Picking the best starting class in Star Wars Zero Company is a little challenging when you haven't played any of the game yet. But don't worry: you can change your class specialization once you hit Cycle 3, which is very early on. After that point, you can also change the specialization and talents for hired operators too.

The only thing you can't tweak is named character talents, like Hawk's Fearless Leader. Below I'll offer my recommendation for the best starting specialization in Star Wars Zero Company, plus some options if you don't want to double-up classes with any of the named characters you initially team-up with.

Star Wars Zero Company best starting class

The best starting class in Star Wars Zero Company is the Scoundrel. This specialization has a great kit focused around making enemies vulnerable (for guaranteed critical hits), penetrating their defenses, and increased assist damage. This ties in perfectly to Hawk's Fearless Leader talent, which increases assist damage for the whole squad when they're present. Assists are free attacks that also generate advantage, so they're very strong.

While you can respec any character specialization when you reach Cycle 3, the first three companions you'll get are a Scoundrel (Kabb), a Soldier (Trick), and an Assault (Jae). Having two Scoundrels in a party isn't a bad thing considering Hawks will buff everyone's assists, and more assists are always good, but if you don't want to double up or change pre-existing character specializations, you could also take:

• Gunslinger
• Medic
• Heavy
• Scout
• Sharpshooter

I personally wouldn't recommend Medic or Scout. Medic is plain overkill early in the game when most combat encounters aren't that tricky (depending on your difficulty), and Scout is a class entirely about farming advantage, something you won't need to worry about much either in the game's initial missions.

Of the Gunslinger, Sharpshooter, and Heavy, I'd definitely recommend the former. Gunslinger is a strong early pick because of its ability to hit and finish off multiple enemies (getting you more advantage), plus its general buffs to ranged attacks. By comparison, Sharpshooter is more single-target focused, which can feel a bit limiting when you're not facing bosses or elite enemies, and the Heavy has more of a passive playstyle around taking hits and retaliating. This specialization works much better on an operator with the Taunt or Anticipation talent, allowing them to avoid or tank the damage better.

As you'll realise when you unlock operator recruitment, many of the best talents for recruitable operators are far more synergistic with specific classes than Hawk's Fearless Leader. Either way, don't be afraid to change specialisations often—it'll refund all of your Focus Points (apart from those in your character talent) so there's really no drawback to experimenting with party compositions.

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Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.