XCOM 2 Console Review

Started at the Bottom now I’m here:

XCOM 2, much like 2012’s reboot of the classic turn based strategy series, has finally come to consoles – and it was worth the wait.

Any console fans without rigs powerful enough to play XCOM 2 when it came out last year can cease their endless worrying – XCOM 2 has gracefully made the leap to consoles and plays like a dream.

Story:

If you loved the original XCOM, you probably finished a successful campaign and refused aliens domination of earth. Developer Firaxis evidently didn’t like this canon, however, and decided to welcome our alien overlords. So, despite arguably winning the war, the good guys have been reduced to a rebel alliance and their greatest hero is frozen and captured by the enemy. Empire Strikes Back called, XCOM, they want their script back.

In XCOM 2, the aliens have won, the earth is theirs, and only an underground resistance can stealthily take the planet back, starting with unfreezing the Commander – that’s you – after his forced naptime. Most of XCOM 2’s story is told between missions, where we’re updated about the past two decades of alien occupation and the rumblings of an uprising, and it’s all interesting enough. Catching up with old friends (and relatives of friends who aren’t around anymore) is always fun, playing diplomat less so. What I really liked throughout the title was the haunting feeling that perhaps we were the bad guys, and the rest of humanity wanted us to simply lie down with the rest of them and get on with it.

Overall XCOM 2 is a great time stretched over painfully tense and exciting gameplay. The personal stories that your own created characters go through, their triumphs and defeats and their emergent narratives, are much more intriguing than any pre-written story, however, and it’s here that XCOM 2 really shines.

Gameplay:

Patience was a virtue. This is a mantra I learnt in my time with XCOM 2. Whilst I arguably played the original title overly safe, keeping my squad back, overwatch-ing at the end of most turns and very rarely making a dangerous play, it was a comfortable, sedentary tactic that Firaxis was evidently unhappy with. XCOM 2 assuredly strips you of these privileges within minutes of starting up.

XCOM 2’s core gameplay is, like its predecessor, a turn based strategy game where you point and click a handful of soldiers through a variety of mission types. You’ll come up against (often overwhelming) alien odds, blast your way through and complete mission objectives like saving hostages or stealing vital alien intel.

Unlike its predecessor, XCOM 2 often employs a looming doomsday clock, an ever present turn counter winding down towards failure with every action, whether they’re quiet or alarmingly loud. This ticking clock mechanic forces even the safest of XCOM players into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory, scrambling their squad across unfamiliar terrain towards objectives located within the fog of war.

This rushed feeling could feel unnecessarily forced and – more worryingly – unenjoyable to struggle against had Firaxis not implemented a couple of well-deserved balance tweaks in your favour. To counteract your vulnerability in these missions you often start the operation essentially cloaked. Your covert squad now dabbles in a simple stealth system that evens out the odds and gives you a new sense of agency when in the field. It’s smart additions like this that play with the established XCOM formula and mix things up in big enough ways to warrant the sequel. XCOM 2 feels wholly different from its predecessor, and it’s a huge success because of that.

Thanks to the storyline and the way missions are set up, your team is undeniably the underdog here. It works hand in hand with the permadeath that is one of XCOM’s most identifiable and punishing quirks. But starting at the bottom, such as you do, gives you only one way to go (hopefully). This rung climbing is satisfying and addictive in equal measure, and turning the tables on the alien menace is a hugely fun thing to execute – especially from the shadows.