Creating characters you love in XCOM 2 is just as difficult as coping with their irrevocable deaths. XCOM 2's character editor is a good set of tools—much better than XCOM: Enemy Unknown, where I would reroll my game several times until I got the gender/nationality mix that I liked. But for me there's nothing worse than chasing ADVENT around the globe with a cast that doesn't quite 'fit' in XCOM 2's universe.
I can build a terrific Wolverine, but if XCOM 2 rolls him as anything but a blade-wielding Ranger, it jumbles the already-shuffled fiction I've constructed. Furiosa is a convincing Grenadier, but only when she's wearing armor and face paint that's available through the Resistance Warrior Pack pre-order bonus. Once you upgrade to second-tier armor, she stops looking like she stepped right off of Fury Road.
Emily Blunt, on the other hand, is the most thematically appropriate XCOM 2 cameo conceivable. In Edge of Tomorrow, her character Rita Vrataski:
Fights a hopeless war to save humanity from aliens who have colonized Earth
Wears a movement-assisting suit that looks identical to XCOM 2's E.X.O. Suit
Has a big sword, but also shoots things
Speaks with a British accent (I recommend "UK English 2" in XCOM 2)
Is an alien killing god-badass
Maybe the biggest piece of Venn diagram overlap, though, is the way Edge of Tomorrow's premise mirrors the way we play XCOM 2. Edge of Tomorrow sees Blunt and Tom Cruise's characters trapped in a Groundhog Day-like time loop, unable to escape mankind's fate of losing a worldwide war against aliens. Vrataski is right at home in a setting where loss and setback are inevitable, but even further, it's arguably canon to create her again in-game if she dies. Or, if you're not playing on Ironman, reload your save file if she's killed.
All of that symmetry was too perfect for me to keep on Twitter. 'Full Metal Bitch,' Vrataski's moniker in the movie, sadly doesn't fit all the way in XCOM 2's nickname field, but maybe a mod will address that. In the meantime here she is doing what she loves: vaporizing aliens with a wrist-mounted cannon.
XCOM 2, the character creation game with a small strategy component, is finally out (and it's amazing). This time around, XCOM 2 has a significantly more robust character creation kit that allows you to export your soldiers to a file, which you can then share and throw at unwary internet passersby. The problem is, the game doesn t exactly tell you how to go about it.
Here s how you can create, export, and propagate your creations with the rest of the world.
Step one: create some characters
From the main menu, click Character Pool, and then Create Character. Think about who will break your heart the most when an alien eats theirs, and do your magic. Dwell on what you ve created. Is it right for man to play God? Yes? Good. Moving on.
Step two: export the characters to a pool
Next, we need to create a new character pool, which is simply a bin file the game exports the characters of your choosing to—the shareable bit. Head back to the main Character Pool screen and you ll see a list of every character you ve created so far. Check the boxes next to the characters you want to share and click Export Selection.
First, we need to create a new Character Pool where our grumpy little Jedi will live. Click Create New Pool and a prompt will come up asking you to name it. Type in something recognizable and hit Confirm to get dumped back to the character pool list. Now, this is important and easy to miss: your characters have not been exported yet. Click on your newly created character pool to get a prompt that asks if you really want to copy your character into the selected pool. Hit Yes.
Your custom soldiers are sent to the titular pool where they ll chill in some temperate, sterile waters sipping on a fruity cocktai—er, wrong pool. They ll actually be chilling in a bin file located by default in your documents folder.
Step three: share
Find the Importable folder and look for your character pool bin file.This is what my file path looks like on Windows 10:
Copy and distribute the file using whatever method suits the sharing: flash drives, cloud storage, a few floppy disks, or dog courier.
Importing characters
To import custom soldiers from other sources, copy the provided bin file to the Importable character pool folder—the same place your character pools export to—and boot up XCOM 2. Head to the Character Pool from the main menu again, but this time, click on Import Character. Find the name of the bin file you d like to import from and give it a click.
Finally, select the characters you d like to import and, boom, they re in your active character pool, ready to assist with the alien murder whenever necessary.
Want some practice? We'll have some soldiers to show off soon. In the meantime, share yours in the comments.
XCOM 2 launched today, and so has the very first user-created mod: The ACORG-47. It's a gun. But it's not just a gun. It's also a corgi.
That's right, a corgi, as in a deliciously cute little dog with its tongue lolling carelessly from its mouth. And if you think it's silly, well, you're not the only one. I feel legit bad that this is the first XCOM 2 mod to be released, the developer, JonTerp, wrote in the mod description.
Be that as it may, its leadoff position was immortalized on Twitter by the folks at Firaxis, and they don't seem bothered by it at all. And why would they be? Maybe it doesn't fit with the whole grim, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it motif of XCOM 2, but on the other hand... So adorable! Oh yes he is! Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? You are! Yes you are!
Anyway.
XCOM 2 was designed from the start to be more moddable than its predecessor, with a proper suite of modding tools including a Visual Studio isolated shell app and the Unreal editor used to build the game, plus the script source code and an estimated 50GB of assets. That opens up whole realms of possibilities that just weren't available in Enemy Unknown, which can only be beneficial to the future of XCOM 2. Not that it isn't an outstanding game in its own right: Have a look at our XCOM 2 review to find out why.
XCOM 2 is a lot more mod-friendly than its predecessor, which is great news for people with the time and knowledge required to create their own modifications and content. It s also highly tweakable, with a huge amount of the game s values and mechanics open to alteration through its exposed config files. All you need is a simple text editor like Notepad (or preferably, Notepad++), some basic familiarity with the game, and the time and patience to find what you re looking for. In this article I ll show you how to implement some basic tweaks to get you started—then, once you re familiar with how it works, you ll be able to find and alter the game to your heart s content.
Don t forget to backup any files before you modify them! When your tinkering breaks your game, you ll want to be able to set things back to normal without reinstalling.
Time to get your hands dirty.
XCOM 2 .ini files
All the files you ll need are in the config folder within the game directory (default C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\XCOM 2\XComGame\Config). Out of the files you ll find within, here s a quick rundown of the ones you ll work with most:
DefaultGameData.ini Covers a very wide variety of mechanics, from how big a squad you can take to how fast the aliens grow in power.
DefaultGameCore.ini Another general variety file. Adjust things like how much aim a unit loses when disoriented or how much damage you take while burning.
DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini Adjust values for all the weapons in the game, both friendly and enemy. Add more ammo to your shotgun, lower the damage on the Viper s Plasma Rifle, increase the radius of Frag Grenade explosions, and so on.
DefaultGameData_CharacterStats.ini Adjust every stat for every unit in the game. Give ADVENT Troopers more aim, reduce the mobility of Chrysallids, add extra health to Berserkers, whatever you like.
DefaultClassData.ini Covers the four classes and their growth as they gain ranks. You can adjust how much aim and health you gain per promotion, allow soldiers to carry weapons from other classes, adjust who gets what perks, and more.
DefaultGameData_SoldierSkills.ini Adjust variables relating to the game s perks. You could increase Blademaster s melee damage bonus, reduce how much a Shieldbearer guards his allies for, or make Lightning Strike grant you its bonus mobility forever, just to name a few ideas.
