The Tactical Legacy Pack, for XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, bridges the gap between the first game and the second. The new Legacy Ops mini-campaign shows what happened while The Commander (you) slept in an alien stasis cocoon after the canonical defeat in Enemy Unknown. Featuring reimagined maps, guns, and outfits from 2012’s title, the four-mission Legacy Pack campaign fills in that comatose blank. Just how did the Earth Resistance form? Where did they get the home base ship? Who buys the booze in the officer’s mess? All those flashback assets will be added to the base game campaign as well.
The Tactical Legacy pack will be free for XCOM 2: War of the Chosen expansion owners for the first eight weeks after launch. It will be $7.99 thereafter. The DLC releases on October 9th on PC.
The upcoming XCOM 2: War of the Chosen expansion features a scored Challenge Mode. In challenge mode missions, players will be tasked with conquering specific scenarios using the same pre-made squads of soldiers, with the results being posted to a global leaderboard. Firaxis will create new challenge missions on a regular basis. Who can save more civilians? You, or that guy in Portugal? Who can snipe more snakemen? You, or the jerk in Alabama? We’ll find out on August 29th when War of the Chosen goes live.
Firaxis has announced the War of the Chosen expansion for XCOM 2. The DLC will add enemy and allied hero units, as well as new environments, daily challenges, and story additions to the campaign. The new human factions will offer players their own unique abilities and heroes to combat the alien threat, which is good because the dastardly xenos have a trio of deadly warriors that are trying to recapture the Commander. Also, there are zombie hordes, because everything is better with zombie hordes.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen launches on PC on August 29th.
The Long War 2 mod is coming for XCOM 2. According to Firaxis, the popular mod, originally made by Long War Studios for XCOM: Enemy Unkown, is coming to the PC version of XCOM 2. Welcome news for fans of making the fight for humanity tougher. In related news, Long War Studios will henceforth be known as Pavonis Interactive. Check out their snazzy new site here.
When it was still Long War Studios, Pavonis partnered with Firaxis to make official mods for XCOM 2 like the Long War Alien Pack, and Long War Toolbox.
XCOM 2 on PC is finally complete. Update 7 for Firaxis Games’ alien hunting strategy game adds Xbox controller support and some bug fixes. Plug and play compatibility for Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers had been requested by fans that were disappointed by XCOM 2’s failure to only officially support the Valve’s Steam Controller at launch.
Additionally, for fans that have always wondered what navigating the bulkheads of the Avenger would be like, the latest PC update adds a hack for a developer camera mode. As the video of the first-person view shows, wandering the XCOM headquarters ship shows off some fascinating details like the size of playing cards, the trophies the commander keeps, and exactly what the troops pin to their bunk walls.
There are more aliens coming to XCOM 2. Firaxis has announced that Alien Hunters is the next DLC for their turn-based strategy game. Alien Hunters will feature a new, more powerful variety of alien enemy for XCOM soldiers to fight. The Ruler class (including the Viper King pictured above) will show up in your game after you’ve completed a new story mission. Beyond offering the satisfaction of victory, killing Rulers will give players access to new equipment like the Icarus Suit which allows the wearer to fly around the tactical map, or the Bolt Caster one-shot weapon.
Alien Hunters will launch on May 12th. It will be available as part of the Season Pass, or can be purchased separately for $9.99.
The contents of the first piece of paid DLC for XCOM 2 is focused on the dress-up side of the game. Anarchy’s Children, adds 100 cosmetic options to your soldiers including masks, hairstyles, makeup, tattoos, helmets, clothing, and more. From the images shown by Firaxis, the DLC content leans heavily into the Mad Max vibe, which is appropriate for grunts that may die explosively based on a bad die roll.
Anarchy’s Children launches on March 17th and is part of the Reinforcement Pack pass. It will also be available separately for $4.99.
Shooting aliens? Fun. Creating functions, pivot tables, and formulas in Microsoft Excel? Not fun. But what if you could shoot aliens in Excel? A budding programmer has melded both worlds in EXLCOM. Redditor “ccruzi” made the unholy union while learning to program Visual Basic. Only the tactical portion of the game is present, but for something that shouldn’t exist, it’s surprisingly deep. There are troopers and aliens, special abilities, loadouts, and even a rudimentary map editor. Tell your boss you’re working on a spreadsheet. You wouldn’t be lying.
There is a sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown coming this year. Firaxis and 2K have announced XCOM 2. It’s set twenty years after the original XCOM force lost the war against the aliens, and the Earth is a conquered planet. Apparently, all those times you lost the first game weren’t a waste of effort. It was canon! The new XCOM must conduct their operations in secret to defeat the xenos. Along with updated soldier classes, more alien types, and new tactical options, XCOM 2 will have procedurally generated levels. Hopefully, that means you won’t be seeing the same fountain courtyard layout a dozen times. IGN has the exclusive story if you need more information.
XCOM 2 is coming for Windows and Mac systems in November of this year.
That’s my current go-to squad in XCOM: Enemy Within. My back-up squad is an all-female group as well. It’s either the coolest bug or feature the expansion brings to the game. Apparently, the chance for female soldiers to enlist has increased dramatically. I’m more than fine with this. It certainly makes nabbing the Flight of the Valkyries achievement a lot easier.
Based on spending a little time with Enemy Within, the new add-on to XCOM, I can totally see through 2K’s evil scheme. They must think they’re pretty clever. By adding mech suits, cybernetic implants, new upgrades, medals with selectable perks, and scads more options for customization, the goal here seems to be giving you more ways to upgrade and therefore care about your soldiers. But by tying a lot of this stuff to a new resource that expires if you don’t rush headlong into battle to claim it, the other goal here seems to be giving you more opportunities to get your soldiers killed. In other words, more risk for more rewards. Pretty sneaky, 2K. Pretty sneaky.
Enemy Within is available today either as a full-priced standalone release for console systems or a relatively pricey add-on for the PC version.
These guys are the EXALT. Dapper looking gents they may be, but the’re not your frineds. They are a secret group of sleeper agents in XCOM: Enemy Within that will battle against players’ XCOM troops. In a preview published at Polygon, it was revealed that this new enemy faction will feature human traitors that side with the alien invasion. The EXALT will compete with players for xeno technology, hack into XCOM computers to steal funds, and stir up panic levels in territories. Players will need to battle the EXALT across the globe until they can hunt down and eradicate the main base of turncoats. I’d advise looking for a large concentration of guys that look like they stepped out of Boardwalk Empire holding xeno weapons.
Push back at the alien menace or go after the dirty traitors? I choose the path of Vichy France and capitulate. Being a Sectoid dataslave can’t be all bad.
Having played a good bit of XCom when it was released, I had moved on to whatever else came out that month and set it aside with a promise to return. Since that time, though, the game has changed a bit for the better. You can now change basic options like having your units automatically pick a class type instead of you having complete control or making the weapons do a dice roll for damage instead of static damage every time.
PAX Prime is an odd experience when you go with a family. Everyone has different interests, so you have to split up at times if the party is going to get the most out of the exhibitions. “Oh, you want to see Ubisoft’s The Crew before we grab some lunch? I want to see Ryse: Son of Rome.” Sometimes, you have to be willing to compromise because every bit of the show floor looks like the image above. It’s just a crowded mess.
Yesterday, PAX gave us some big-budget gaming. For the final day, let’s wrap things up with a look at some other games.
After the jump, the family that attends PAX together, plays together.Continue reading →
