PC gamers, the wait is over. XCOM 2: War of The Chosen deploys to PC today! The Xbox One and PS4 versions are also on the way, launching shortly on September 12.
From what we’ve seen so far, though, critics are already taking up arms to join the fight.
Game Informer says XCOM 2: War of The Chosen (9.25/10; “The Pièce De Alien Résistance”) is “One of the most rewarding strategy games in years” and that it’s got “Nearly a game’s worth of new content.”
For those of you who’ve been following along since we announced the XCOM 2 expansion in June, we hope that you enjoy it. It’s a whole new experience we’re layering on top of the game that had already racked up numerous Strategy Game of the Year awards in 2016.
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If you’re not familiar with everything going into XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, let’s get a quick recap. Then dig into the links below for extra info and early strategy tips:
NEW FACTIONS & HERO CLASSES
Three additional factions have emerged to strengthen Earth's resistance – the Reapers, Skirmishers and Templars – each with its own unique abilities and contrasting philosophies. These factions provide powerful hero class soldiers to aid in missions and new opportunities for the strategy layer.
THE CHOSEN
The Chosen are the most cunning enemies XCOM has ever faced, each with unique strengths and weaknesses that will be introduced with each new campaign. The Chosen are on the hunt for the Commander and will kidnap, interrogate, and kill XCOM’s soldiers to complete their objective. The Chosen can also invade the strategy layer and ravage XCOM’s global operations. Find and raid the Chosen’s strongholds to defeat the enemy for good. Are you ready to fight the Assassin, the Hunter and the Warlock?
NEW THREATS
There are several new enemies you will encounter. A deadly new alien known as the Spectre, capable of creating dark copies of XCOM soldiers, has snuck onto the battlefield. Adopt new tactics to counter it as well as the explosive attacks of the ADVENT Purifier and the psionically charged ADVENT Priest.
NEW ENVIRONMENTS AND MISSION OBJECTIVES
Engage in tactical missions across new environments from abandoned cities devastated by alien bioweapons during the original invasion, to underground tunnels and xenoformed wilderness regions. Also, beware the Lost that roam them.
ENHANCED STRATEGY LAYER
Manage XCOM’s relations with factions and counter The Chosen’s operations from the Avenger. Employ new Resistance Orders to prioritize your personal strategy. Soldiers, scientists, and engineers can now be deployed for Covert Actions that award supplies and boost faction favor if successfully completed.
GREATER CUSTOMIZATION & REPLAYABILITY
Soldiers can develop bonds with compatible teammates for new abilities and perks. The SITREP system dynamically adds new modifiers to the tactical layer to make sure every mission provides a unique challenge. Advanced campaign options allow for finer adjustments to game length and difficulty.
CHALLENGE MODE
Utilize the perfect strategy in Challenge Mode. Get ready for daily, one-shot community challenges as you fight to earn the top spot on the global leaderboard.
SHARE THE RESISTANCE
Customize and pose your soldiers, then add filters, text and backgrounds to generate your own unique resistance posters that appear in-game and can be shared with friends. In the game, it’s called “Photo booth.” Right now, you can download the free XCOM 2: War of The Chosen Propaganda Center on Steam and try out that feature for yourself.
Thanks from the whole XCOM 2 team for your continued support in the fight against ADVENT. We look forward to hearing about your progress.
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That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
Prepare For XCOM 2: War of The Chosen’s Challenge Mode!
Here’s the situation, people: in Challenge Mode, you’re competing with players around the world to achieve the best score on special missions in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. Some challenges will tax your tactical skills. Others will offer up unique situations you won’t experience in the campaign. Most importantly, there will be a new Challenge waiting for you every day.
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For each Challenge, all players are given the same mission. Every Commander will face the same enemies on the same map, with an identical squad – and not just of XCOM soldiers. You could be fighting alongside aliens. What you do with them is your call, but your focus needs to be on maximizing that score! We checked in with Mark Nauta, Designer on XCOM 2: War of The Chosen, to gain some additional intel for all the men and women on the front lines.
CHALLENGE MODE: THE ACTION-STRATEGY XCOM
Any normal game of XCOM has these moments where you barely squeeze out a victory as you limp to the extraction point. But in Challenge Mode, you jump straight into those firefights. “In fact,” says Mark, “each Challenge is us throwing you into the middle of all those crazy battles and ranking how everyone does with a proper score.”
