Hawks

Hawks is the player character and the leader of Zero Company. Once a captain in the Grand Army of the Republic, Hawks left that life behind and now commands a for-hire outfit operating in the shadows of the Clone Wars. The character is the fixed center of the story: squadmates can come and go, but Hawks remains.

Customization

Hawks is fully customizable. At the start of the game you choose gender, appearance, and voice, and you select a species from a set of six. You also set the starting Specialization, outfit, and name. That makes Hawks the most flexible member of the roster, a blank slate you shape to fit how you want to play and who you want to lead.

Hawks can be created as one of six playable species:

• Devaronian

• Human

• Mirialan

• Togruta

• Twi'lek

• Zabrak

This is a smaller set than the ten species open to custom Operators, which add Neimoidian, Ovissian, Rodian, and Weequay. You can change Hawks' species, appearance, and outfit later at the Den.

Role in Combat

As the commander, Hawks anchors the squad's special economy. Hawks can spend a small amount of the shared advantage resource to refresh a single Action Point for another squad member, once per turn, which keeps the team moving when a plan falls apart. Hawks can take any of the eight standard Specializations, so the protagonist's battlefield job depends entirely on the class you assign.

The Story's Constant

Because the campaign carries permadeath for the rest of the team, Hawks functions as the player's safe point. If Hawks falls in battle the mission ends, while losing a companion changes the story but does not end the run. Decisions Hawks makes at the Den and in the field shape relationships across the crew and steer the narrative's outcomes.

When Hawks Deploys

Hawks is mandatory on every story mission and takes up one of the squad's four slots there. Skirmishes are the exception: for those you are free to send any combination of Operators and leave the leader at the Den.

On a story mission the leader is also a single point of failure. If Hawks dies in combat the mission fails immediately and has to be restarted, rather than continuing without them. There are no call-ins or early extractions that change this, so Hawks has to walk out.

Two Voice Performances

Hawks ships with two voice performances, one for each of the masculine and feminine presets, cast to pull in different directions on purpose. The creative director has characterized one as reading closer to an outlaw and the other as closer to a by-the-book officer, the idea being that players attach to whichever suits the Hawks they built. Species, first name, appearance, clothing, and Specialization are all set by the player alongside the voice.