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Recruits

Custom Operators

Recruited Operators you customise in name, appearance, clothing, voice and more.

Confirmed
Confidence
Confirmed
Verified
11 August 2026

Overview

Operators recruited into the company rather than joining through the story.

Type
Recruited
Story missions
Optional
Spoiler level
None — nothing here spoils the story

Confirmed

What changes how you build them

  • Customisable in name, appearance, clothing, voice and more — ten voices are available at the start.
  • Each recruit arrives with a name, a Talent, a primary Specialization, a weapon type and a backstory, and can then be re-customised.
  • The recruitment pool refreshes with a new selection every cycle, bought with Credits.
  • Custom Operators select a Talent from a pool rather than having one fixed.
  • They are not silent. Each has a selectable, fully written and voiced personality — they join mission banter, talk at the Den, and weigh in on major story decisions.
  • A previewer who ran an entirely custom squad on a second playthrough reported not feeling he had missed anything.
  • You can author Operators outside a save, in a character databank reached from the main menu; they then appear in your in-game recruitment pool.
  • Species and faction do not provide superior weapon proficiency.

Specializations

Recommended Specializations

No build advice yet — deliberately

Custom Operators’s kit has not been officially published. Publishing a recommended Specialization now would mean guessing, so this section stays empty until a source names their abilities. It will be filled in as soon as that happens.

Bonds

Confirmed Very High Bond pairings

Each of these is required by a pre-release trophy, so the pairing is evidenced to reach the top tier. A pairing that is not listed is unknown, not impossible.

  • Two Custom OperatorsAchievement

    Two Custom Operators. Recruits are not excluded from the relationship system, so a squad built without authored characters still progresses Bonds normally — and a launch-week guide states plainly that the maximum-Bond passive is available to any pairing, authored or not.

What a Bond level actually pays out — and which of the three Cross Training options to take — is on the Bonds database page.

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.

  • The Credit cost of recruiting, and how large each cycle's selection is.
  • The full Talent pool available to Custom Operators.
  • How many personalities there are, and whether the choice affects anything mechanical.
  • Whether Custom Operators can reach the same power level as authored ones.
  • Base stat ranges.

Sources

  • Answering the Internet's Biggest Questions about Star Wars Zero Company

    Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Squad limit of 4, with additional characters controllable in certain missions; roster starting at 7 and capped at 20, raised by Den upgrades, story progression and authored Operators joining; no species or faction weapon-proficiency advantage; Clone Trooper and astromech recruitment; permadeath default and toggleable; Hawks required on story missions. The headline itself is the evidence for the game's abbreviation: "Answering the Internet’s Biggest Questions about SWZC"

  • 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

  • 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

  • Zero Company full character creation

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

    Supports: 1:07–14:15 — the creator's full species list including Rodian; per-species options; ten Custom Operator voices against two each for Hawks, clones and astromechs; blaster patterns applied per part; weapon mods visibly changing the model; the explicit statement that all of it is the start-of-game set 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