X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[anus_pounder]

Oooh that does look much better than the ADVENT cities.

I was saying that the alien city weird art direction was on purpose and the old cities would be very different, but no one believed me.

I don't blame them.

 

[anus_pounder]

Are all old-world cities gonna look like something out of Kwa? Would love to see things that look like Eastern Europe, or Latin America, or Japan, or Europe.

Good question. I know the cities in the first xcom were generic as hell. No street vendors, cows blocking off paths, piles of garbage and cow shit whenever a mission took place in India. I was not immersed.

 

[Mazisky]

They will be generic too in x-com 2, too much work to create regional assets.

At least we have terrain and time of day based on geoscape morphology and time when we go on mission, still a huge improvement from EU

 

[Mustawd]

Are all old-world cities gonna look like something out of Kwa? Would love to see things that look like Eastern Europe, or Latin America, or Japan, or Europe.

Good question. I know the cities in the first xcom were generic as hell. No street vendors, cows blocking off paths, piles of garbage and cow shit whenever a mission took place in India. I was not immersed.

Mods will add cows and shit. No worries A_P.

 

[Galdred]

It's always hilarious in XCOM to go on a mission in XYZ country and its the Irish pub map. Though I guess people only really notice the little details when the LW camera mod came out and you could zoom in and read all the ads. Some maps, like the Slingshot DLC train station, are very detailed in ways that players would never have even seen without the camera mod, unless they were very lucky with the action cam.

Don't all countries have Irish pubs anyway?

 

[Mustawd]

Pretty sure the US has more Irish pubs than Ireland.

 

[Alienman]

Are all old-world cities gonna look like something out of Kwa? Would love to see things that look like Eastern Europe, or Latin America, or Japan, or Europe.

Good question. I know the cities in the first xcom were generic as hell. No street vendors, cows blocking off paths, piles of garbage and cow shit whenever a mission took place in India. I was not immersed.

Xenonauts had some nice little map diversity from what I remember. Anyone remember all these times some random Abdul with an AK managed to kill off an alien or even two? That's just

Xenonauts was really funny sometimes. Any UFO crashed in Sweden/Scandinavia was almost always arctic environment, even if it crashed in the southern parts.

You started to think that 98% of the population in the Xenonaut timeline must be men with a red jacket, walking around equipped with a shotgun a la MacReady.

 

[Space Satan]

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

New class revealed : Rookie bomb

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Pretty sure the US has more Irish pubs than Ireland.

Well there are more Irish-Americans than Irishmen.

 

[curry]

Looks good.

 

[veevoir]

Spoiler

Behead all those who insult 1 base limit!

 

[Zeriel]

Another week, another batch of screens

THE ENVIRONMENTS OF XCOM 2: SHANTY
December 03 2015

PREV

In this recurring series, we take a visual tour of the environments that comprise the world of XCOM 2. Today, we look at Shanty Towns.

ADVENT may have control of Earth, but there are still pockets of humanity where folks live by some semblance of the old way in XCOM 2. These ramshackle Shanty Towns, despite being tucked away from the more densely-populated areas of the world, are always susceptible to attack, and so the citizens within live in a constant state of fear.

This ever-present state of anxiety can take its toll on the families, who must be willing to pick up and run at any time. But, if anything, this life on the run from ADVENT has taught these individuals a deep appreciation for freedom - and that freedom gives them something to hold on to; a reason to keep going.

Throughout XCOM 2, you’ll likely deploy troops to one or more of these Shanty towns, Commander. While there, be sure to take care when detonating fuel canisters and vehicles. While the ultimate goal is to defeat ADVENT, we should be mindful of the lives we’re affecting every time we turn one of these communities into a war zone.

XCOM 2 launches on PC worldwide February 5, 2016. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to get the latest news from the resistance.

 

[Zombra]

While there, be sure to take care when detonating fuel canisters and vehicles. While the ultimate goal is to defeat ADVENT, we should be mindful of the lives we’re affecting every time we turn one of these communities into a war zone.

