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Zero Company difficulty and beskar mode explained

Zero Company has four difficulty settings — Story, Normal, Hard and Expert — and you can change difficulty at any time between missions from the menu. Beskar Mode is separate: an ironman-style option with no reloading of earlier saves, which can be combined with any of the four. Permadeath is a third, independent switch, on by default and disableable.

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

Four settings, and where the names come from

There are four. That was the open question on this page until launch week and it is settled: an Xbox Wire guide written against the retail build states the game has four difficulty settings, which agrees with the achievement list, with an IGN previewer's count, and with a second previewer who played on Hard and called it the third-highest of four. One previewer described three; on four independent counts against one, that reading is treated as mistaken rather than as a live disagreement.

The names are a separate question and a weaker claim. Story, Normal, Hard and Expert are read off achievement titles — there are achievements for completing the game 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 probably the menu's own words. Nobody has quoted the menu, which is one inferential step and is why it stays in the unknowns.

Expert is the top of the ladder by the same reading: the achievements say "or higher" for the first three and stop saying it at Expert, and the previewer who placed Hard third of four leaves one rung above it.

You can change it between missions

Difficulty is not a decision you are locked into at the start of a campaign. It can be changed at any time between missions, from the menu, which the retail build's own tips coverage states plainly.

That changes how to read every build on this site. A squad that is failing on Hard is a setting away from being playable, not a campaign to restart — and the conservative advice on the survivability pages is worth less than it looks if you were treating difficulty as permanent.

What nobody has stated is whether lowering the difficulty forfeits the achievement for the higher one. Most games in this genre track the lowest setting used; some track the setting at the moment of completion. Until somebody says, treat an Expert run as something to start on Expert.

Beskar Mode is a modifier, not one of the four difficulties

It is an ironman-style option — Xbox Wire call it this game's equivalent of XCOM's Ironman — in which you cannot reload a previous save. That is orthogonal to how hard the enemies hit, which is why the hardest achievement names both Expert and Beskar Mode rather than treating one as implying the other.

The build consequence is the point of this page. On a normal run, a disastrous battle or a lost Operator is a reload. On Beskar Mode you cannot simply reload an earlier save to undo it, so the loss stands and the campaign continues from it. Every piece of squad advice that treats a risky opening as acceptable because you can retry is advice for a different mode — and this site's build pages generally assume you can retry.

Note what that does and does not say. No source states what happens when an entire squad is lost on Beskar Mode, only that you cannot reload past it. Whether a wipe ends the campaign, costs you the roster you sent, or simply fails the mission is unpublished, and this page does not guess.

How it interacts with permadeath

Permadeath is enabled by default and can be turned off. An Operator taken to zero health receives an Injury, and three Injuries mean permanent death on standard difficulty — note the qualifier, because whether that threshold moves with difficulty is not published.

Stacked with Beskar Mode, permadeath makes an Operator loss permanent in both senses: you cannot heal it away and you cannot reload past it. On that combination the Medic's Injury prevention, Hawks' inability to permanently die and any build that spreads capability across four Operators rather than concentrating it are worth more than their raw numbers suggest — a judgement of ours drawn from confirmed mechanics, not a rule the game states.

Confirmed

The rules as officially stated

  • The game has four difficulty settings. Stated of the retail build, and independently counted by two previewers.
  • Difficulty can be changed at any time between missions, from the menu.
  • Achievements exist for completing the campaign on Story or higher, Normal or higher, Hard or higher, and on Expert.
  • Hard is the third-highest of the four.
  • An achievement exists for completing the campaign on Expert with Beskar Mode enabled, so the two are separate settings.
  • Beskar Mode is described as an ironman-style mode in which previous saves cannot be reloaded.
  • Permadeath is enabled by default and can be disabled.
  • Three Injuries mean permanent death on standard difficulty.

Planning

What this means for squad building

  • Read every build on this site as written for a run you can retry. On Beskar Mode, weight survivability and Injury prevention above damage.
  • A squad whose plan depends on one Operator has one point of campaign failure once permadeath and Beskar Mode are both on.
  • Hawks cannot permanently die, which makes any Hawks-centred build structurally safer on the hardest configuration than its raw numbers suggest.
  • Do not assume enemy statistics scale predictably between tiers. Nothing published says what a tier actually changes.
  • Treat difficulty as adjustable and Beskar Mode as not. One is a setting you can move between missions; the other is the reason a bad battle stands.
  • Start a run on the difficulty you want the achievement for. Whether lowering it mid-campaign forfeits the higher achievement is unknown, and finding out costs a campaign.

Still unverified

The retail game is out. These are the points we have not yet reproduced or measured reliably enough to state as fact — recorded rather than guessed at.

  • What each difficulty tier actually modifies — enemy health, accuracy, count, or the Injury threshold. No source gives a figure for any tier, and the multiplier tables circulating are not sourced.
  • Whether Story, Normal, Hard and Expert are the exact words the settings menu uses. Four settings is confirmed; the labels are read off achievement text, and nobody has quoted the menu itself.
  • Whether changing difficulty mid-campaign forfeits the achievement for the higher setting. The change itself is confirmed; its consequence is not.
  • Whether Beskar Mode can be enabled on any difficulty or only above a certain tier, and whether it can be switched off once a campaign has started.
  • What actually happens when a whole squad is lost on Beskar Mode.
  • Whether permadeath can be toggled independently of Beskar Mode.
  • Whether the three-Injury threshold changes with difficulty. The wording 'on standard difficulty' implies it might.

Questions

Common questions

The way these come up in search, answered directly.

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.

Every question, answered with its sources

Related mechanics

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 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: 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

  • 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