ZeroSpace Review

With large-scale battles, an RPG-style campaign, faction choices, and a persistent Galactic War, ZeroSpace mixes classic RTS mechanics with ideas that could keep you playing long after the story ends.

ZeroSpace is a sci-fi real-time strategy RPG hybrid developed by Starlance Studios and Ironward, with Starlance Studios and Gamersky Games involved in publishing. The game takes the familiar foundations of the RTS genre and tries to push them in a different direction by adding systems that you would normally associate with RPGs and online multiplayer games. 

ZeroSpace builds its experience around a choice-driven campaign, companion characters, relationships, faction reputation, and a persistent galactic war that connects different ways of playing, rather than offering just a series of missions. 

Set in the Orion sector, the story follows the war between factions fighting over a resource known as flux. 

This resource is the fuel that makes interstellar travel possible, and as supplies run dry, tensions across the galaxy are about to explode. You take the role of Aster, a commander in the Protectorate, humanity’s main military force, and your adventure places you squarely in the middle of a much larger war that includes humans, aliens, political tensions, and rival factions.

The story of ZeroSpace becomes more engaging through its campaign. Instead of simply moving from one battle to another with a short briefing in between, you get opportunities to walk around your ship, interact with characters, and have conversations that include multiple dialogue choices. 

You can build relationships with companions, and these relationships shape how the story and gameplay develop. There is also faction reputation and meta progression, giving your decisions a greater role beyond simply deciding which mission to play next.

The campaign is planned around a substantial amount of narrative content, with main story missions, hero loyalty missions, and side story arcs all contributing to the larger story. The narrative also includes multiple endings, companion interactions, and hints toward character origins, internal factions, and side stories. 

Some of the character interactions and ship exploration bring to mind the feeling of exploring the Normandy in Mass Effect, while the actual battles remain rooted in the style of a traditional RTS. That combination provides the campaign a different identity and makes the narrative side feel like more than something that exists just to connect one battle to the next.

At its core, ZeroSpace still plays like an RTS, so you’ll be spending your time building bases, managing your economy, gathering resources, producing units, expanding your territory, and fighting for control of the map. If you've played something like StarCraft, much of the basic structure will feel familiar almost immediately. 

The difference is that ZeroSpace makes several quality-of-life changes that make the experience more approachable. 

You can choose from several factions, each with its own identity and combat style. The Protectorate is the military arm of humanity, built around heavy firepower and powerful mechs, making it a natural starting point for players who want a more straightforward faction. The Grell are a highly evolved plant-like race that spreads biomass across the battlefield, preferring to outnumber their opponents. 

Then there is the Legion, a fanatical empire from outside known space, which relies on religious devotion, large tanks, and units with powerful abilities. A fourth faction is also planned, while mercenary factions provide additional options beyond the main groups.

Once your economy is established, the battles become the main attraction. You can field infantry, vehicles, artillery, air units depending on your faction, and hero units, giving you plenty of options when building an army. Learning how each faction works is part of the fun, especially because the different identities affect how you approach the battlefield. 

Outside of the campaign, you have several ways to keep playing. Fight in skirmishes and custom battles against the AI, classic 1v1 and 2v2 multiplayer, or play co-op survival matches. Custom games offer lots of maps and options and a testing range to play around with units, buildings, mechanics, and other tools. You can spawn units, move stuff around, and use the space to understand how different systems work. 

The biggest addition to the overall gameplay loop is the Galactic War. It's an ongoing communal struggle where you pick a faction and contribute to its general war effort through your matches. The galaxy is fractured into warring factions vying for control and expansion. Battles you engage in alter the larger map. 

You can defend your territory, attack your neighbors’ planets, and team up with other players for a common goal. Because the system ties PvP, co-op, and PvE activities to the same larger conflict, it gives you a reason to keep playing even after you’ve finished the main campaign or grown tired of standard skirmishes.

ZeroSpace doesn't feature a traditional puzzle system. 

The core challenge is army management, learning the strengths and weaknesses of different units, and responding to what the opponent brings to the table. Combat is about clear counters, so the units you pick matter. You need to learn what the enemy is using and respond with the right units, not just throw everything into one big battle. 

