Gordy Haab on how Battlefront II and the Prequels shaped the Zero Company score

Gordy Haab — the composer behind Star Wars games including Battlefront I and II, Jedi: Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor, and Squadrons — has just wrapped the soundtrack for Star Wars: Zero Company, EA and Bit Reactor's new XCOM-style tactics game. In an exclusive interview following the game's release, Haab opened up about his creative process and how his own earlier work directly fed into the new score.

Haab describes the Zero Company soundtrack as a spiritual sequel to what he built in Battlefront II. "When I wrote the score for Battlefront II, I felt like I was really onto something," he says, explaining that Battlefront I was largely an exercise in writing B-sides for existing film scores, while Battlefront II gave him room to develop his own voice. For Zero Company, he used that 2017 score as a springboard — chasing what he calls "that sparkle that the Prequel era music has" while keeping his own aesthetic stamp on it. He also spent months on themes alone before committing anything to paper, writing roughly 15 versions of the main theme before he'd even share it with the developers. His standard: he wouldn't let it leave his studio until he was "absolutely thrilled with it."

Haab has been composing Star Wars music long enough that Lucasfilm's creative guardrails have shifted around him. Early on, the direction was clear — be original, but keep the original trilogy as your north star. That's loosened considerably as the franchise has expanded across shows and games with their own distinct tones. Star Wars: Hunters, for instance, got a full orchestra paired with a heavy metal band, something Haab says would never fit the Jedi series, which he describes as "much darker" and carrying "a lot of horror." Zero Company sits in Clone Wars-era territory, which carries its own sonic identity rooted in the Prequel trilogy's orchestral language. Haab has also composed for multiple Indiana Jones games, most recently 2024's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, so working adjacent to John Williams's legacy is familiar ground — though not without pressure.

On the Williams comparison, Haab is candid: it was intimidating early on, given that Williams's scores were part of what made him want to become a composer in the first place. His approach now is to accept the compliment, then set it aside. "Don't rest on those laurels. Do your thing, get back to work, create your voice within the franchise," he says. Star Wars: Zero Company is out now.