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Zero Company bonds explained

Bonds are relationships between pairs of Operators. Building a Bond unlocks permanent combat bonuses, and reaching maximum Bond unlocks a passive. Bonds are also the main source of Focus Points, which drive the Focus Trees — so who you field together shapes your whole progression, not just one mission.

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

Pairs, not squads

Bonds form between two Operators. That means squad selection has a progression consequence: rotating a fifth Operator in and out spreads Bond progress thinly, while keeping a consistent four builds it fast.

Support actions like Call for Backup help build Bonds, so pairs that naturally assist each other progress faster.

Why they matter more than they look

Focus Points are mainly gained from Bonds. Focus Points are what upgrade Talents, Abilities and Passives through the Focus Trees. So Bonds are not a side system — they are the main progression engine, and neglecting them slows down every Operator's development.

Cross Training is the related system that turns pair relationships into shared capability.

Everything that raises them

Previewers name far more sources than the official material does. Bonds grow when Operators support each other's attacks, assist in kills, heal one another, complete missions together, complete Operations together, spend time together at the Den, and when Hawks makes a dialogue choice a given Operator approves of.

The breadth is the point: Bond progress is not something you set aside a turn for. It accrues from playing a consistent squad well, which is why a rotating roster develops slowly and a settled four develops fast.

What they pay out

A previewer names health buffs and critical damage boosts among the bonuses, and describes them as increasingly necessary as later encounters escalate. Every Bond level also grants Focus Points to both Operators in the pair, not just one.

The three-way choice is corroborated three times over, and once from the retail build. Two previewers and a launch-week reviewer independently describe reaching a Bond level and picking one of three improvements that both Operators receive — so the payout is a decision, not a fixed grant, and the pair is the unit that benefits.

The size of the menu was the last thing to settle and it settled large. Fourteen Cross Trainings exist, every one of them named, and three of them are drawn at random at each rank — so a training you are saving for may simply not appear. They stack, and a pair that reaches rank 8 has taken eight of them. See the Cross Training page for what each is worth.

How much Focus a Bond pays is now a schedule rather than an adjective. Ranks 1 to 5 pay one point each, rank 6 pays two, rank 7 pays four and rank 8 pays seven — 18 points to each Operator across a full pairing, with eleven of them in the last two ranks. That is the arithmetic behind the advice this page has given from intuition since it was written: concentrate a roster on fewer pairings rather than spreading it.

Bonds also teach the paired Operators passive abilities and unique tricks, which a retail reviewer describes as a payout in its own right rather than only as the maximum-Bond prize. Whether that is the same system as the maximum-Bond passive under a looser description is not clear, and it is recorded as a question rather than merged into one.

The payoff extends past combat. Operation success and rewards reportedly depend heavily on the Bonds between the Operators you send, so a well-bonded pair is worth more Credits and Intel as well as more damage. Deeper relationships also open new conversations, and companions begin offering missions and rewards of their own.

What Bonds do not appear to unlock

It is worth stating plainly, because the opposite claim circulates: no source found says that Bonds unlock your second Specialization. The two systems are described separately everywhere they are described at all — Bonds pay out stat boosts, Focus Points and Cross Training, while the secondary Specialization is placed at a point in the campaign, with one previewer naming cycle 18.

The distinction decides whether your second class is a character-building choice or a squad-pairing consequence, so the site records it as an open question rather than assuming either. If it turns out Bonds do gate it, the advice on this page changes substantially: who you field together would then decide what your Operators can become.

The tiers, and where to read them

A pairing progresses through named tiers — Very Low, Low, Neutral, High and Very High — spread across **eight numbered ranks**, which is the distinction that matters when planning. The tiers are not evenly sized: Neutral is three ranks and High is one. The relationship meter is displayed in the Cross Training menu inside the Personnel facility rather than anywhere in the squad screen, which is why it is easy to play several cycles without noticing it.

Very High is rank 8 and it is the top: a guide reading the shipped game states it outright, which retires a question this page carried from the day the trophy list named the tier. What the same table added at the other end was a surprise — a Very Low tier below Low that no previewer had reported, so the ladder published here for six weeks was missing a step at the bottom rather than at the top.

Starting below neutral is deliberate. Some pairs actively dislike each other before you have done anything — Trick and Luco Bronc most explicitly, since Umbara fought the clones — so a Bond is something you repair as often as something you build.

The XP costs are per rank and back-loaded: 40 for rank 1, 350 for rank 8 on its own, 1,190 for the whole ladder. A completed Tactical Mission awards 30 Bond XP to every pair that took part, so on missions alone the first five ranks are about fourteen shared deployments and the last three are another twenty-six — Call for Backup, healing and shared Operations all shorten that, and none of them is quantified. This page said the costs were cumulative from 8 to 16 September; the guide they come from heads its column "Total Bond XP to Unlock", and a reader playing the retail build reported that each rank's figure is paid on top of the last.