This has a very different feel compared to the main game. “I like to think of Challenge Mode almost like an action strategy game,” Mark adds. Your points decrease the more turns you take and the timer continues ticking down as you go. You’ve got 30 real-time minutes to complete each challenge. You want to do all this while keeping as many of your teammates alive as possible – and preferably with minimal injuries. The more units that make it home unscathed, the higher the score.
Obviously, this experience is very different from what you get in the campaign – mostly because every mission seems to have acceptable losses. “You have no vested interest in the soldiers in Challenge Mode, aside from a score,” Mark jokes, “so with the clock ticking, you’re more likely to throw them into the middle of hell.”
Top scorers on the leaderboard for each challenge get spotlighted on the front page of Challenge Mode. At launch, the PC version will also allow you to view replays of the best Commanders from that particular challenge. Just keep in mind that you can only compete in each challenge once and that exiting before the completion of a challenge could prevent your score from being submitted.
ON CREATING THE MISSIONS
“For now, the Challenge Mode missions we’re creating aren’t randomized or completely laid out, either,” says Mark. It’s somewhere between the two. Mark goes on to explain that, “the designers can set a lot of the parameters ahead of time to zero in the type of map and scenario you’ll encounter in the final challenge.”
Once they establish the parameters for challenges, it doesn’t take too long to implement. When creating the challenges, the dev team can select the enemy forces, soldiers available and more – down to the loadout available on-mission. It takes them minutes to see a test version of the scenario, but of course, QA needs to thoroughly test each scenario to make sure that everything runs smooth.
What is Mark’s favorite mission? “Oh, man, that’s hard. I really liked one where you controlled Chrysallids and had to spawn babies for your team. There’s one where there’s Templars and a Gatekeeper where you have these all-powerful psi-guys protecting a Psi-god. One of the crazier missions I made was that you have a full team of Codex units and you’re going up against an enemy team of Codex units [laughs]…it was clone central in there!”
Overall, his favorite scenarios are where you have aliens – or a lot of Faction members – in your squad. It’s definitely an experience you won’t see in the main campaign.
“It really changes up the dynamic of the game,” according to Mark. “If you just have random ADVENT on your squad, it’s not all that different from your XCOM soldier. When you start fighting alongside a Chrysallid or Muton, though, it changes everything. My favorites are when you get to play with weird alien team compositions.”
One of the things the team learned along the way, though, was they needed to give aliens the ability to perform objectives. They don’t pull up a hack pad on objects, they just perform a similar action. The aliens needed to be able to perform basic functions like Evac – things they weren’t programmed for in the main game.
Mark continues that, “There are a good number of all-XCOM soldier missions, but I wanted to load many of them with Faction soldiers. This way, people can experience something that they won’t be able to do in the main game or make the scenarios really ridiculous. Otherwise, people would just load up the campaign.”
THE CHALLENGES AHEAD
Challenge Mode is a lot of things.
It’s about dropping players into unique situations you’d never encounter in the campaign. It’s giving players a quick tactical fix. It is the minute-to-minute gameplay of surviving a mission in XCOM…without the emotional toll that comes from when your team dies in the field. It’s a challenge – not just to see if you can survive, but to see how you perform compared to everyone else.
How do you think you’ll fare?
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Developer Strategy: How to Play the New Factions in XCOM 2 War of the Chosen
This massive expansion to XCOM 2 introduces three new Factions – each with their own unique strengths and play styles. Of course, the developers at Firaxis Games have their favorites. We asked Joe Weinhofferand Mark Nauta (Designers) as well as Griffin Funk (Lead Producer) to explain theirs to us and give you some key survival tips.
The Templars, in their isolation, developed an almost religious zeal for collecting Psionic energy. Experimenting upon themselves, they even created weaponry that taps into their latent skills.
WHY JOE WEINHOFFER CHOSE THE TEMPLARS
The Templars are incredibly mobile, dual-sword-wielding melee Psionic powerhouses. What’s not to love? Nearly all of their damage comes from Rend, their primary Psionic melee attack.
