Starting out

What difficulty settings does Zero Company have?

Four — Story, Normal, Hard and Expert — plus a separate ironman option called Beskar Mode, and you can change difficulty between missions.

Retail-reported

Confidence: Confirmed
Verified: 27 August 2026
Version: Pre-release evidence, plus retail launch-build observations (August 2026)

The short answer

Four — Story, Normal, Hard and Expert — plus a separate ironman option called Beskar Mode, and you can change difficulty between missions.

In full

What that means when you are planning

That there are four is confirmed of the retail build, and two previewers counted four independently before launch — one of them playing on Hard and calling it the third-highest of the four.

The names come from achievement titles: there are achievements for completing the campaign on Story or higher, Normal or higher, Hard or higher, and on Expert. Achievement text is written against the shipped interface, so these are very likely the game's own words — but nobody has quoted the settings menu, so the labels are one inferential step short of the count.

You are not locked in. Difficulty can be changed at any time between missions, from the menu. What nobody states is whether lowering it forfeits the achievement for the higher setting, so start a run on the difficulty you want credit for.

Beskar Mode is not one of the four. It is a separate modifier — an ironman-style option in which previous saves cannot be reloaded — and the hardest achievement in the list asks for Expert difficulty and Beskar Mode together, which is how we know they are separate switches.

Permadeath is a third, independent thing: it is on by default and can be turned off. An Operator reduced to zero health takes an Injury, and three Injuries mean permanent death on standard difficulty.

What none of this tells you is what a tier actually changes. No source states whether higher difficulties add enemy health, accuracy, numbers, or lower the Injury threshold.

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.

What each difficulty tier modifies — enemy health, accuracy, count, or the Injury threshold. No figure is published for any of them.
Whether the four names above are exactly the words the settings menu uses.
Whether changing difficulty mid-campaign forfeits the achievement for the higher setting.
Whether Beskar Mode is available on every difficulty, and whether it can be switched off once started.

Can you turn off permadeath in Zero Company?: Yes. Permadeath is on by default and can be disabled in the settings.

Where this is covered properly

Sources

Star Wars Zero Company Tips for Tactics Padawans
Xbox Wire · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 27 August 2026
Supports: "Fit Check" — "utility items like grenades and health packs are refreshed at the start of every battle (even when you have multiple battles in sequence as part of a larger story mission)", and "you'll likely be shifting your best equipment around between different operators as you field different teams". "Action Economy Is King" — "The limit of 3 action points per turn only applies to how many they can hold at any given moment", a free assist available every turn, and abilities that grant additional actions to teammates. Opening paragraph — four difficulty settings, changeable in the menu at any time between missions. Autosave on the first round of a battle, then at cycle start. Bylined Will Fulton, Xbox Wire Editor. Published 2026-08-26
Complete Star Wars Zero Company Trophy List — How to Get All Achievements & Trophies
Insider Gaming · Tier 2 — Achievement list · accessed 19 August 2026
Supports: Full trophy table — Very High Bond as a named relationship threshold, and the named pairings reaching it, including two astromechs and two Custom Operators; completing a mission with four astromechs; equipping four Weapon Mods to one weapon (“Fully Geared”); applying a Focus Point; using Force Push or Pull to knock one enemy into another; knocking an enemy out of the combat space; defeating enemies from higher elevation; landing a shot at 10% or lower Chance-to-Hit and missing at 90% or greater; the difficulty tiers Story, Normal, Hard and Expert, and Expert with Beskar Mode. Published 2026-08-17
Star Wars Zero Company Trophies
PSNProfiles · Tier 2 — Achievement list · accessed 19 August 2026
Supports: Trophy list — independent corroboration of the trophy descriptions and of the Very High Bond terminology.
Star Wars Zero Company: A New Hope for Turn-Based Tactics
Xbox Wire · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 19 August 2026
Supports: Difficulty — the writer played on Hard, "third highest out of four difficulties", and "the cutely named Beskar mode is this game's equivalent for XCOM's Ironman, with no reloading previous saves". That line was the basis of this site's difficulty record from 2026-08-19 and was missing from this locator until 2026-08-27; a cited claim whose location is not recorded is a claim nobody can re-check. Combat and squad sections — Advantage accumulating when a squad member successfully deals damage, and capping at 10; respeccing Hawks from Scoundrel into Gunslinger to exploit a Weapon Mod that applied an accumulating Burn status on every attack; unique-specialisation recruits being unable to respec the same way; an astromech with no basic attack, carrying three different Utility items with two uses each; a Concussion Grenade knocking enemies clean out of the combat space. 15-hour preview build.
Star Wars Zero Company: turn-based tactics that aren't just for XCOM experts
IGN · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 2:15–12:39 — Advantage earned from successful attacks; four difficulty settings; ringing a droideka with Overwatch cones; Bonds granting health and critical damage; changing Hawks' species at the Den; the Bespin guest mission; preview-build defects including shots passing through solid cover