DefaultNameList.ini A very important file that lets you decide which random names the game creates its recruits with. You can also adjust the chance of new soldiers having hats, props and beards in here.
DefaultMissions.ini Adjust which aliens show up on missions and how many of them should appear. You could add extra enemies to every mission, remove Stun Lancers from the game or make every operation a Chrysallid hunt.
DefaultGameBoard.ini Governs much of the Geoscape/strategy layer of the game. Make the Skyranger fly ten times faster and ensure you never miss a mission.
DefaultAI.ini One of the more complex files to understand, it governs how the AI decides what to do each turn. There s still a few simple changes you can make in here even if you re not technically minded, such as setting the ideal engagement range each enemy type will try to fight from or increase how much the AI values High Cover over other alternatives.
Now that you ve got a general idea of what file covers what, I m going to show you a handful of example tweaks to demonstrate how simple it is to shape XCOM 2 to your liking, even if you re not a modder yourself. Another thing to know: modding won t prevent you from earning achievements, if you care about those.
Basic tweaks
Increase the size of your squad
Here s something everyone should play with at some point—increasing your squad size can range from the reasonable (adding a couple more soldiers) to the insane (adding a couple dozen more soldiers).
Open DefaultGameData.ini with your text editor and search for MaxSoldiersOnMission. By default, it s set to 4 (and then you increase it by 2 with upgrades in the campaign). You can emulate the Long War mod s sizes by changing this value to 6, or go nuts and set it to whatever you like—while XCOM 2 s default UI only supports 8 soldiers at once on the pre-mission equipment screen, the game will still send extra soldiers from your roster onto the operation until it hits the limit you ve set. Stomping ADVENT with a platoon of 60 XCOM soldiers is something you should try at least once in your life.
Lowering the health of ADVENT Officers
Having trouble taking down ADVENT s finest? Don t worry, I won t tell anyone. Head to DefaultGameData_CharacterStats.ini and search for AdvCaptainM1. The first entry you find is the unit s default stats—to reduce their health, you d look for CharacterBaseStats[eStat_HP] and lower the entry s value. Repeat this process with any of the other stat lines to tweak each unit to your liking.
Be aware that XCOM s different difficulty settings override the default values we just changed, though. To adjust this, keep searching for AdvCaptainM1 and you ll discover more entries in four difficulty sections throughout the file—Rookie, Veteran, Commander and Legend, also known as difficulties 0, 1, 2 and 3 respectively. So if you re playing on Veteran, you d find the AdvCaptainM1 entry under the Veteran Difficulty section and adjust the overrides there. Alternatively, simply look for the Difficulty stated above each set of entries—ADVENT Officer stats can be found under AdvCaptainM1_Diff_1. Players using Commander difficulty would look for AdvCaptainM1_Diff_2, and so on.
Adjusting the damage of a Magnetic Rifle
Open DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini and find AssaultRifle_Magnetic_BaseDamage string. By default, you ll see Magnetic rifles have Damage=6 with Spread=1—that means the center of the damage range is 6 but it can roll plus or minus that number by 1, for a damage range of 5 to 7. If we change the string to read Damage=5 and Spread=4, the Mag Rifle will now have a damage range of 1 to 9! Have fun relying on that next time you need an ADVENT Officer to die. Perhaps you d like the Mag Rifle to be your personal Sectopod slayer—that s easy. Change the string s Pierce value to 1000 to have your rifle ignore up to 1000 armor, or adjust the Shred value to 4 to remove that much armor with every hit.
Increasing a grenade s explosive radius
You can increase a grenade s damage in the same way, but to tweak its explosion size we need a different section of DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini. Search for FragGrenade_Radius and you ll find another set of different entries relating to the item. Changing the value changes how big your explosion will be in tiles—setting it to 30 would make your nade wipe out an entire city block by itself, while reducing it to 1 would make it only effect a single tile at once. Remember that the Grenadier s Grenade Launcher increases the range and radius of grenades as well, so factor that into your personal balancing act.
Make your new recruits wear more stuff and have more beards
If you want your new recruits to stand out a bit more, you can adjust how likely they are to come with props or facial hair when the game creates them. Open DefaultNameList.ini and find the section starting with NewSoldier_HatChance.
Adjust these values as you see fit—setting HatChance = 0.40 gives every recruit a 40% chance to come wearing a hat. NewSoldier_BeardChance = 0.66 would make 66% of your male rookies come with some manner of facial hair.
There s another section below that deals with Civilian hat and prop chances as well—set NewCivlian_HatChance = 0.10 for a 10% chance that non-combatants like Engineers and Scientists will be born with some manner of hat on their noggin. Be warned that after playing with this setting, my Central Officer Bradford started walking around the Avenger wearing a kevlar helmet. Be warned that it was awesome.
Slow down units when they re carrying bodies
Find it odd that your soldiers can move at full speed even while they re hauling another adult human over their shoulder? While still in DefaultGameCore.ini, find CARRY_UNIT_MOBILITY_ADJUST and change the value to -6. This will apply a -6 mobility penalty to any unit currently carrying a wounded ally, unconscious VIP, and so on.
Advanced tweaks
Adding extra uses of Conceal and improving Shadowstrike
Open DefaultGameData_SoldierSkills.ini and find XComGame.X2Ability_RangerAbilitySet. If you re familiar with XCOM 2 you can guess what most of these values represent; for example, we can increase the STEALTH_CHARGES value to allow the Conceal perk to be used more than once per mission.
What are we going to do with all that extra stealth? Set SHADOWSTRIKE_CRIT to equal 100. Now your Ranger is guaranteed to crit whenever he attacks from stealth, which local Sectoids will find highly unwelcome.
Give Shotguns to your Specialists, and increase their HP growth
Open DefaultClassData.ini and find Specialist X2SoldierClassTemplate. In this section, find AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon, WeaponType= rifle ) and, underneath, insert the following: AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_PrimaryWeapon, WeaponType= shotgun ).
Easy as that, your Specialists can now equip Shotguns. But they need a bit more beef if they re going to fight up close and personal—so look a few lines down and see the stat strings for the various Specialist promotions such like squaddie, corporal, sergeant, and so on. Within these entries, adjust the (StatType=eStat_HP, StatAmount=0) to be however much health you want them to gain for that particular rank. So if you went to the lieutenant section and set its StatType=eStat_HP,StatAmount=0 to instead be StatAmount=10, your Specialists will gain 10 health once they re promoted to Lieutenant. That ll probably be enough to keep them alive.
Giving the enemies aim bonuses at close range
By default, XCOM 2 s enemies don t get more accurate at close range like you do—a big departure from Enemy Unknown which sees a lot of hilarious incompetence from charging ADVENT Troopers. It s not too hard to return the aim bonuses to the enemy, though, it just takes a few minutes and some patience.
Find the FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[0] line within DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini to get started. These are the bonuses the AI gets when they re a certain range in tiles from their target. By default they don t get any bonuses but if you were to change FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[1] to equal 20, the AI would gain +20 aim when a tile away from their target. FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE[2] governs the aim bonus they d gain when 2 tiles away from their target, and so on.