While I would love to be wrong, somehow I don't think there will be an actual penalty mechanic for collateral damage.

Hm, it's quite possible that it'll have an effect on the reward mechanics. The previous game scaled panic reduction from Terror missions based on number of civilians saved. But yeah, it could just as easily be flavor text.

 

[Zombra]

As for civilian saved/died: OG did distinguish civilians killed by aliens from kills by XCOM for points, though. Firaxis should have included that. So many terror missions where the aliens are just right for a rocket except for some civilian deciding to take cover right in the middle. Usually the decision comes down to, if I don't collateral damage the civilians myself this turn, they'll be killed next turn anyway, so no difference in panic reduction.

I don't see the problem. Blowing up a civilian instead of letting them get torn to shit and impregnated by a Chryssalid literally the next moment? You're doing them a favor. I don't have a problem with my superiors not penalizing me for making that decision.

 

[Infinitron]

Previews.

Hands On: XCOM 2’s Strategy And Tactics Dissected

With XCOM 2 [official site], Firaxis are not resting on their laurels. The studio’s reboot of the license had a great deal to prove – primarily, it had to satisfactorily answer the question as to why the much-loved series needed to be revived at all.

That obstacle overcome, the sequel is on safer ground and it might have been enough to reskin and reshape ever so slightly. A new setting, a new gang of aliens, and a few new weapons and hairstyles for the defenders of the Earth. Instead, there’s a degree of role-reversal, with the player now attempting to take the planet back from an occupying force rather than protecting it from invaders. There’s a new approach to the strategic side of the game, the return of randomised maps and an in-depth suite of soldier customisation tools.

After a couple of hours with the sequel, I’m more excited about XCOM than I’ve been since the announcement of the reboot.


First of all, a quick recap for those who might think that all of their hard work defeating the aliens on Ironman mode might have been cause for celebration. XCOM lost the war. The sequel takes place decades after the invasion, with Earth governed by the velvet glove and elerium-fuelled powerfist of a human-alien coalition.

There is a peace, of sorts. Clean cities, hybrid guards who prevent civil unrest, checkpoints on every street corner. It’s impossible to look at the urban environments without being creeped the fuck out by the obvious control asserted by the aliens, who are reforming and reshaping the world to fit their own needs as surely as if they had terraformed it from afar.

It’s the kind of society that undoubtedly processes protesters and it’s impossible to tell if people accept the hidden horrors because there have been overall improvements to quality of life provided one doesn’t rock the boat, or if everyone is simply too scared to step out of line. Earth needs heroes and, in a grim and disturbing tutorial sequence, those heroes are introduced.

XCOM, as an organisation, is finished. But a few people who were on the frontlines of the first war have always known that the aliens cannot be trusted. They’ve formed a guerrilla group, operating under the XCOM name, and they’re caught in the hinterland between “terrorists” and “freedom fighters”. In the long-term, historians of the conflict will decide what to call them – in the short-term, alien propaganda has declared them enemies of freedom and a danger to the populace.

The setup doesn’t pull its punches. XCOM initiate a firefight in the streets during a civil ceremony. Civilians panic. Bombs create confusion and chaos, distractions to lure the aliens away from the real target of the operation, and it’s clear that the tables really have turned: not only are XCOM the invading force, they’re performing terror missions of their own.

That Paris is the target of the initial XCOM attack, and that the preview event took place less than a fortnight after the events of November 13th, no doubt made the imagery more potent, but seeing undercover operatives preparing to start a fight in a crowded street was unnerving. The monstrous barks and sinister shakedowns of the authorities mark them out as a worthy foe but it’s clear that XCOM aren’t just taking the fight to the powers that be, they’re taking it to the homes, workplaces and social centres of the entire human race.

The story is important because it informs every other part of the game, just as the initial invasion plot was at the foundation of the B-movie sci-fi shenanigans of Firaxis’ Enemy Unknown and the original UFO/X-COM. It’s still a tale of heroics and humanity vs aliens, not some grimdark exploration of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, but the design of everything from individual soldiers to the strategic Geoscape has been reworked to fit with the new status quo.