Using sword attacks with Rangers always felt really satisfying, but came with a high degree of risk since the soldier would often be left in a disadvantageous position, either out of cover or far away from the rest of the squad. We’ve mitigated that by giving Templars “Momentum”, an ability which triggers after every Rend attack and allows them to move back into cover (or scout further ahead if you’re feeling risky). This makes the Templar one of the most mobile classes in the game.
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The Templars also have a really great combat mechanic: the Focus system. Templars derive their power from harnessing Psionic energy, which is collected after they kill enemies with Rend. Each charge of Focus boosts the Templar’s power, increasing their Rend damage, mobility, and defensive stats. It also improves the effectiveness of many of their abilities, either increasing their damage or duration based on the Templar’s current Focus amount.
At the start of a mission, Templars are slightly weaker than the other soldier classes, but they can quickly become killing machines after gaining a few charges of Focus. However, activating most of their special abilities requires spending Focus, which leads to some really fun tactical decisions:
Do you save the Focus for extra mobility and defense? Or do you spend it on a powerful AoE attack or utility ability to aid the rest of the squad? Playing the Templar is constantly filled with these small risk vs. reward moments, making every battle feel really dynamic. Choose wisely!
One of my first priorities is to boost my Templar’s survivability and defensive options, since as a melee unit they end up towards the front of the squad and can come under fire from surprise attacks. Parry, Deflect, and Reflect are all fantastic in this regard. Parry can be activated after using Rend instead of moving with Momentum, and will cause the next attack against the Templar to miss. This allows Templars charge ahead of the squad and still be relatively confident in their safety, even if enemies are left standing after the original attack. Deflect bolsters the Templar’s survivability by providing a chance to block attacks as long as they have Focus, and Reflect improves that ability by also adding a chance to counterattack after the block!
I also like to boost the utility of Rend by picking up Overcharge, which gives any Rend attack a chance to generate Focus, instead of only on kills. This makes it a little easier to justify sending in the Templar to attack enemies at the start of a battle, even if they aren’t likely to get a kill. Arc Wave is a really fun late-game ability which adds a cone of additional AoE damage to every Rend attack. And of course, Ionic Storm is one of the coolest and most powerful AoE abilities in the game. It requires all of the Templar’s stored Focus to use, but will barrage any enemies close to the Templar with multiple lightning strikes…and any kills will regenerate some of the Focus spent on the attack!
For utility, Deep Focus is a must. Templars gain a lot of additional power with each charge of Focus, so increasing the max Focus they can store is a no-brainer. Pillar summons high cover anywhere you want on the map, which is great to allow other members of the squad to make riskier movements and still be protected. And Invert and Exchange are fantastic for easily isolating dangerous aliens or setting up combo attacks with other soldiers by swapping the Templar’s position with an enemy or squadmate.
Templars also have access to a lot of great XCOM abilities from the Ranger, Sharpshooter, and Psi Operative. The abilities which show up on each Templar’s tree are picked randomly, but I’m always hoping to see Sustain, Bladestorm, and Reaper show up for even more survivability and potential Rend damage.
TEMPLAR TIPS
The Reapers are outsiders and survivors – a pack of hunters that have made aliens and ADVENT their prey. They’ve existed for 20 years on the fringes of society.
WHY MARK NAUTA CHOSE THE REAPER
Having a Reaper in your squad reshapes the way you approach missions. Their ability to scout and remain concealed means an almost continuous series of ambushes on your enemies. Reapers can also go loud with the best of them, being extremely accurate with their Vektor rifle and carrying the devastating claymore explosive. And on a totally superficial level, they’re clearly the coolest looking soldiers to date. Can’t beat the trench-coat-and-mask look!
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MARK’S REAPER SKILL CHOICES
I like to invest heavily into the Saboteur branch and sprinkle some Stealth abilities in as well. Homing Mine attaches a claymore to a target and gives whoever targets that enemy a 100% shot. Plus if you have the Highlands ability you have two claymores. It’s crazy powerful! On the Stealth side, I love picking up Silent Killer. It makes kill shots not increase your chance to be revealed so theoretically, if you only land kill shots, you can remain at a 0% to be revealed.
REAPER TIPS
The Skirmishers are a small army of former ADVENT troopers. Freed from the control of The Elders, they seek bloody revenge for what’s been done to them. They have devastating CQC attacks and can quickly whip across the battlefields with their specialized grapples.