If you re not sure what you d like their bonuses to be, the easiest way is to simply copy the range bonuses your own soldiers gain. Scroll up until you find MEDIUM_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE—this section is the aim bonus your soldiers gain with proximity while wielding a ballistic rifle. Reference these values to see what you should give the AI in order to level the playing field.
Back in the AI bonus section, I d guess that FLAT_MAGNETIC_RANGE and FLAT_BEAM_RANGE relate to more advanced types of enemies. To be safe, put the same values in these sections as you did for FLAT_CONVENTIONAL_RANGE. The result should be a lot more accurate enemies at close range and a lot less hilarious misses at point blank from your local ADVENT peacekeepers.
Change how powerful your weapon attachments are
Would you use the Repeater if it was just a little bit more reliable? Open DefaultGameCore.ini and find XComGame.X2Item_DefaultUpgrades within. This entire section governs the stats associated with each attachment you can tape onto your guns in XCOM 2. Find FREE_KILL_BSC—that s Free Kill Basic, aka the basic Repeater—and adjust its value to whatever you like. Setting it to 33 would confer a 33% chance to instantly kill any target you hit.
Perhaps you think it s odd the Autoloader only has a limited number of uses? Set FREE_RELOADS_BSC to equal 0—this removes the basic Autoloader s limitations entirely and allows you free reloads as many times as you want with that weapon. Try not to litter as you dump dozens of half-full magazines throughout the countryside.
Add extra enemies to your missions
This ll be a little more complicated, but still not too hard. Open DefaultMissions.ini and find ;ADVENT ENCOUNTER DEFS FOR All Missions. This file may not immediately make sense to you, but don t worry—just focus on each text block that starts with ConfigurableEncounters. Each of these is a configuration for a different group or pod of enemies that will then be placed onto any mission that requests it. To add more bad guys, simply increase the block s MaxSpawnCount value to equal the number of enemies you desire, and repeat for each ConfigurableEncounters block until you re happy.
For example, increasing the MaxSpawnCount of the ConfigurableEncounters=(EncounterID= ADVx2_Standard , \\ section will increase the number of enemies spawned everytime the ADVx2_Standard encounter is placed onto a mission. Once you ve got your head around how this file works, you can adjust the numbers and types of enemies present on every mission in the game at your choosing.
Alter the AI s engagement ranges, movement patterns, and how much it cares about cover
DefaultAI.ini is perhaps the most complicated file to mess with, but don t worry, we re only changing a few simple things to start with. Once you ve opened the file, we ll first find the FallbackChance line. Increasing this value to 0.75f should make enemies more likely to fall back to allies when they re the only survivor of their patrol. Next, find CURR_TILE_LINGER_PENALTY and set it to 1.0. By default the AI is encouraged to move every turn to prevent camping—by changing this value we allow the AI free reign to hold their positions, meaning they won t run around for the sake of running (and getting shot by your Overwatches). A few lines lower you ll find CALC_FULL_COVER_FACTOR—make it equal 2.5f. This increases how much the AI values Full / High cover when making its moves.
Finally, open up DefaultGameData_WeaponData.ini again and find AdvTrooperM1_idealRange. This entire section governs how close or far each enemy wants to be from your soldiers. For example, increasing the first value to AdvTrooperM1_idealRange=12 encourages all ADVENT Troopers to stay around 12 tiles away from your squad. Setting AdvMEC_M1_idealRange=1 encourages ADVENT MECs to charge your position, ending up 1 tile away from you in close combat.
With this simple set of AI tweaks, you can radically alter how the game plays. Setting ADVENT s soldiers to fight you from a longer distance increases their survivability by keeping them away from your shotguns and grenades, while their MECs and tankier units can be configured to charge in and truly mess up your positioning. By more strongly prioritizing full cover and being allowed to hold position more often, the enemy will play more defensively and effectively, which is particularly challenging on timed missions as they stall you for turns. Increasing their likelihood to fall back when overwhelmed keeps enemies from suicide charging you in last ditch attacks, instead linking up with allies and living to fight another turn. It s a lot tougher, but you might really appreciate the extra self-preservation instinct the AI will display—particularly when their new defensive tactics make those timed missions all the more intense to beat.
Closing
There s absolutely tons of things you can change in XCOM 2 s config files, and we ve only scratched the surface here. Once you ve spent some time experimenting with some tweaks, you ll gain familiarity and be able to tweak and adjust the game quickly and confidently. I can only hope next time you can t find a Make Incendiary Grenades cover the entire map in cleansing fire mod on the Steam Workshop, I ll have equipped you with all you need to make your dream a reality.
The wait is almost over. For most, there's still a couple of excruciating hours to go until XCOM 2 is launched (if you're in Australia, it's available now!), but according to our review it'll be worth the wait. In the lead up to the game's global release, a spokesperson for 2K has confirmed the Steam Controller is natively supported.
It's apparently still in testing, but users are able to get early access as soon as the game goes live on Steam. Benefits include the ability to customize controls based on in-game situations, and a bunch of perks associated with the touch menus. Here's the full rundown, in 2K's words:
Use a different control scheme based on the in-game situation.
Experience precise and responsive 1:1 camera controls using the touchpads in the Geoscape and the Tactical view.
Instantly select your ability with the flexibility of the controller's Touch Menus.
Usage and feedback will be monitored, and the initial implementation may not be the last. Of course, configurations can be shared among Steam Controller users as well. Whether it's worth it or not is yet to be seen: Wes's early impressions of the controller aren't too crash hot, but Valve is applying ongoing tweaks.
XCOM 2 shares many elements from its predecessor, but there s plenty of differences that ll catch even a veteran player off guard. For this guide, I m assuming you have a basic familiarity with XCOM—knowing important basics such as What is Overwatch? and Are aliens good or bad? Read on for nine things you should know before kicking off your campaign.
Stall the Avatar Project
Players of XCOM: Enemy Unknown (henceforth known as EU) will remember the doom ticker —the bar that represented how panicked Earth s countries were as a whole. When the panic rose too high, it was game over.
In XCOM 2, the aliens are working on something called Project Avatar, creating facilities and events that produce steady progress towards the end of the world. Unlike EU, when the Avatar bar fills up you don t instantly lose. Instead, a big red timer starts counting down, and when it hits zero your campaign is over.
However, there s a critical function of the countdown that gives you some breathing room. The countdown timer starts at around 20 days but can be stopped as soon as you reduce the Avatar progress by any amount. Assaulting an enemy facility removes all of the Avatar progress it s developed, and completing story objectives also chips down the progress bar significantly.
What s more, once you ve stopped the countdown timer it eventually resets back to its starting value. That means to make the most of your time, you can ride the timer—instead of immediately assaulting an available facility to stop the clock, you can deliberately let the doom timer tick down as you prepare to assault other facilities or complete story objectives, then quickly enact those plans when you ve only got a few days of time left. Stalling for time like this gives you precious extra weeks to expand to other regions and build up your power.
