Difficulty can be adjusted up or down at any time, however, to taste. When things do go well, the feeling of badassery is all the more potent because of how hard-earned victories are. When you’re caught off guard, it feels as though you could have made better choices earlier. Sacrifices must be made if we’re going to take back the Earth.Īlthough punishingly challenging at times, the game never feels unfair or capricious. You’re the scrappy underdog, rallying against overwhelming odds. Lead designer Jake Solomon described XCOM 2 to me in an earlier interview as a “struggle fantasy,” inverting the usual video-game trope of making the player feel powerful.
Battles are won or lost by precious inches, and the game frequently forces you to choose the terrible option you can most stomach. Every time you start to feel confident in your operation, Advent will throw a horrifying new threat at you, forcing you to scramble and reevaluate all your tactics in response. Staying true to the spirit of the original, XCOM 2 is difficult. The challenge instead comes from giving you finite resources and hard choices, and XCOM 2 excels in providing just the right number of options at any given moment across all levels of the game.
Unlike real-time games such as Halo or Starcraft that tax your tactical decision-making with time pressure and twitch reflexes, XCOM gives you all the time you want to make each move. You’ll even need to decide whether you want engineers building new rooms or staffing existing facilities - a light worker placement mechanic. Balancing these intersecting economies is reminiscent of European-style board games like Settlers of Catan or Power Grid. In addition to the basic currency of supplies, secondary resources like intel, alien alloys, and even time must be carefully managed, and can be spent in numerous ways to develop your organization. Monthly income earned this way can be used to build equipment and facilities, train soldiers, and research new technology. Each soldier gets two “action points” per round, which can be used for things like moving and shooting, and turns alternate back and forth between the player and Advent.Īfter individual missions, you’ll fly around the world in your mobile base the Avenger to gather resources and develop resistance contacts. A handful of soldiers, each one of five specialized classes, drops into a procedurally-generated battlefield to complete objectives ranging from simply eliminating all hostile targets to rescuing civilians from terror raids, or kidnapping high-value assets. Not unlike Civilization, XCOM 2 is a bit like a board game that would be just a little too tedious to run with dice and cardboard. What remains of XCOM now leads a guerrilla insurgency, operating out of a stolen alien carrier ship to rally a global resistance and dismantle Advent’s sinister schemes. Now, 20 years later, a semblance of peace has been imposed by the joint alien-human Advent government. Counter to the usual logic of sequels, XCOM 2 starts with the premise that you lost the first game.
XCOM 2 SWITCH REVIEW SERIES
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) was Civilization developer Firaxis’ extraordinary reboot of the classic ‘90s strategy series about leading a force of elite operatives to hold off alien invasion. It’s harsh to make a sacrificial lamb of a fresh-faced recruit on his first mission, but tough choices must be made if we’re going to take back the Earth. The cruel calculus of XCOM leaves little choice: Akira leaps over the wall and makes a heroic dash, collapsing under a storm of laser fire, while Tina escapes to safety in the distraction. Already limping from an earlier grenade blast, Tina can’t withstand much more.Īcross the way, recruit Akira Watanabe nervously fingers his assault rifle. Tina, top-ranked sniper of the human resistance, had stayed behind to provide covering fire from above, giving her squad mates time to escape, but also allowing Advent reinforcements to close in on her. Most of the squad has already escaped to the evacuation zone across the plaza, whisked away into the hovering Skyranger. Fitbit Versa 3Ĭaptain Tina “Butts” Belcher crouches behind the concrete embankment, weighing her options.
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