many cycles a campaign runs.
Whether the one-mission-per-cycle limit is universal or specific to the preview build.

Can you miss an Operation permanently?: Yes. Operations expire, and one whose window closes is gone for good.
What are Operations in Zero Company?: The non-combat half of the campaign — intelligence work and political manoeuvring, run from the HoloTable at the Den between missions.
How many Injuries kill an Operator?: Three, on standard difficulty.

Where this is covered properly

Sources

Lead Zero Company To Victory on August 27
Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026
Supports: Operator introductions; 3 Action Points per turn; Advantage caps at 10; the eight Specializations; Bonds in the Personnel Facility; Hawks' species options
I played Star Wars Zero Company early — new gameplay and details
Star Wars HQ · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 5:01–12:48 — one full combat mission per cycle; Hawks alone cannot permanently die; the exotic classes restricted to Cly, Tel-Rea and astromechs; recruitment refreshing each cycle with a name, Talent, Specialization and weapon type; Medbay bed and Bacta Tank costs; ignoring Operations granting enemies lasting upgrades
I played 54 hours of Star Wars Zero Company
Dantics · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 5:26–11:55 — an injury is taken only on being reduced to zero health; normal, hard and expert named, plus an Ironman-style toggle; crisis operations; weapon mods slotted freely before missions; a second Specialization after cycle 18; every Bond level granting Focus Points and one of three joint training bonuses; the Sharpshooter's unmissable shot and the Soldier's rocket barrage
I played Star Wars Zero Company — my honest thoughts
EckhartsLadder · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 3:18–12:36 — no hunker-down action, so a spare AP goes to Overwatch; astromechs carrying three utilities and extra uses of each; Trick able to negate some injuries along an upgrade path; twelve galaxy zones; super battle droids telegraphing a rocket one turn ahead; many of the 150+ planets being text-only
Star Wars Zero Company preview — after 15 hours
Arekkz Gaming · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 3:15–9:43 — conversations at the Den unlocking side missions; late companions forcing a rethink of squad composition; missions carrying a limited window; fighting alongside Anakin Skywalker late in the preview; fifteen hours without a crash
STAR WARS Zero Company — Patch 1.1 Notes
Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 14 September 2026
Supports: Published 9 September 2026, the first post-launch patch; re-read in full on 14 September 2026, when it was still the newest entry on EA's News & Updates page. **Every item below is listed by EA under bug fixes**, which is what makes each one a statement about 1.0 as well as about 1.1. Secondary Specializations: their passive Cross Trainings "now correctly enter the selection pool at Relationship +8", and Secondary Specializations "now count for Specialization-specific Operation requirements and results". Chance-to-Hit: attacks displayed at 100% "can no longer erroneously miss". Scattergun: Tiers II, III and IV "no longer incorrectly use Tier I values". Droid Dismantler: Harmony "is granted only on Droid deaths, not on every enemy death". Tel-Rea: the Ranged Damage Cross Training bonus "is now applied once rather than twice" to her Force attacks, and Critical Damage bonuses "now correctly apply" to them. DC-17m Anti-Armor: it "can now critically hit" and "receives damage bonuses that apply to grenades". Ion Blasters "no longer double Critical Damage". Sweeping Salvo: "enemies outside the targeting cone are no longer hit". A Life of Labor II "can no longer infinitely accumulate bonuses when purchased repeatedly". Immovable: the status "now provides its intended bonuses". Bacta Tank, missed on the first read and added 14 September: "Fixed an issue where the Bacta Tank could be used more than one in a cycle" — EA's wording, typo included; the intended rule is one use per cycle. Overwatch, three lines, quoted verbatim on 14 September because the first pass had paraphrased the first of them too loosely: "Fixed an issue where Overwatch shots triggered against attackers caused the enemies to fire through solid objects at Operators they couldn't see" — an enemy-side line-of-sight failure, not the player's reaction shots passing through walls; "Fixed some instances of Overwatch triggering on a unit outside of the targeting cone"; and "Fixed various Overwatch issues that caused enemies and Operators to be unintentionally attacked". A fourth mentions it in passing: "Fixed a turn ordering issue that caused the Coil Captain to heal a target already slain by Overwatch". **Checked for and absent**: any figure for anything — no Scattergun tier statistics, no Harmony amount, no DC-17m damage, no figure for what Immovable now provides, no Bacta Tank cost. Also absent: any fix for Overwatch *failing* to trigger. Every Overwatch line corrects a shot that should not have happened, and none claims a shot that should have happened now does.