Choose your early priorities
Two of the most important choices you ll make in XCOM 2 are what to research and build first. There s a few key things to focus on early: Modular Weaponry research allows you to apply looted upgrades to your guns, increasing their power. Next, do Alien Biotech, which opens up the Advanced Warfare Center for construction and gives you access to the Officer Autopsy research. Completing that will let you build the Proving Grounds, another critical structure.
Resistance Communications should be next, allowing you to activate the resistance in new regions to increase your reach and your income. After that, you ve got two roads to go down—Magnetic Weapons, or Hybrid Materials and then Plated Armor. If you can t decide, get Magnetic Weapons first. Armor lets you get shot at more, but enemies can t shoot you if they re already dead.
As for buildings, always start with a Guerilla Training School, allowing you to purchase upgrades and increase your squad size. Next, an early Advanced Warfare Center maximizes the chance of troops gaining a bonus perk when they re promoted, which can be an incredible power boost. Finally, a Proving Grounds lets you build new ammo and grenade types along with many other important gear upgrades. You ll need a power plant to support all of these facilities, and soon a Resistance Comms center to continue your worldwide expansion. All this construction will cost a pretty penny, so keep earning supplies through your missions and through the black market to keep that progress rolling.
The LoS indicator will keep you safe
One of XCOM 2 s friendliest new features is the line-of-sight indicator. When moving your soldier s movement cursor around the map, a small crosshair appearing next to an enemy s health bar means you ll be able to see that enemy if you move to the square you re hovering over.
While this has obvious benefits, like ensuring you never again scream WHY CAN T I SEE THAT GUY, there are some advanced ways to use the indicator that will boost your tactical ability. For starters, you can also use it to move in ways where the enemy can t see you—for example, when trying to move without triggering an enemy s overwatch. You re allowed to move one tile inside an enemy s overwatch radius before they ll attack you with reaction fire, so trace out a path that the enemy can t see, using obstructions like walls and pillars to move without being shot at.
Another good use of the indicator is to avoid triggering patrols who ve yet to spot your squad. The Ranger s Phantom perk allows your soldier to remain in stealth when the rest of your squad is revealed, and the standard sight range of an XCOM enemy is 17 tiles. In other words, your Phantom can move ahead and scout out unaware enemies, and your soldiers can use that recon to stay at least 17 tiles away, ensuring those ADVENT or aliens will remain oblivious to your presence.
Don t sneak into a crossfire
Concealment is a powerful new stealth ability for your squad in XCOM 2, but it can be a double edged sword. You ll often be tempted to sneak past patrols entirely, avoiding them while accomplishing your objective. In your head, this seems like a natural thing to do when given a stealth mechanic.
Don t do this. Or if you do, be very aware that those enemies will come back to bite you. By sneaking past patrols, you make it likely that they ll catch up with you later, rolling up behind you at a critical moment. Imagine being stuck in a hard fight in XCOM, then imagine another patrol of angry aliens showing up directly behind you. It s not a good thing.
There are times when sneaking past enemies can be very clever—on missions where you need to grab an objective and then extract, or you need to beat a tough time limit before worrying about difficult firefights. However, in most missions where killing all enemies is an objective anyway, it s often faster and safer to kill every alien you meet ASAP, using stealth to set up powerful ambushes rather than attempting to Solid Snake the operation.
Get Engineers, contacts, and intel
You ll reveal lots of events on the worldwide geoscape screen, such as discovering caches of supplies, finding bonus missions or even gaining free equipment. There s a few things that are critical to focus on for starting your campaign, however—engineers, contacts, and intel.
Engineers construct your base facilities and excavate rooms for you to place those buildings in. As excavating rooms gives you supplies and resources in XCOM 2, more engineers not only speed up your construction but also rapidly ramp up your income. Be sure to grab them when you can, from mission rewards, finding them in random events, or buying them from the Resistance HQ and black market.
Each Resistance Contact allows you to contact a new region. Normally you only gain contacts by building Communications facilities, but occasionally you ll be able to grab free contacts from randomly generated events. Always jump on these chances to keep your territory expansion from stalling.
Intel is a secondary resource that you spend to expand to new regions, but it s also spent at the black market to buy various artifacts and items. You ll never have enough intel to buy everything you want, so when the game gives you an opportunity to gain more, don t let it go to waste. Because...
The Black Market is awesome
Sometime in the first few months of your campaign you ll gain access to the black market, a shop where you can sell excess loot and equipment for supplies, but also buy various things in exchange for intel. The key point is that the things you can buy are freaking awesome.
For example, you can buy a research boost that will halve the time it takes to develop a certain tech. You can buy resources, supplies, weapon upgrades, and even personal combat sims (stat boosts for your soldiers). You can buy scientists, engineers, and even highly experienced soldiers, perfect for bolstering your roster with some more veterancy.
The black market refreshes its inventory after every supply drop, so check back regularly to grab new gear and boosts. An early boost to your Magnetic Weaponry or Plated Armor research is too good to pass up, saving you weeks of research time while your scientist count is still low. After that, shop often to pick up more powerful upgrades and boosters as time wears on. Just be careful not to dump all of your intel into the market, as you ll still need some to expand to other regions and progress your campaign.
Aim is everything
There s a lot of upgrades and attachments to use in XCOM 2 that increase all sorts of important stats, but in general, one truth should guide your focus—you can t kill them if you don t hit them. Aim is one of the most important stats for your soldiers to develop, and while it grows naturally as they gain promotions, there s plenty of other ways to bolster it.
Scopes improve the aim of all attacks made with the weapon you attach it to, while Perception personal combat sims grant flat aim to everything the soldier does. The difference is important—a Gunslinger who uses their pistol won t gain aim from a scope that s attached to their sniper rifle, nor will a Ranger be more accurate with their machete just because you duct taped an optic to their shotgun. Perception sims are more important for these classes if you want to improve their effectiveness, ensuring accuracy no matter what weapon is used.
There are cases where aim is less important. A Ranger may value speed or health over precision, and a Grenadier who focuses on explosives has less need for reliable accuracy. In general, though, soldiers who can hit their targets save you a lot of headaches in XCOM, so invest early and often in ways to increase their aim. They ll pay you back with a lot of dead aliens every mission.
Save your corpses!
Dead bodies are very valuable in XCOM 2, both yours and the enemy s. As morbid as it may be, your first sets of upgraded armor must be built using scavenged ADVENT plates. That means a dozen ADVENT Trooper corpses for your supply of plated Predator armor, and then handfuls of ADVENT Trooper or Stun Lancer bodies for each EXO Suit or Spider Suit, respectively.
I made the mistake of selling all my Trooper corpses early on, because as previously discussed, the black market is awesome. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Predator Armor requires 12 Trooper corpses to build! Ha ha, what a great moment. (Note: It was actually a terrible moment.)
For similar but different reasons, you need to look after your own dead as well. When a squadmate dies, you can order another soldier to pick up his body. While this at first may appear pointless, it serves a very important function by allowing you to extract your dead trooper. Beyond sentimental reasons, this is critical for keeping the soldier s gear, because if you extract from a mission without taking a soldier s body you lose all the gear they had. Winning a normal mission doesn t require you to extract, of course, but on missions that force you to extract such as VIP rescue operations, manually taking your bodies home is necessary even if you win. Unless you don t mind losing all that expensive stuff they were carrying. And speaking of extracting...