The most important change, and the one that convinced me Firaxis aren’t content simply to go bigger and better, is the switch from reactive strategies to proactive strategies. So much time in XCOM was spent waiting for things to happen. Upcoming events formed a neat queue at the bottom right of the screen and you’d click a button to accelerate time while waiting for research or construction to finish, or for the aliens to strike.

In XCOM 2, the aliens are waiting for you to strike. While the Geoscape hasn’t quite become an RTS battlefield, there is a sense of conquering the planet back piece by piece as you engage with local resistance groups and build up a network of supporters. Activating communications and contacts in an area allows you to engage on missions in that area, applying a scalpel to the alien’s infrastructure rather than simply punching UFOs out of the sky.

Allowing the player to chart their own course, rather than simply chucking a few satellites into the sky and hoping to sight the enemy, is just the tip of the iceberg though. The most radical change might well be in the way that the aliens play the game.

That’s an entirely new concept for XCOM. Previously you were fighting against a sort of doomsday clock rather than an intelligent opponent. Your efforts were directed toward the betterment of your own side at the expense of the aliens, but there was no real sense of strategic countermeasures. Sure, a satellite might get blown out of the sky and too much early success would lead to a hard rap on the knuckles, but you were never thinking or being out-thought. You were trying to get to the end of your research trees and hitting every narrative beat before running out of time and resources.

Whether the new systems will be effective or engaging over the length of a campaign, I can’t say. There were strong hints that XCOM’s mobile base can now be attacked – bringing back the base defense missions, the lack of which was seen as one of Enemy Unknown’s missed opportunities – and every choice you make will do more than lower the panic level in a single area. Instead, you’ll pick targets. and attempt to fulfill optional objectives in the field if you’re up to the task, with specific short- and long-term goals in mind.

Rather than spinning plates and attempting to stop the various regions of the world from succumbing to the alien threat, XCOM can strike at various facets of the opposing power structure. The enemy have a long term goal, which is tracked as a sort of doomsday countdown, but their attempts to shut down your resistance are dynamic and mission types will crop up dynamically, based on their actions and your own.

As lead producer Garth DeAngelis told us, “Enemy Unknown was a straight road. This is an open world.”

While the improvements to the somewhat anemic strategic side of the game seem like the most exciting portion of the sequel, the tactical side has changed dramatically as well. The soldiers are still at the heart of the game and they’re fully customisable. As with everything else, the ability to make a squad that look like Mad Max rejects or marauders from the pages of 2000AD ties back to the game’s themes and story. Small randomised backstories describe new recruits as ex-convicts, rebels and dishonourably discharged military types. There are some goody two-shoes thrown into the mix as well but in a world that has been stolen, XCOM are willing to scrape the very bottom of the barrel.

And that’s why it makes sense that you might have a squad leader who is chewing on a cigar in a face full of scar tissue, or a sniper wearing a blood-spattered hockey mask. These aren’t professionals – they’re humanity’s last best hope but they’re far from the clean-cut uniformed soldiers of old.

The increased customisation isn’t simply cosmetic. In the new Proving Grounds facility it’s possible to make new weapons, each with a fresh colour and pattern, and a randomised set of abilities. It’s an attempt to give the guns the same kind of character as the people who wield them and it seems smart, creating greater differentiation within the squad in a tactical sense as well as helping to give distinct personalities and qualities to every recruit.

Class specialisations are much more distinct as well. The introduction of specialists was one of Firaxis’ most significant changes from the original series – soldiers were defined by their abilities and a skilltree rather than simply by their experience, stats and the equipment they carried on any given day. Everyone still carried a gun and relied on firepower to win the day though.

The gap between the classes has increased in the sequel. One might linger at the edge of the battlefield, using a remote drone to heal allies or hack mechanical enemies, either disabling them or taking control momentarily, while another dashes through the thick of the battle, sword in hand, slicing and dicing. New aliens and their gun turrets are also highly specialised, and the combination of such varied abilities on boths sides of the fight threatens to make simple gunfire from cover seem like an outdated tactic.

