With loads of new features, XCOM 2 turns out to be another hit out of the park. It’s obviously not a game for everybody due to sheer difficulty alone, but anybody with the patience to learn should be pleased with the love and attention put into this title.
Mods haven’t even had time to flourish yet, but Firaxis promises that the modding tools are robust enough to recreate the original game within the new game’s engine and then some. It’s pretty well known in the XCOM fandom that the Long War Mod kept many Enemy Unknown fans engaged for years after the game’s launch and that game didn’t even have official modding tools. With the addition of easily accessed tools, the extension to the life of XCOM 2 is limitless. For fans of a challenge, XCOM 2 is wholly recommended.
Want more XCOM 2? Check out our five favorite new things in the game.
The Positives
- It’s XCOM! The things that made Enemy Unknown such a big hit have returned. Some things have been changed to better fit the new story and situation and are nothing but positives. The things that make it XCOM are still present: Brutal difficulty, summer blockbuster-style action cameras, and a sense of progression without handholding.
- Stealth is an awesome addition to the game. It’s something missing from Enemy Unknown that fits perfectly into the strategy of XCOM. Since Enemy Unknown was a game of defense, stealth didn’t make much sense, but with the new narrative, it fits perfectly and was very well executed. Setting up an ambush with the newly improved overwatch system feels so satisfying.
- It feels familiar, yet new. The game has many narrative throwbacks to the 2012 title while at the same time throwing new things into the mix in every encounter. Bradford, your second in command, barely resembles his old by-the-books self and even sounds different, but he references their first run-in with the aliens and there are enough flashbacks to fuel the nostalgia mobiles. Classes also fit into this category. They’re all new, and actually feel new, yet each one has bit of resemblance to old roles, making the learning curve ever so slightly easier.
The Negatives
- The first negative point would really only be a negative to some people, and that is the difficulty. XCOM 2 adds more to do and in a game that was already brutal, more stuff brings more pain. Not nailing an ambush just right can really blow a mission, often ending in being surrounded. Luckily, failing a mission doesn’t have to end in as much disaster as it used to. Extractions can be called in anywhere on the map, with some exceptions, so failure doesn’t always result in a squad wipe, but losing control of a sector instead.
- Multiple instances have shown some pretty hefty load times. For the most part, the gameplay doesn’t suffer much, but the loading screen between the strategy map and the tactical map can be pretty lengthy. This is rectified with a clear and audible ready sound that prompts a key press to continue. As much as we don’t like load times, XCOM does suffer from the Firaxis “One more turn/battle” syndrome, so this could be seen as an excuse for a potty break.
XCOM 2 is a sequel to the 2012 Game of the Year XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Enemy Unknown brought life back to the Tactical RPG genre and XCOM 2 did nothing short of raising the bar even higher. XCOM was, before 2012, a series nobody had heard from in years. Firaxis, the company behind the Civilization series, got the rights to continue the series. XCOM: Enemy Unknown was actually announced after news of another nontraditional XCOM game (later revealed to be The Bureau: XCOM Declassified) that it proceeded to stomp in terms of reception, making the Enemy Unknown series the mainstay.
XCOM 2 takes place in an alternate reality to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but shares more connections than one would initially expect. Without revealing anything unannounced, the two realities do share a Central Officer named John Bradford. The story of this alternate reality is that XCOM lost the way a few months into the alien invasion and they were mostly destroyed. Bradford and a few of the supporting characters survived the fallout, but Earth was soon turned over to the aliens in a “peace treaty” that obviously turns out to be a farce.
The biggest difference beside story however is the tactical approach. XCOM is no longer a defense force for planet Earth. Emerging from the shadows after 20 years, the XCOM project returns as an offensive guerilla-style operation attempting to tactfully strike back at the enemy to retake the planet. This displays itself in the gameplay, the tone, and even the graphics. XCOM was never a game that needed story to be good, but Firaxis weaves a perfect retaliation story into a complex, thinking-man’s game.