EVAC is (usually) there for you
On most missions in XCOM 2, your soldiers can call in the Skyranger s landing zone to any location near them, allowing for an immediate extract of any soldiers inside the LZ. This serves an obvious purpose: letting you get the hell out after your mission has turned pear-shaped. It serves another equally important purpose, though—CASEVAC, or casualty evacuation.
In EU, soldiers who were downed but not outright killed would enter a bleeding out state, where you had a few turns to stabilize them with a medkit. If you didn t have a kit, that soldier was doomed unless you quickly finished the mission before they expired. In XCOM 2 you have another option, as your soldiers can pick up unconscious squadmates and take them to the LZ, extracting them to the Skyranger before they bleed to death. This is also helpful if a soldier is set on fire, poisoned or otherwise afflicted and you have no way of curing their status; simply extract them before they die and they ll take no further damage.
There are caveats to this maneuver, of course. Extracting an unconscious soldier requires a squadmate also extract with them, removing another valuable trooper from your mission. There are also mission types where calling in extract is not possible, often missions such as VIP Rescue where your main objective is reaching an evac zone and placing it next to your squad would be a little too easy a solution.
Beagle is a staunch opponent of alien invasions. You can watch his XCOM and other gaming videos on his channel, youtube.com/beaglerush. Disclosure: Beagle s YouTube content has occasionally been sponsored by 2K Games, the publisher of XCOM 2.
We got a nice early review up for XCOM 2. That's usually a good thing—you know the game is worth your time before tempting first-week bonuses fly away with your cash. But when it gets a score of 94, well, that release date starts to feel awful far away. Tom is at home playing his pre-release copy right now. Tom is not popular today. Thankfully, the rest of us can soon be like Tom: 2K has released a handy graphic detailing when XCOM 2 will unlock in your time zone.
Oh my, that's today! Alas, an unfortunate consequence of living on a rotating ball means those of you on the US east coast won't get at your XCOM till midnight February 5, but what can't a little caffeine solve? Sit back, chill and plan your mods ahead of time.
Since its release in early 2016, XCOM 2 has racked up more than 2000 mods on the Steam Workshop. We've assembled our favorites that improve performance and the UI, totally overhaul XCOM's major systems, make the game easier and harder, and so much more. There's a mod that adds co-op play, one that makes XCOM feel more like a Japanese-style Tactics game, totally new character classes and enemies... so have at 'em!
Important: XCOM 2 save files are tied to the mods you use with them. Adding mods as you re playing through a campaign is no problem, saving a game with a mod enabled will cause the save game only work if and only if the mod is enabled. Make sure you fully read the page for each mod to find installation instructions and warnings.
This mod allows for several face customizations at the same time, so our soldiers' cigars don't vanish while wearing a hood and eye patches and masks don't disappear when you equip a helmet. You can also add jewelry to both the upper and lower face at the same time. Not every combination works perfectly, but you've still got a lot more options than you had before.
No more leveling up your soldiers before you can fully customize their looks. This mod makes it so the full customization menu is available to you from the jump. All attitudes, hairstyles, and armor patterns are at your disposal from the very beginning of a soldier's arrival.
We'll always, always, always be looking for new ways to customize our soldiers, and this mod provides new facepoints and facial tattoos, as well as 25 new arms tattoos. According to the modder, there's even more on the way.
When your soldiers pop their heads out of cover, you want them looking their best. This pack by modder Capnbubs adds some noggin-based accessories, like a kevlar helmet and facemask that fits nicely with kevlar armor, several different berets, and a ballcap that can be worn with the bill in front or back (but thankfully not to the side). More are being added over time.
Your soldiers can proudly represent their country of origin with their flags and accents, but why not take it a step further with 21 different real-world camouflage patterns. Russian Berezka, Swedish Barracuda, US TigerPAT, and many others will let your squad hide with pride.
We know how frustrating it is when one of your squad, with a clear shot at close range, empties a clip but completely misses their target. That’s why these helmets are so appropriate: there are simply no worse shots in the history of the galaxy than your average stormtroopers. Includes the classic trilogy look, Endor’s scout troopers, and the new helmets from The Force Awakens. Add some black and white armor and bring a convincing taste of Star Wars into your game.
Storm Troopers aren't your thing? What about Halo's Spartans? Halo lore nerds will appreciate these character names come straight out of the books, and if Halo Wars isn't quite your chosen flavor of strategy, just pretend you're fighting the Covenant in XCOM 2. This character pool requires a ton of other Halo mods, like Halo Customizable Armors.
Want your team to have grease-smears under their eyes like professional athletes, or their entire foreheads slathered with soot like Furiosa? Or maybe you’re more into the Braveheart facepaint or the raccoon look like Pris from Blade Runner. This face paint pack adds 10 new looks.
Unfortunately, dressing like Advent doesn’t mean you can nonchalantly stroll over to them, offer them a cigarette, chat about the weather, and then bonk them unconscious and run away, giggling. Still, this mod lets you wear their big, clunky helmets and body armor. If you can’t beat ‘em, dress like ‘em.
When a soldier dies in XCOM 2, they take with them all their earthly memories and dreams. But more importantly, they take their uniform with them, a set of customizations that you spend precious minutes assembling. Uniforms Manager is so helpful and obvious that it should’ve been a stock feature in XCOM 2: it lets you save and reapply created uniforms, letting your whole squad color-coordinate without the agony of clicking through the character creator a bunch.
Ain't no alien-killing badass quite like Mass Effect's Commander Shepard, so you should really add him or her—or both—to your crack staff of extraterrestrial-exterminating soldiers. Your Shepard will bark lines from the Mass Effect games, which naturally fit perfectly into XCOM 2.
Worth it alone for the "Get to da choppa!" line from Predator—which plays when you're calling for evac, naturally—this Arnie voice pack includes almost 200 lines from a number of his action films, including Total Recall, The Terminator, and Last Action Hero.
This mod mines the plentiful dialogue from High Moon Studios’ 2013 Deadpool game to great effect, with barks like “I AM THROWING A GRENADE” (grenading) and “Guns need bullets to work” (low ammo) slotting in cleanly with every soldier action.
An AI overhaul that could go in the tweaks or increased difficulty sections, but its addition of 60 new enemies makes it feel like a great pick to bulk out XCOM 2's existing content. This is a harder Advent, with a huge variety of new enemies to face, and they will most likely kill you. But what's better than being killed by variety?
Increase your pool of maps with this wonderful selection, which was updated and improved a dozen times after its first release. No new art here, just more layout possibilities for your missions, ensuring they don't feel too samey no matter how many aliens you take on.
Another map pack that works just fine with the first. This one adds ADVENT checkpoints, house raids, traffic stops and dropship pads as XCOM generates its maps.
Even more combinations! Compatible with the above two mods, Vozati's map pack is about triple the size of the More Maps pack. With all three together, you should be well protected from the danger of randomly generated repetition.