There’s a risk that the tactical side of the game has too many variables. The story mission I played was wonderfully tense but relied on waves of enemies spawning, pinning my squad in a building. It’s great as a one-off event but the specific objectives, and extreme specialisation in both enemy and XCOM units, could lead to missions where perfection is required, taking away from the joy or despair that comes from improvised victory or defeat.

That’s a minor fear though. A niggling doubt set alongside a great deal of excitement. I haven’t even talked mentioned how the procedurally generated tactical maps work yet. They’re not quite as elaborate as some people might have hoped but they’re an excellent addition. I get the impression that they’ll feel like remixes based around a large pool of basic structures. Certain buildings and blocks of terrain can be shuffled around and/or replaced, but the foundation will remain the same between one visit and the next.

It should be enough to prevent the sense of deja vu that crept into XCOM far too quickly, and side by side with the bolder changes to the strategic layer it’ll make XCOM 2 a much deeper and longer game. That word, ‘longer’, brings The Long War mod to mind and it’s something that has clearly been on Firaxis’ minds as well, not only from a design perspective but in terms of unleashing the potential of modding. Set to be released on PC exclusively, XCOM 2 has had its code restructured to support everything from minor tweaks to total conversions.

From individual encounters all the way up to the final confrontation, the fight against the occupiers promises to be a much more substantial and open game. I was surprised by the complete overhaul of the Geoscape, which is still reliant on those binary choices between missions but feels like an actual strategic layer now, with an AI that is able and willing to focus its own efforts and react to the player’s gains and losses. On the tactical side, it’s fantastic to see the new story and its themes taking centre stage and influencing the look and feel of the fight, right down to the details of the tactical maps, which show the scars and bandages of occupation and reconstruction.

Above all, it’s a relief to see a development team at ease with their own creation. The improvements to the tactical combat and the management of soldiers and the base are building on the strengths of Enemy Unknown, and the bigger picture – the management of the conflict itself – feels like something entirely new. Respectful to the past but not beholden to it. If everything holds together, this could be XCOM’s finest hour.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-12-10-xcom-2-is-a-faster-more-urgent-sequel

XCOM 2 is a faster, more urgent sequel
And all the better for it.

I didn't expect XCOM 2 to demo particularly well. I fell in love with its predecessor because it gave me the time to grow fond of the soldiers I was commanding and I couldn't see that happening within the confines of a brief preview. The concern seemed a valid one too, as my first mission came in the form of a restrictive tutorial (which can be skipped, thankfully) that had already decided who would live and who would die. I can't even remember their names...

This wasn't how an XCOM game should be played. I needed to see the numbers and make my own mistakes. I needed to rename my soldiers, give them different hats, and carefully fret over each decision I'd make on their behalf. Happily, this is exactly what the next two hours would look like.

And I enjoyed it. The game may be set 20 years after we lost the war in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but mechanically it all feels pretty familiar. You'll still be playing a game of two halves: either controlling a small squad of troops on the ground, or managing a base (albeit one that now exists within a repurposed alien supply craft). If you didn't enjoy what Firaxis accomplished with their 2012 reboot, don't expect this to be the game that changes your mind. But if you did, XCOM 2 offers the kind of improvements that make the game feel fresh, without losing what I enjoyed about the previous title.

For example, missions now kick off with something called the 'concealment phase', which gives your team the opportunity to scout their surrounding area and set up an ambush upon finding an unsuspecting patrol. This addresses two complaints I had with both Enemy Unknown and Within. First, it means that enemy patrols have to follow an actual patrol route, rather than teleporting around the map haphazardly (an issue that became more apparent in the previous games when a group of aliens could suddenly materialise behind you, despite you having very carefully cleared the area in question).

Associate Editor, Christian Donlan (also known as Theo from Greece) is ready to do his part.