The hero units in the game can also assist in combat. As you progress, you can recruit heroes and use their abilities as well as your regular soldiers. Different abilities can change how you approach a battle, and upgrades can allow you to adapt your troops to different styles of play. In survival missions, you can also use the environment in your strategy. 

You can use exploding barrels, the cannon on your headquarters, defensive walls, and the terrain around you to stay alive when the enemy attacks. These tools become especially important when facing the Grell, whose large numbers can quickly overwhelm you if you are not prepared.

ZeroSpace’s combat system is arguably one of its stronger areas, feeling familiar without being outright limiting. The building system is more free than you might expect, and the variety of factions makes you learn different approaches. The Galactic War also gives individual matches a broader purpose and adds another dimension to combat. 

The main weakness is that some of the surrounding systems can be difficult to understand without enough explanation, especially when you first encounter the broader Galactic War structure. The game can also become more difficult if your AI allies make bad decisions, especially in survival situations where you have to deal with the problems they create.

Progress is not only about winning battles. 

Hero units can level up, and you can upgrade your troops to suit your playstyle. The campaign also features faction reputation, companion relationships, and meta progression, with the Galactic War serving as the long-term progression loop. 

That system will get new commanders, new mission types, new events, and new seasons in the future, giving you even more reasons to keep contributing to your faction. ZeroSpace emphasizes progression as part of the overall experience rather than traditional XP grinding.

Visually, ZeroSpace can look impressive when you are in the middle of a real battle. You can zoom in and see a surprising amount of detail, and the choices of lighting, shadows, contrast, and color help the battlefield feel more alive. 

Each faction also has a distinct visual identity, ranging from the heavy military look of the Protectorate to the plant-like Grell and the imposing machinery of the Legion. Some missions are more shadowy, making it harder to spot high ground and other tactical advantages quickly, but they encourage you to explore the map and pay more attention to your surroundings.

The weakest visual element is the way the characters are presented in the dialogue scenes. Some character details and dialogue segments may appear rough and unpolished. Some scenes may not have the same level of polish you might expect from a larger production. There are also times when the presentation is not as seamless as the actual gameplay. 

The game generally does a good job with sound design as well. 

The campaign is packed with voice acting, and the performances are mostly convincing, not overdone. The music fits with the sci-fi and action-packed setting, and the sound effects add enough punch to the battles. The gunshots sound heavy. The alien sounds of the plant-like Grell make them sound suitably alien. 

ZeroSpace is an RTS that recognizes the genre's strengths while also trying to address its long-standing problems. The basic gameplay gives you the familiar experience of building your economy, creating armies, managing units, and fighting for map control, but the game adds enough RPG elements to make the campaign feel more involved. 

The ability to interact with companions, make dialogue choices, develop relationships, and influence the story gives the single-player side a stronger identity than you normally get from an RTS. These interactions also make the characters feel more connected to the larger conflict, giving you more reason to care about what happens between battles.

The Galactic War is arguably the most ambitious part of the package. 

By connecting individual battles to a persistent conflict across a shared galactic map, ZeroSpace gives you a reason to keep playing after the campaign. Every victory can contribute to your faction's overall war effort, making each match feel like part of a much larger struggle.

Your victories contribute to your faction's wider effort, and the idea of thousands of players collectively influencing the same conflict gives the multiplayer side a purpose beyond simply winning another match. Combined with co-op, PvP, AI matches, custom games, survival, and mutators, there is a lot here for an RTS fan to explore.

The game is not without its problems. The UI can be confusing, some systems are not explained as clearly as they should be, and the character presentation does not always match the quality of the actual strategy gameplay. The AI can also make questionable decisions, and some of the narrative presentation is unpolished. 

If you like RTS games, especially in the Starcraft mold, you will find much to love here. The familiar mechanics tell you what you’re doing, and the RPG systems and persistent structure of the multiplayer give you more reasons to stay. Where ZeroSpace really shines is when it takes all these disparate ideas and puts them together in something familiar but willing to explore the unknown.