Lucubration's Infantry, Sniper, and Escalation classes
Heard of XCOM 1 s Long War mod? These customized soldier types reprise many of its popular roles. The Escalation classes were designed by our own XCOM 2 expert contributor Beaglerush. They're all a good starting point for experimenting with soldier archetypes outside the defaults.
Reliable Smoke deals with how unreliable XCOM s smoke grenade indicator can be, ensuring that all smokes provide exactly as much defense coverage as they claim to. Flamethrower Panic Fix allows your flamers to properly panic enemies as intended (no, ADVENT is not so brave that they laugh in the face of hellfire). Patrol when Revealed rounds out this set of unofficial patches, removing an issue that caused enemy patrols to annoyingly camp on top of you when you spotted them while concealed.
In a similar vein to Gotcha is LOS Preview Ability, granting an ability that you can place on top of enemies and positions to preview exactly what they can see no more being surprised when a Muton draws a bead on you through two separate windows and over a car hood.
Show Health Values is another great choice for people who value perfect information, summing up friendly and enemy healthbars into numeric form for easy reading.
Stabilize Me! is a nice upgrade to the game s medical system, allowing you to use the medkit of a downed trooper to stop them from bleeding out it s a sensible tweak you re likely to appreciate when your only medic goes down.
Better Shieldwall gives a similarly reasonable boost to an otherwise ignored ability, allowing the lategame WAR Suit ability to provide cover to its wearer, not just allies around them.
PanicMod_AlwaysHunker is another voice of reason, ensuring panicked soldiers will always go to ground on the spot instead of shooting or running in a random direction. While it can initially be amusing to watch cowardly troops run into the line of fire instead of away from it, this Commander tired of such unnecessary deaths a long time ago.
EU Aim Rolls is a brilliant piece of work that fixes a host of issues you likely weren t even aware of. Long story short: in vanilla XCOM 2, the chance to hit and chance to crit shares a single roll, meaning if you have a 10% to hit and a 10% to crit, you can only crit or miss. This mod separates the rolls as it should be, while also removing a bunch of other problems you ll be happy to avoid. Ever seen an on-target grenade decide to miss an Archon? Install this mod and you ll never have to experience such nightmares.
Gotcha (Flank Preview Evolved) is essential it upgrades X2 s line of sight indicator to properly reflect whether you ll flank an enemy from your new position or, even more importantly, if you ll be able to hack/shoot objective items and even if your sniper will have a squadsight angle on distant targets.
Here's a mod for the enemy: this allows Advent Captains to call in reinforcements when his squad has been entirely wiped out. It ups the challenge for you, sure, but it's tempered by the fact that the captain can only use this ability once. You can customize the type of reinforcements that are called, and they'll arrive at a random spot in line of sight.
Tired of hunting through your soldiers' info in an effort to remember which particular grunt has that one skill you're looking for? This mod nicely makes all that information immediately visible in the squad selection menu. It's highly customizable as well, so you can have it display stats as well as perks, and even dictate where the information will appear to avoid the menu getting too cluttered.
Have you ve noticed XCOM 2 inexplicably waits for a few seconds after certain actions? There s often a 1-3 second pause after your soldiers fire their weapons, throw grenades, make a kill, or take cover. This mod snips out those weird little delays in the action, making combat a much smoother experience.
Heath bars are so passé. Here in the future we like cold, hard data. Now you can see the precise numerical value of health, armor, and shields. It even comes with a configuration file so you can customize the size, position, and color of your digits.
Adds the ability to rotate the camera using the Q and E keys, lets you zoom with the T and G keys, and enables free camera movement controlled by your mouse. You can also remap the keybindings and configure the zoom and step speed. Now there’s all sorts of new ways to watch your squad die horribly.
The Advanced Warfare Center provides a chance for your soldiers to earn random but valuable perks. Currently, however, the way it works in XCOM 2 is a bit misleading: a random, hidden perk is selected for each soldier when the AWC is built, or when a soldier is recruited. This mod tweaks the AWC so that soldiers don’t permanently lose their chance at an extra perk if that perk is of ‘lower rank’ than their current rank.
If you find yourself occasionally forgetting to actually use all the cool stuff you find during missions, this mod adds icons to the squad loadout screen to remind you if an upgrade is available. You can customize the color and size of the icons to fit your needs.
If you’re tired of individually evacuating your troops, this mod can make it a one-click affair. An ‘Evac All’ button is added to your soldiers’ ability bars when they’re in an evac zone, and clicking it will spirit away both them and any other soldiers in the zone. Speaking of group hugs, there’s also an Overwatch All mod.
There are a few mods that tamper with the mission timer, but this one feels the most fair. As long as your squad remains concealed, the clock doesn’t start ticking. Once someone is spotted, the countdown begins. It also gives you a bit more time, but there’s a version of it that keeps the default timers if you prefer.
Some modders, like the creators of XCOM's The Long War, worked with Firaxis to have some mods for the game available day one. There's also an official co-op mod!
Why suffer the cruel dice rolls of XCOM alone when you can suffer with a friend? 10 months of work resulted in a two-player co-op mod, which the mod team plans to expand into a 12-player mode when code is approved by Firaxis. Read the short instructions on how to get the mod working with a friend here.
This official mod adds a submachine gun option for your soldiers. It allows them a greater range of movement and makes them harder for the enemy to detect, but comes with a cost: less damage and less ammo.
It provides a new development path for your soldiers that allows them to obtain leadership perks, similar to the custom Officer class from the Long War mod. These perks result in buffs that will help the entire squad, but you can only take one of these leadership characters with you at a time.
The Long War gang replaced its Muton Centurion mod with this pack of new aliens. It includes more than a dozen new aliens to fight against, including the Muton Centurion and Elite, a new alien sharpshooter, a giant Chryssalid, and a bunch of new ADVENT troops. Cower in fear.
An official mod overhaul of the perk system that changes or adds 70 abilities and allows for picking between three perks per soldier level. The UI has also gotten some tweaks to make space for all these new options.
Tools and utilities
Mod Config Menu is a tool that some mods require you to use for them to play nicely together.
The mod editor, called ModBuddy, is a separate download of about 45 GB. If it sounds familiar, it's because it's the tool used for Civ 5's mod-making. Modbuddy can be downloaded as a Steam Tool, and with it you can debug your mods and upload them directly to Steam. The SDK provides 1,900 game script files, 2,400 maps, thousands of props, materials, and textures, plus hundreds of character assets and animation sets.
If you've clicked any of the links on this page, you know the Steam Workshop is the best place to find mods, and many can be installed with a single click. However, Nexus Mods also has a hub for XCOM 2, and the Nexus Mod Manager already supports the game, and is a great tool for downloading, activating, and managing your favorite mods.
One of the easiest ways to solve XCOM 2 s problems (and honestly, any problems) is with an overwhelming number of explosives. With this mod, the power of your unstoppable Grenadiers is reigned in now grenades deal less and less damage towards the edges of their blast zone, meaning you can t just blanket entire groups of enemies with grenades and expect them to all die at once. Having to target and prioritize specific enemies and cover with your grenades rather than just killing everything will bring back the fear and frustration of XCOM faster than you can say I hugely regret installing this mod! Thank me later.