They can fall, and Operators can leave

Bonds move in both directions. Some squad members dislike each other from the start. Because Hawks' decisions are public, earning one Operator's trust can cost another's — a previewer describes Operations that force you to choose which squadmate to please.

Pushed far enough, a companion can leave the squad entirely. That is a way to lose an Operator that has nothing to do with permadeath, and it is worth knowing before you make a run of decisions that suit one character. Dilemmas are where that most often happens, and they have their own page.

That Bonds move downwards was a previewer's account until 27 August, when StarWars.com's own guide stated it: "Certain operations can also strengthen or weaken bonds between your team." It is a short sentence and it does two things. It makes the falling half of this system first-party rather than reported, and it names Operations specifically — so the choice of who to send is a Bond decision in both directions, not only a rewards one.

Confirmed

The rules as officially stated

  • Bonds are pair relationships between Operators.
  • They unlock permanent combat bonuses.
  • Maximum Bond unlocks a passive.
  • Focus Points are mainly gained from Bonds.
  • Every Bond rank grants Focus Points to both Operators in the pair.
  • There are eight Bond ranks across five named tiers, costing 40, 70, 80, 100, 125, 175, 250 and 350 Bond XP each — 1,190 for the full ladder.
  • The Focus Points a rank pays are 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4 and 7 — 18 to each Operator across a full pairing.
  • Reaching a Bond rank offers a choice of one of three improvements, which both Operators receive. Corroborated in the retail build.
  • Fourteen Cross Trainings are named, and the three offered at a rank are drawn at random from that pool.
  • Cross Training bonuses stack: the same training can be taken more than once by one pair.
  • A Cross Training cannot be refunded once taken, unlike a Focus Point.
  • Bonds teach paired Operators passive abilities and unique tricks.
  • Call for Backup helps build Bonds, and it is a Free Action offered once a turn to one randomly chosen Operator.
  • A completed Tactical Mission awards 30 Bond XP to every pair that took part.
  • Assists, heals, shared missions, shared Operations, Den time and approved dialogue choices all raise them.
  • Hawks' Pico-5 adds 4 Bond Points a use between him and the ally he hands an Action Point to, capped at 20 per character per mission.
  • Health buffs and critical damage boosts are among the bonuses.
  • The ladder runs Very Low, Low, Neutral, High, Very High, and Very High is the maximum.
  • Ten specific pairings are evidenced to reach Very High, including two astromechs and two Custom Operators.
  • Operation rewards depend on the Bonds between the Operators sent.
  • Bonds can fall, and a companion pushed far enough can leave the squad.
  • Operations can strengthen or weaken a Bond. First-party, from StarWars.com's own guide — the only part of the falling half of this system that is not a previewer's account.

Planning

What this means for squad building

  • Evaluate whether a squad's pairings are deliberate or accidental.
  • A consistent four-Operator squad develops Bonds faster than a rotating roster.
  • Warn when a squad has strong classes but no planned Bond pairings.
  • Send bonded pairs on Operations together — the rewards scale with the relationship.
  • Spread investment across more than one pairing: a single death takes both the Operator and every Bond they held.

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.

  • Every maximum-Bond passive, and whether the passive abilities a Bond is reported to teach are that same system described loosely or a second one alongside it. A guide reading the shipped game says each pairing's rank 8 passive is unique to that pairing, so this is one unknown per pair rather than one unknown.
  • Whether fourteen is the whole Cross Training pool. The guide that published the table calls it "all known basic Cross Training rewards", which is a claim about the author rather than about the game.
  • Conflict Resolution, which one guide describes as advancing both Operators toward their next rank and which appears on no other source, including the fourteen-row table.
  • Whether every pair can Bond or only certain combinations. Ten pairings are evidenced to reach Very High; nothing says the others cannot, and one guide says any pairing can.
  • What Bond XP the other sources award. Only the 30 per shared Tactical Mission carries a figure; Call for Backup, healing and shared Operations do not.
  • Whether Bonds have anything to do with unlocking the second Specialization. No source says they do, and the two systems are described separately — but nobody rules it out either.
  • How much a disapproved decision costs, and whether that damage can be repaired.
  • How close to zero a Bond has to fall before an Operator leaves.
  • Which Operations move a Bond, and by how much. The first-party statement is that certain ones strengthen or weaken Bonds; it names none of them and gives no figure.

Questions

Common questions

The way these come up in search, answered directly.

