But as players learn to use surprise, squad tactics, and smart, not hesitant aggression, the reasons for Firaxis' changes make perfect sense. And knowing now that each fighter is one of a dying breed, every death - every death - carries an extra sting of defeat and desperation (not to mention the always-looming threat of ADVENT launching a surprise attack on your base - potentially ending the campaign in one fell swoop). Make no mistake: you will lose fighters in this game, and the developers make sure you're aware of it from the very start. From there, it's possible to identify secondary targets or assets (now a core layer of the mission objectives), and surround enemy troops and traitors before they know what's about to hit them. Squad members can be led, one by one, up to the very fringe of monitored areas. While Enemy Unknown's basic gameplay loop saw players taking uneasy steps into hostile territory, unsure of ambushes, it's the player who now stalks their alien prey. The main difference is the element of surprise: allowing players to operate unseen prior to attacks, scouting enemy forces, planning and executing ambushes, fundamentally changing the complexion of the standard mission. Now operating as the resilient infection the aliens posed previously, the gameplay, mood, desperation, and constant threat of failure and death have been completely twisted. The odds seem insurmountable, and fight failing until resistance intelligence locates, then extracts their secret weapon: the Commander.Īs the rescued and restored Commander, the player takes on a challenge and campaign that is, in many ways, an inverted form of the original. Those monsters are back and scarier than ever, along with entirely new creatures - but it's the humans who serve the aliens - known as the ADVENT - that pose the most insidious threat. Reduced to a covert guerilla military operating in cells around the globe, this new "Resistance" has more than the standard aliens of the original game to contend with. The truth is, XCOM still exists, though it's become a shadow of its former self after world leaders and bases either surrendered or were destroyed. And XCOM has been scattered to the wind.Īt least, that's what they want you to think. After spending an entire campaign - or two - battling an alien infestation with the backing of world governments and cutting-edge technology, Firaxis took the fate of the world out of the players' hands: Humanity had lost. It's a longer delay than many gamers are used, so does the ported version seem worth the wait? And after Enemy Unknown's own release on consoles, have the interfaces and controls been improved (along with the performance) on the Xbox One and PS4's hardware? The answer is 'yes' across the board - minus a few technical issues.įor those who have been waiting until XCOM 2 hit consoles to see how it follows on the story of the first game, the twist from Firaxis is the kind of bold and ambitious that would seem alien to other studios (pardon the pun).
PC players have been enjoying the game since February, but the developers have finally released a console version to Xbox One and PS4. The expansion Enemy Within doubled down on the fiction and gameplay - but it was XCOM 2 that had the anticipation in its favor. But long before the squad-based shooter disappointed many, the traditional, turn-based strategy XCOM: Enemy Unknown had been launched to near universal acclaim, not only doing the brand justice, but reinvigorating the genre as a whole.
There was a time when the revival of the science fiction franchise XCOM by Firaxis Games was seen as simply a small-scale, back-up title to the main event.