You might also like Explosions Destroy Corpses, which fits in perfectly by yep, you guessed it destroying the corpse of enemies you kill with explosives, cutting down on your research resources and black market moneymaking immensely. Maybe now you ll think twice about rocketing those Sectoids for kicks. I mean, I use the mod and I still do it, but some things are more important than money.
It s not enough to just make killing your enemies harder. You need to make them kill you harder, too.
A Better AI is the perfect mod for the job, increasing the decision making and ruthless killer instinct of every enemy in the game. While you may have experienced the AI granting you small acts of mercy in vanilla acts such as ignoring a low HP trooper to fire at a healthier one, or using an ability on you instead of taking an easy flank shot this mod ensures such friendly sportsmanship is long over. Enemies will ruthlessly prioritize killshots and flank opportunities, overwatch only when the situation makes it tactically favourable, and rarely spam their various abilities if it s better to just shoot you in your face instead. Another excellent set of changes is how the AI will pick and choose from many more options at any given moment, making enemies far less predictable than their vanilla brains allowed. Be warned: now that Stun Lancers remember they have guns, they are easily fifteen times as hateable.
BleedOutMod overhauls the chances your troopers have to start bleeding out when critically wounded instead of flat out dying. I think every soldier should have some chance to survive a knockout regardless of rank or experience, so this mod is one of my favourites.
Advanced Modular Weapons takes the Armed to the Teeth bonus from the vanilla game that s the continent bonus that grants an extra weapon upgrade slot for all your primary weapons and turns it into an expensive Proving Grounds project instead. Considering how this essential bonus only shows up based on chance, I think having it as a mid-game upgrade for every campaign makes much more sense.
Heavy Weapon Tweaks both buffs and nerfs the player s arsenal. In short, if you felt like the only heavies worth using were the Shredder and the Rocket/Blaster Launcher, this mod evens things out so that Flamers and Plasma Blasters are more competitive as choices for your EXO troops.
Its Just A Scratch is another in a series of sensible tweaks for the XCOM player. When your troops come home in vanilla, they re assigned wounded time based on how much damage they took, period. With this mod, they re only given wounds based on how much damage they took to their basic health value. In layman's terms, that means if you re wearing armor that gives you an extra four health and you only take four damage or less, you re not wounded, and taking five would be a light injury with a quick recovery. It s a reasonable tweak that allows your better-armored troops to put their plating to use without worrying about instant wound time. Your doctors will appreciate treating fewer bruised wrists and hurt feelings.
Suppressable Targeting Abilities revamps the Suppression ability to reduce the range of many area-of-effect abilities, like launching a grenade or spitting a cloud of poison. If you ve ever suppressed a Muton only to watch him happily blow up your squad, rejoice you can properly keep his head down now in all offensive aspects. The mod also unlocks the targeting for abilities, allowing you to place grenades and other skills with pinpoint precision, which is a much needed tweak if you re using Grenades Damage Falloff to lower your overall damage.
Overwatch Ignores Concealment is a little change with a huge effect, allowing your overwatch to fire off normally even while your troops are concealed. You no longer gain the bonus chance to hit that vanilla concealed Overwatch enjoys, but in return, you don t have to jump through hoops to get your stealthed troops to react anymore. As an XCOM:EU vet, this mod is one I really enjoy I prefer starting fights on the alien s turn instead of starting ambushes during mine. It s a definite boost to the player s lethality from concealment, so consider increasing your game s difficulty to balance things out.
Additional Mission Types is a fantastic mod that introduces several new sorts of missions to your campaigns, focusing on defensive scenarios that provide some alternatives to vanilla s more offensive missions. Defending a resistance shanty town from waves of ADVENT, neutralizing a VIP and holding for an extract, and executing a jailbreak as reinforcements drop in to cut you off are all excellent additions this mod adds to your campaign.
Okay, here's the big one. My favourite XCOM 2 overhaul, which happens to combine perfectly with Additional Mission Types. Instead of wiping out all enemies and rolling in the rewards, campaigns played with this mod require you only to accomplish your mission objectives and extract before being overwhelmed. You will want to extract, because ADVENT calls in reinforcements once they go on alert at first just small pairs of soldiers, ramping up to full squads of enemies airdropping in to cut you down. The reinforcements provide a great alternative to mission timers as a result; instead of racing a literal clock, you re racing a metaphorical clock, represented by dropships full of very angry soldiers who will swarm all over you if you don t move fast enough.
Couple that with only keeping what you can carry to the Skyranger, and your tactical decision making will be put to the test far more commonly than in vanilla. Should you bail out immediately after accomplishing your objective, or stick around a few more turns to grab bodies for research? In Supply Raids, how greedy will you be happy to head home after snatching a few boxes full of goods, or risking it all to grab all six? While the reinforcements certainly provide a difficulty hike, the fact that they replace timers allows you more options and flexibility, and encourages you to be greedy as you overstay your welcome to grab loot and corpses.
There s something to be said for racing to the Skyranger with a butt-naked Sectoid slung over your shoulder. Guerilla War s still in development, but it s entirely playable now, so if using a Fulton Harness to extract a Sectopod wreck while you hold your LZ sounds like the kind of gameplay you re interested in, it s well worth checking out.
Speaking of total overhauls, Wave COM is a mod dear to my heart. As someone who loves tower and wave defense games, this mod is my dream come true start with a small squad of rookies and fight off increasingly harder and more numerous waves of enemies on random maps. Your soldiers level up from kills as they would in a real campaign, and as you earn resources from surviving enemy waves, you can hire new troops, unlock new research, and buy new equipment and upgrades.
With troop customization and savegame support and even optional boss waves featuring the new Alien Hunters Ruler aliens, WaveCOM takes all of the fun and progression of a real campaign and sums it up in one huge and endless defense mission with the nice side effect being that when you eventually lose your entire squad, it s more inevitable and fun than frustrating.
Finally, while the above mods all pull off some fairly big changes to XCOM, Recovery Turn System takes the cake for absolutely changing the game. Players of other tactics games or more traditional tabletop RPGs will be familiar with the idea instead of moving your entire squad at once, and then all the aliens moving next, this mod has each individual unit act in order based on their mobility score, making it more similar to an initiative based system like Dungeons and Dragons. This completely changes how the game is played; no longer can you use your entire squad s strength to wipe out the enemy before they can act, with combat instead becoming a constant exchange of shots and abilities for each engagement. Whether it makes the game more fun or not is up to you at the very least, it s well worth a look for how radically it mixes up the XCOM formula.
What is it? A turn-based strategy game about fighting aliens who ve already won. Expect to pay 35 / $60 Developer Firaxis Publisher 2K Games Reviewed on Intel i5-7690K, 8 GB RAM, GTX970 Multiplayer Two-player turn-based battles LinkOfficial site
Deep inside your flying base is a bar dedicated to fallen soldiers. It has a list of each soldier s name, time of death, and the operation they died in. It s a trigger for dark memories. Reading down I remember one soldier crushed to death by a giant snake, another burnt to death in a ruined office. Another shot dead then psychically resurrected to fight her friends. Operation Dismal Window was a bad day for rookie Neel Mehra. Sergeant Flynn Hudson bit the dust in Operation Half-Eaten Tears. If it wasn t obvious from XCOM s ominous naming convention for operations, this is a tough gig. But these are the heroes you ll remember when the lasers stop. These are the fallen stars in this gruelling, outstanding strategy game.
