XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
New aliens and allies in this massive X-pansion
Let’s face it, this is all we really wanted from E3, and that’s why it had to be revealed in our own E3 show. WaroftheChosen is an expansion to one of our highestscoring games of the last decade that radically changes up the campaign. In case you were worried that XCOM2 wasn’t hard enough, this one adds new alien heroes who you’ll come up against multiple times in the campaign. Your conflict with them will escalate into an arms race between the humans and aliens. They’ll remember past encounters with you, apparently, and are even capable of kidnapping your soldiers. These new villains include a sniper called The Hunter, The Warlock, who summons spectral enemies, and purple melee maestro The Assassin. To help rally against these new threats, WaroftheChosen adds new weapons, and introduces the concept of resistance factions, each with a distinct philosophy. Skirmishers are alien/human hybrids—having crossed the battle lines from the enemy to join your side—and have the capacity to perform more actions per turn. Reapers are snipers with the ability to sabotage, while Templars are Psionic units whose power grows over the course of the game. Being friendly with factions can pay dividends. They hate each other, but if you can unify them, they’ll make for some powerful allies.
Lost cities are another new addition to XCOM2, essentially abandoned locations now occupied by alien tech-infected mutants who’ll attack both your forces and the aliens, drawn towards you by the sound of gunfire. Perhaps inspired by Nintendo’s FireEmblem series, your soldiers can bond and partner up in Warof theChosen, too. You can even create propaganda posters, trumpeting XCOM’s achievements in the ongoing fight against Earth’s occupiers.
War has changed
There’s a ton going on here, and it’ll be interesting to learn how the relationship with the three new alien champions develops over the course of campaign. The changes are sweeping on the surface, but granular, too, building on the fundamentals of an XCOM campaign to add even more replayability to Firaxis’s brilliant strategy game. This is exactly what we wanted—new threats, new ways to counter them, and innovative new layers of turn-based strategy. Pleasingly, we’ll only have to wait until August to find out what a difference they’ll make.
We’ll have tons more on XCOM2:War oftheChosen in a coming issue of PCG.
You can even create propaganda, trumpeting XCOM ’s achievements