Does Call for Backup cost Action Points?
No. It costs nothing.
Do Bonds actually matter in Zero Company?
Yes — they are the main source of Focus Points, so who you field together shapes your whole progression.
What is Cross Training?
The menu where Bond progress is converted into permanent bonuses that both Operators in the pair receive.
Can an Operator leave the squad?
Yes. Bonds can fall, and a companion pushed far enough can leave Zero Company permanently.
What is a Very High Bond?
Rank 8, the top of the relationship ladder — 350 Bond XP on top of the 840 before it, 7 Focus Points and a Passive Ability unique to that pairing.

Every question, answered with its sources

Related mechanics

Sources

  • Star Wars Zero Company: How Some of the Greatest Minds in Tactics Games are Pushing the Genre, Again

    Xbox Wire · Tier 2 — Developer interview · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Greg Foertsch and James Brawley on the eight Specializations, Combat Stim + Gunslinger synergy, Advantage, and Specialization changes on authored characters

  • 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 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Star Wars Zero Company is full of (excellent) surprises

    Skill Up · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026

    Supports: 2:09–15:14 — the Gunslinger's core ability refunding its point on a kill; half and full cover; Hawks' two voices sharing one personality; companions able to leave the squad entirely; a closed-doors developer briefing and the studio's Firaxis lineage

  • Star Wars: Zero Company Hands-on Preview — XClones

    Checkpoint Gaming · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 13 August 2026

    Supports: Advantage section — the Scout specialisation having several abilities that accumulate Advantage at a rapid pace, and the Scout/Cly pairing; Cly's electrified darts and chained electrocution; the specialisation kit structure of one or two passives, an action and one Advantage ability; the Bond system's choice of one of three shared stat boosts; the randomly selected assist each turn. Published 2026-08-12

  • 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 Xbox achievements

    TrueAchievements · Tier 2 — Achievement list · accessed 19 August 2026

    Supports: Achievement list — independent corroboration of the same requirements, including the four-Weapon-Mod achievement and the difficulty tiers.

  • Star Wars Zero Company — beginner's guide

    StarWars.com · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 3 September 2026

    Supports: Bylined Kelly Knox, 27 August 2026. Two claims are taken from it and no others. On Bonds: "Certain operations can also strengthen or weaken bonds between your team" — the first first-party statement that a Bond can move *downwards*, and that an Operation is one of the things that moves it. On Advantage: "Operators gain Advantage points when they inflict damage on an enemy during combat", tracked "in the bottom left of the screen", and "most powerful abilities cost Advantage points". No cap, no per-hit figure and no spending rule beyond that is given. **Checked for and absent**: any mention of Weapon Mods, the Armory or equipment.

  • PC Review — 'Star Wars Zero Company'

    WorthPlaying · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 27 August 2026

    Supports: Weapons — "Regardless of specialization, operators can use any of the game's four ranged weapon types: blaster pistols, blaster rifles, longarms (sniper rifles), and repeaters (machine guns)", and "Blaster pistols deal the least damage but always cost one AP to fire. Blaster rifles cost one AP for the first shot and two for the second, using all three AP an operator starts with each turn. Longarms always cost two AP but offer the longest range." No cost is given for the Repeater. Progression — "Focus points can be completely reset and reallocated at any time, so you're never stuck with a bad build." Bonds — "Reaching a new bond level lets you choose one of three permanent buffs for both operators, including increased health, ranged accuracy, movement range, or additional Focus points." Published 2026-08-26

  • Hands-on report: Star Wars Zero Company

    PlayStation.Blog · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 27 August 2026

    Supports: "I got fired into the fray with the full game ahead of its August 27 launch". Combat abilities listed as examples include "a 100% accurate shot for the sharpshooters" and "a party-wide stats buff", with no cost given for either. Bonds — "Good bonds earn Focus points to enhance an Operative's skills, as well as teaching each other passive abilities and unique tricks", raised by siding with an Operator in a Dilemma, partnering them for assists, completing missions together, or taking character-driven quests. Bylined Corey Brotherson, a contributor rather than PlayStation staff. Published 2026-08-26

  • Star Wars Zero Company Bonds & Cross Training Guide

    Hack the Minotaur · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 16 September 2026