WHY GRIFFIN FUNK CHOSE THE SKIRMISHER
The versatility of the Skirmisher is unmatched. We’ve built this unit to be able to react to any kind of situation with additional movements and actions. Their abilities combined with the power of their Ripjack and the mobility of their grapple means they can control the battlefield.
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The Skirmisher fills a lot of roles on my squad that would usually take a few different soldiers to do. I like to use Rangers as my “cleanup crew” after an ambush has left one or two enemies standing. The Skirmisher’s Bullpup can fire twice in a single turn which means you have better odds at taking out any stragglers. Whiplash is also great in this situation if you want additional opportunities to take the final enemy out.
GRIFFIN’S SKIRMISHER SKILL CHOICES
Anytime I use the Battlelord ability is my favorite moment in the game. It’s the quintessential Skirmisher ability. When activated, the Skirmisher gets to take an action after every enemy action. It’s incredibly powerful which is why it’s one of their final abilities.
All of the abilities in the Judge branch, which focuses on the Skirmisher’s Ripjack melee weapon, are incredibly fun to use. It’s hard to ignore some of the great abilities like Waylay which gives you multiple Overwatch shots, but you’ll find it’s worth it when your Skirmisher is flying across the map with his grapple to claw enemies to death.
SKIRMISHER TIPS
You’ll get your chance to join the new factions soon enough. How will you stack up yours when XCOM 2: War of The Chosen launches for PC, Xbox One and PS4 on August 29?
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That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
Create Your Own XCOM Propaganda Now
While XCOM 2: War of The Chosen launches on August 29, start recruiting efforts today! You can create some war-and-meme-worthy posters right now, through a free download on Steam. Welcome to the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Propaganda Center.
Now available for free on Steam, the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Propaganda Center contains the Photobooth application included in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. With it, create your own propaganda posters using a variety of backgrounds, filters and soldier poses of your favorite XCOM troops.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/433050/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen__Propaganda_Center
Even if you haven’t signed up for duty yet, you can get a jump by creating your new troopers in the Propaganda Center. Then designate them as soldiers or VIPs that you might find in your XCOM 2: War of The Chosen campaign. Let’s walk you through this…
DOWNLOAD PROPAGANDA CENTER
The first, most obvious, step is to download the Propaganda Center. It’s available on Windows PC – and you’ll find it on the Steam store here. The app itself is a 3GB download and has the same system requirements for the XCOM 2 base game.
HOW PROPAGANDA CENTER WORKS
From the main menu, you can see who is currently available in your Character Pool or create your own, new soldiers. For the sake of this walkthrough, let’s focus on the Photobooth option.
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DETAILS: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s Covert Actions and a Whole New Strategy Layer
The new Factions in XCOM 2: War of The Chosen aren’t just single heroic units you use in battle, they are part of a larger organized force. You’ll work with each of the Factions, perform Covert Actions and use Resistance Orders to improve your odds of success. It’s a whole new addition that resonates in both the tactical and the strategic layer and will shake up your decisions on each playthrough. And it was inspired, in part, by collectible card games.
Today, we’ll explain how it all ties together into the larger Geoscape in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s expanded campaign.
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THE FACTIONS
We’ve already talked about each of the three new Factions (Templars,Skirmishers,Reapers) you’ll be recruiting in the fight against the Chosen. Finding a new Faction opens up their HQ, which gives you a new place to scan and benefit from in the strategic level. For example; scanning at the Reaper’s HQ gives you additional Intel, operating from the Templar HQ heals your troops quicker, and the Skirmisher’s HQ allows you to build facilities faster.
Working with each Faction on Covert Actions is the key to defeating the Chosen once and for all. The more missions you undertake for a Faction, the better your influence is with them. The better your influence, the more Covert Actions will be available. More Resistance Orders become available and you’ll be able to assign more Resistance Orders per mission.
COVERT ACTIONS
These are essentially non-combat missions. You’re allocating resources and soldiers to ferret out information seek out perks that’ll benefit XCOM, or rescue captured soldiers. A successful Covert Action can mean additional resources, new soldiers, a new mission, or information leading to a Chosen stronghold. Once players successfully complete three Covert Actions to locate and gain intel on a stronghold, that Chosen’s final mission will be available. But don’t think that this is simply a matter of you choosing a mission, then waiting for timers to tick down.