Humanity seems doomed from the outset in XCOM 2. The game assumes you failed in your attempts to repel the alien invasion in Enemy Unknown. Now Earth s citizens live a coddled life under the totalitarian control of the aliens and their co-opted soldiery, Advent. The resistance lives on only in the form of a few determined soldiers, scientists and engineers who have managed to repurpose a huge alien ship, the Avenger. This is your home.
A detailed cross-section of the vessel lets you zoom into rooms to initiate research and building projects. A central cluster of rooms can be cleared out to build new facilities, and on the bridge you access the Geoscape, a map of the world that lets you choose where you want to park your spacecraft.
To fight back, you must expand your reach from your lone starting territory by contacting nearby resistance groups. Time is frozen on the Geoscape, but when you park over an objective—make resistance contact; acquire resources; contact the black market—you activate a timer and spend precious days to claim it. This is nerve-racking. At any moment your scans can be interrupted by an alien attack, or a mission that will let you attack the aliens. You can choose to ignore some of these, but it s not wise. Missions net you important resources, give your soldiers a chance to gain experience, and counter Dark Events'—varied alien initiatives that, among many options, can half your income for a month, or send an interceptor out to hunt The Avenger.
Just describing the strategic layer doesn t capture the rhythm of success and setback that makes it so gripping. The game cleverly uses scarcity of opportunity to force you into difficult dilemmas. At any one time you might have only six possible scan sites, while combat encounters are largely meted out by the game, but what you choose to do with this narrow range of options matters enormously. You need to recruit new rookies; you need an engineer to build a comms facility that will let you contact more territories; you need alien alloys to upgrade your weapons. You can t have all of these. You can probably only have one. In 1989 Sid Meier described games as a series of interesting decisions. XCOM 2 is the purest expression of that ethos that Firaxis has yet produced.
Brilliantly, you even have to scan to collect your monthly cache of supplies, hidden in the landscape to escape alien detection. I have left supplies on the ground for a week because I needed to recruit an engineer. I needed to hit an alien base to reduce the Avatar Project count—a doom clock that is very bad news if it maxes out. I needed Advent corpses to get a vital armour upgrade. I needed a cup of tea because it was all getting a bit too much. This narrow series of opportunities fits the fantasy perfectly. You take whatever you can get. You re scraping food and fuel out of the dirt to keep The Avenger in the air.
The moment the timer freezes during a scan, I stop breathing. There s a notification screen you have to click through to find out what is about to try to kill you—I swear this is intentional, to let the sense of dread register for a second or two. If you re lucky, it s the council getting in touch to give you a thumbs-up and tell you they ve dropped some sandwiches for you in South America. If you re unlucky you ll be faced with XCOM 2 s equivalent of Enemy Unknown s Terror missions. Dubbed Retaliation, these once again ask you to rescue civilians from the battlefield while the aliens best troops try to annihilate them. I have to steel myself for every fight, knowing that a bad performance could ruin my plans.
Combat is turn-based, and takes place on procedural battlefields that are uncannily well generated. Only once have I seen a truck spawned partly into a wall. For the vast majority of battles the terrain is busy, interesting, and benefits from a huge leap in visual fidelity from Enemy Unknown. The snowy forests, slums, city centres and alien bases are varied both in decorative assets such as sleek futuristic cars and fluffy trees, and in the vertical variation provided by cliffs and multi-storey buildings.
They blow up nicely, too. I ll commonly grenade a wall to remove cover and offer my soldiers highchance shots at a target. To my surprise, I also discovered that soldiers running around above ground level can fall through the floor if they re in a burning building. Explosions can start fires that propagate, blocking floor tiles. One of my grenades started a fire next to a terminal I had to hack. Sending a soldier to stand in that fire and hack the console was not one of my finest XCOM moments.
The four soldier classes have been revamped. Enemy Unknown players will recognise the suppressive heavy weapon capabilities of the grenadier, and the sniping ability of the sharpshooter, but both can access new abilities that alter their jobs. The sharpshooter s gunslinger skills, earned by levelling up, can turn them into an effective mid-range pistolier who can take out multiple enemies in style, while the grenadier can improve the explosive potential of their grenade launcher, effectively merging Enemy Unknown s heavy and support roles in one class.
The other two classes are less familiar. The specialist has a drone, which can move around the battlefield to heal allies, zap enemies, or hack alien comms towers, and also has robots to disable or even temporarily steal units. The ranger fills the speedy, close-range role formerly occupied by the assault class, but they have a sword for high-risk, high-damage charge attacks, and therefore win. They can also pursue the scout skill track, which lets them strike very effectively from stealth.
Stealth is new. You start most battles incognito, and can freely move around the map without being attacked, as long as you stay out of the red detection range of enemies, lingering civilians, and watchtowers. By putting most of your units in overwatch—the staple XCOM move that gives your soldiers free reaction shots against movement in the enemy turn—you can set up deeply satisfying ambushes. With my trap primed, I use my sharpshooter to break stealth and get a near-certain kill shot on the most dangerous enemy. As the alien mob scatters, their movement activates fire from the rest of my team. The camera swoops between them as they open up, shredding the enemy in glorious slow-motion.
Once concealment is broken, life becomes much more difficult. Successful shots are dictated by chance rolls, and you secure favourable odds by staying in good cover and flanking. A poor move or a stroke of bad luck can wipe out a soldier, or take them out of action for days. Time-limited objectives to hack a terminal or rescue/assassinate a VIP in a certain number of turns force you to be reckless. What s more, all alien variants, bar the lowest tier of enemy soldier, have the capacity to be incredibly disruptive. The lowly Sectoids of Enemy Unknown are all grown up, and can mind-control your troops and resurrect corpses.
I won t ruin the surprise and horror of the more advanced alien troops, but a couple left me in despair after a massacre, wondering if I had the soldiers and the ability to go on. I slowly fought back. I recruited new troops, built new technology, got better at the game, and was left elated, feeling I d conquered a impossible task. Strategy games just don t normally feel like this.
There s more you re better off discovering for yourself, like the weapon mods, extensive troop customisation, Psi-ops warriors, exo-skeletal suits and the story, told over a series of special missions. I can find little to criticise. The camera occasionally wafts through walls in close-ups, there s sometimes a lengthy pause before the character you re watching acts. A lack of foreknowledge in your first playthrough will hurt your ability to plan, too, forcing you to be more reactive, though the constant flow of new enemy types and story missions makes up for that. Thanks to your varying starting position, procedural missions and tactical depth, XCOM 2 can and should be played repeatedly.
I already have plans to build a proper unit of psychic soldiers, and a stealthy all-ranger scout squad in my next run. Those aliens won t know what hit them.
