An expansion for XCOM 2
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen adds extensive new content in the fight against Advent when additional resistance factions form in order to eliminate the alien threat on Earth. In response, a new enemy, known as the “Chosen,” emerges with one goal: recapture the Commander. This expansion includes new Hero classes to counter the “Chosen”, new enemies, missions, environments and increased depth in strategic gameplay.
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Hell yeah one of the best strategy games ever. It excels in it's simplicity and smoothness, some slight jank aside. It's a shame we may never get XCOM 3, or at least one helmed by Jake Solomon. Jake I hope you have a happy life and success in whatever endeavors you work towards, you've certainly done your part for XCOM as a concept.
This is the best XCOM game by far, I think. Enemy Within was an incredibly fleshed-out and complete experience and this manages to outdo it pretty handily. I actually have so few issues with this game that I think I can list them all right here.
-Balancing is still a minor issue - the tier 2 tech swords are way better than tier 3 because too many ADVENT units are immune to the fire damage status effect and almost nothing is immune to the shock damage effect. Luckily, the balancing is mostly bad in intuitive ways, it doesn't really trick you. If something is bad, you'll notice right away from its description most of the time.
-The Chosen Assassin is much more threatening than the other two, which is weird because she's usually encountered first, as far as I can tell. Her bonus movement turns, turn interrupts and invisibility affect the action point economy way more than the other two do. The Warlock tends to stand out in the open and let himself get bullied to death, and the Hunter has to spend a turn of uninterrupted line of sight doing nothing in order to deal damage, so in practice he just never deals damage. Maybe this is different on Commander difficulty and above but I don't know. Turn economy tends to matter more on higher difficulties so I suspect the difficulty variance might be even worse.
-Enemy Unknown/Within were a lot more consistent with the turn/action economy and the game broke its own rules a lot less. It wasn't common for a unit to do a ton of stuff in one turn. In XCOM 2, every viable build is based around stretching the turn economy to its limits. The result is pistol Sharpshooters and sword-focused Rangers being absolutely busted.
-I miss MECs. I don't like SPARKs at all. I know MECs were a little busted in Enemy Within but frankly given that everything is busted now, I think they'd fit in just fine.
-Kinda my fault, but I unlocked Psi soldiers so late I could only use them on the final mission. Shame, because they seem incredibly fun and strong.
-Firaxis has still never hired a writer.
That's it. This game rules. High water mark for turn-based tactics games for me. I hope an XCOM 3 is still in the cards.
-Balancing is still a minor issue - the tier 2 tech swords are way better than tier 3 because too many ADVENT units are immune to the fire damage status effect and almost nothing is immune to the shock damage effect. Luckily, the balancing is mostly bad in intuitive ways, it doesn't really trick you. If something is bad, you'll notice right away from its description most of the time.
-The Chosen Assassin is much more threatening than the other two, which is weird because she's usually encountered first, as far as I can tell. Her bonus movement turns, turn interrupts and invisibility affect the action point economy way more than the other two do. The Warlock tends to stand out in the open and let himself get bullied to death, and the Hunter has to spend a turn of uninterrupted line of sight doing nothing in order to deal damage, so in practice he just never deals damage. Maybe this is different on Commander difficulty and above but I don't know. Turn economy tends to matter more on higher difficulties so I suspect the difficulty variance might be even worse.
-Enemy Unknown/Within were a lot more consistent with the turn/action economy and the game broke its own rules a lot less. It wasn't common for a unit to do a ton of stuff in one turn. In XCOM 2, every viable build is based around stretching the turn economy to its limits. The result is pistol Sharpshooters and sword-focused Rangers being absolutely busted.
-I miss MECs. I don't like SPARKs at all. I know MECs were a little busted in Enemy Within but frankly given that everything is busted now, I think they'd fit in just fine.
-Kinda my fault, but I unlocked Psi soldiers so late I could only use them on the final mission. Shame, because they seem incredibly fun and strong.
-Firaxis has still never hired a writer.
That's it. This game rules. High water mark for turn-based tactics games for me. I hope an XCOM 3 is still in the cards.
War of the chosen made XCOM 2 into an incredible game. It provides so much more diversity, danger, and fun to the base game. If you haven't played this DLC, it will change your opinion of XCOM 2 entirely.
Amazing game. The character customization options were great and how you can just lose that character forever makes you really attached to your squad. If you are a fan of turn based strategy gaming I definitely recommend this game. I only gave it 4.5 stars because I felt the story was so incredibly weak, but I know a lot of strategy players enjoy a lack of story affecting their gameplay.
love the squad, it's so cool getting attached to rando soldiers and watching them get ripped apart, miss my fallen brothers
Adds so much stuff it might as well be a new game. New units, enemies are great and new bosses are cool.