More importantly, concealment encourages you to be more interesting as a player. Instead of carefully tiptoeing forwards, waiting to trigger that first group of enemies, you can move around the map with some degree of confidence. By clearly highlighting the tiles that are within the enemy's line of sight, XCOM 2 gives you the chance to position your troops in just the right locations to take full advantage of your opening gambit. It's immensely satisfying when it works, but there's still a clever risk involved, as you don't know exactly how your targets intend to move each turn. Your carefully laid plan could be scuppered by a patrol unexpectedly changing direction and discovering your squad cowering behind half cover, just a few feet away.

This is what I like to see in a sequel: ideas that try to resolve issues found in the previous game, whilst also offering something new and worthwhile in their own right. The same can perhaps be said for the inclusion of enemy reinforcements, which can seemingly be triggered at any point during a mission. You'll receive fair warning, with a flare appearing on the map in the preceding turn, and then you'll need to rush to prepare yourself for their arrival. If your squad is in good shape and not otherwise engaged, this shouldn't be a problem, but that won't always be the case. It feels very XCOM and provides another important incentive to play a little more adventurously, as the longer you dawdle in a mission, the more likely you are to run into extra enemies. This does present one potential problem though, that I'm hoping will be addressed in the final game. At this stage I'm not sure what stops me from, in certain situations, wanting to farm multiple sets of these reinforcements to rack up kills and acquire additional loot in the form of weapons add-ons.

The add-ons! I think they're a really smart move, actually. Weapon add-ons, which can occasionally be recovered from enemy corpses tie into a new system called 'Legacy weapons', allowing you to customise individual guns with all sorts of bits and pieces - scopes, hair tiggers, extended magazines. It all feels a bit Call of Duty, really, particularly when you see the range of weapon skins on offer, but they're an interesting addition. These weapons can potentially outlive their owners, as you hand them over to the next recruit, providing a more tangible reminder of those that have fallen along the way. But more importantly, I really like how you acquire these weapon addons. As far as I can tell, they're dropped randomly by most enemies, and when that happens a countdown is triggered. Grab that loot within three turns and it's all yours, but if you wait too long, it self-destructs. Similar to the Meld resource in Enemy Within, this encourages you to be just a little more reckless in the way you move around the map.

Oh no!

This is another way of addressing a problem that would eventually crop up in XCOM: Enemy Unknown - players want to play cautiously and sometimes require that extra incentive to take risks. I also found that the missions in XCOM 2 asked me to play more aggressively than I would have typically chosen to. The four missions I played all had different objectives to consider, which proved a refreshing change (Enemy Unknown didn't always offer the most variety here), and I think at some point they all included a countdown. One of the developers was keen to point out that this wouldn't always be the case, some missions can be played out at your own pace, but in these examples I welcomed the change in tempo. XCOM players need that extra push to play with a sense of urgency. Countdowns, whether they're for loot drops or vital objectives, are a straightforward way of addressing that.

So there we are. Of course I'm pleased to see the soldier classes being reworked (one of them has a sword, I know!) and it's exciting to encounter an entirely new roster of enemy types. It's great that the game looks prettier and I'm delighted to see even more in the way of customisation options.

But without sounding too dismissive of all the work and craftsmanship involved, those are all exactly the things I expected from XCOM 2. It's the more fundamental changes that have me excited about this sequel. Concealment, Legacy weapons, enemy reinforcements and more focused mission objectives. These improvements come from a clear understanding of how people play XCOM games. Enemy Unknown was a fantastic experience, but was too often a cautious one. The sequel looks to address that problem head on, and I think it will be a better game as a result.

 

[ArchAngel]

So PR machine has awoken finally

 

[Morgoth]

 

[LESS T_T]

Official trailer:



Also you can find many preview gameplay videos from gaming sites and Youtubers: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=xcom+2&lclk=today&filters=today

 

[Morgoth]

wub wub wub wub

:kwafuckyeah:

 

[Jimmious]

 

[Zeriel]

2 MONTHS IS TOO LONG.

 

[GrainWetski]

So PC exclusive the UI and controls are just as bad as the first one.

 

[Athelas]

So PC exclusive the UI and controls are just as bad as the first one.

What made you think bad UI design is exclusive to console games?