    Supports: Bylined Hack The Minotaur, "Latest Update: September 1, 2026". **The complete Cross Training table, fourteen rows, verbatim**: Speed Training "+0.50m first movement"; Target Practice "-5% range hit penalty"; Agility Drills "-5% enemy ranged hit chance"; Close Combat Drills "+1 Melee Damage"; Precision Shooting Games "+1 Critical Damage"; Timing Exercises "+3% Critical Chance"; Freeform Training "+2 Focus Points"; Ranged Combat Drills "+1 Ranged Damage"; Cover Combat Practice "+5% Cover Bonus"; Fitness Work "+4 Max Health"; Reflex Fire Training "+1 Overwatch Damage"; A Friendly Game "+40 Bond XP"; Grenade Training "+1 Grenade Damage"; Combined Fire Games "+1 Assist Damage". Introduced as "All known basic Cross Training rewards are listed below" — a claim about the author's knowledge, not a claim of completeness. **The eight-rank Bond ladder**, as a table of Rank / Tier / Total Bond XP to Unlock / Focus Points Earned / Cross Training: 1 Very Low 40 1 "1 Standard Upgrade"; 2 Low 70 1; 3 Low 80 1; 4 Neutral 100 1; 5 Neutral 125 1; 6 Neutral 175 2; 7 High 250 4; 8 Very High 350 7 "1 Unique Upgrade". Prose around it: "You also earn Focus Points by hitting each Bond Rank, with 8 Bond Ranks in total", and "There are 8 confirmed Bond Tiers... Very High is the maximum tier and the threshold the game's trophy list recognizes for reaching maximum Bond with a given pair." On the choice: "You get to select from 3 random Cross Training passives each time your Operators rank up in Bond XP. You cannot predict which options will appear at a given tier, only that they will be drawn from the total pool of available trainings." On stacking: "Cross Training STACKS on each Operator. This means you can have multiple instances of Fitness Work (+4 Max Health) or Speed Training (bonus First Movement) for example". On permanence: "Cross Training bonuses apply permanently to both operators in the pair once chosen, regardless of deployment status." On Bond XP: "Each completed mission awards 30 Bond points to every pair that participated"; Call for Backup is "a Free Action available once per turn to one randomly selected operator, at no AP cost", and "Both the operator who called and the operator who assisted gain Bond progress"; healing a specific squadmate builds Bond between those two; assigning two Operators to the same Operation does too. On the top tier: "The maximum-Bond Cross Training grants a Passive Ability unique to each pairing, which cannot be obtained through the Focus Tree or any other progression system." On permadeath: a dead Operator's Bonds are severed and "The Cross Training bonuses already earned and locked in from that pairing remain on the surviving operator." **Checked for and absent**: any Focus Point cost for any node, any figure for Bond decay, and any name for a single maximum-Bond passive. **Re-read 2026-09-16, "Latest Update: September 11, 2026", the table unchanged.** The XP column is headed "Total Bond XP to Unlock" and nothing in the prose says whether that total is per rank or running; the one sentence near it is "Unlocking each rank requires more Bond XP each time, so while your Operators will gain Ranks 1-5 quickly, anything beyond that will take significant investment to earn." This site read the column as cumulative from 2026-09-08. A reader playing the retail build reported on 2026-09-13 that each rank's figure is paid on top of the last, which the table supports — read cumulatively, rank 3 would sit 10 XP above rank 2 against a 30 XP mission award, and "more each time" would be false at that step. Filed as the per-rank reading from 2026-09-16; the full ladder sums to 1,190. **Checked for and absent** on the re-read: any statement of the ladder's total.

  • Star Wars Zero Company: How to Increase Bond Levels

    allthings.how · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026

    Supports: Bylined Pallav Pathak, updated 28 August 2026. Names three Cross Trainings this database already held — "Timing Exercises: +5% Critical Chance", "Reflex Fire Training: +1 Overwatch Damage", "Freeform Training: +2 Focus Points" — and two it did not: "Ranged Combat Drills (+1 Ranged Damage)" and "Fitness Work (+4 Max Health)", plus Conflict Resolution, which it describes as pushing "the pair toward their next bond level" rather than granting a stat. **Its Timing Exercises figure is the pre-release +5%**, where `retail-htm-bonds` reads +3% off the shipped card; see that record. On permanence, verbatim: training rewards are "locked in once taken, unlike Focus Points, which you can refund and respend." On the menu: "The training options are drawn at random for each playthrough, so no two campaigns present them in the same order." On the top tier: "Reaching the maximum bond unlocks a special Cross Training that grants a Passive Ability, the strongest tier of reward." **Conflict Resolution appears on no other source read in this pass**, including the fourteen-row table on `retail-htm-bonds`, which is why it is entered with that absence stated rather than as a fifteenth row of the same standing.

  • Star Wars Zero Company: Ultimate Guide

    Into Indie Games · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026

    Supports: Bylined Mahmud Munazil Rahman, 27 August 2026. Registered for one mechanic and cited for nothing else. On Hawks' Pico-5, verbatim: it "provides another ally with 1 AP in exchange for Advantage Points"; it grants "+4 Bond Points to the bond between the two characters"; and "one can receive up to 20 Bond Points per each character per mission with this ability". **The Advantage cost is not given on this page** — the 3 this database holds comes from `preview-christopher-odd` and is not corroborated here.