Covert Actions can – and will – go sideways. Each mission has a chance of seeing your soldiers get wounded. Worse, a mission could devolve into an ambush. When this happens, the game immediately changes focus from the Avenger to the soldiers deployed on the Covert Action. The player has to move the soldiers to an extraction zone and safely get them out of the ambush. The odds, however, are stacked against you. You won’t have a full squad – usually two, maybe three soldiers – and you’ll be fighting off enemies as well as ADVENT reinforcements.
Of course, there are ways to mitigate risk. When setting up a Covert Action, you will sometimes be able to add additional soldiers and staff (scientists and engineers) to improve the odds of mission success. Or you’ll be able to employ Resistance Orders. We’ll get to that in a minute.
INTEL: Examples of Covert Actions
Some of the missions you may undertake in our fight against ADVENT.
Hunt the Chosen: Three separate missions that will lead you to a Chosen Stronghold.
Rescue Soldier: Only available after a soldier has been captured by the Chosen.
Locate Faction: Always available at the start of the game, used to meet the Factions and gain one of their soldiers.
Recruit Faction Soldier
Counter Chosen Activity: Prevents the Chosen from performing their scheduled monthly activity
Breakthrough Research: Activates one of the new breakthrough research techs
Resistance Order: Gives the player another Resistance Order card for the Faction
RESISTANCE ORDERS
Think of Resistance Orders as modifier cards used in CCGs. According to XCOM 2’s Senior Producer, Garth DeAngelis, “Design leveraged the foundation of a tried-and-true card system to provide that variability from a mechanical standpoint. These Factions are unpredictable, just like the game itself, and you never know what services they can offer in a given playthrough.”
In addition to gameplay depth, unique narrative context was given to each of the new Factions based on those services. The accurate Reapers may allow your squad to insta-kill Lost if you hit them at all, while the Skirmishers may strong arm the Black Market into offering you more favorable deals – it’s your choice to take advantage of what you want.
INTEL: Examples of Resistance Orders
Once you gain the trust of the Factions, you may earn policy cards. Here are a few examples, by Faction.
Reaper
Infiltrate: On timed missions, the timer does not begin until the squad has lost concealment.
Volunteer Army: There is a chance that a Resistance soldier will join the XCOM squad for the duration of the mission.
Skirmisher
Bomb Squad: Experimental Grenade and Heavy Weapon projects are completed instantly in the Proving Grounds.
Modular Construction: Facility construction speed is increased by 25%
Templar
Mental Fortitude: All battle madness (panic, obsession, berserk, shattered) only lasts one turn.
Machine Learning: Research breakthroughs are twice as likely to occur.
Something to consider when you start playing the game: Maximize Resistance Orders by thinking ahead. If you know you’re going to be excavating or building several new facilities, use cards that help speed the process up. Did you just unlock a new weapon tier and know you’re going to use most of your resources to purchase them? Apply cards that will give you additional resources during a supply drop, reduce costs of facility actions, or give you bonuses that would usually cost money (ex. getting additional Resistance contacts).
Making use of these new features will give you more control in the Avenger to execute the perfect strategy in your fight against the Chosen.
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That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
How Soldiers in XCOM 2: War of The Chosen Form Bonds, Learn New Skills
Ever since we announced XCOM 2: War of The Chosen, people have been fascinated by the introduction of Soldier Bonds. With the upcoming expansion, you’ll see soldiers bond in the heat of battle and if they make it out alive, come out stronger – and closer than before. That’s saying nothing of how soldiers can now develop additional abilities.
HOW SOLDIERS BOND
Each soldier has a compatibility level with each other, the higher the compatibility, the more likely they are to bond while on missions together. But there are also incidents that can occur, mid-mission which can boost a soldier’s compatibility. Whether one solider rescues an unconscious squaddie from the battlefield or if more than half the squad is lost, the survivors bond. In watershed moments like these, two soldiers’ compatibility will shoot up.
When two soldiers are ready to bond, you will see them on the Avenger getting a drink together, practicing at the range as pals and more. Once two soldiers have bonded, neither soldier can bond with anyone else unless their bondmate dies…til death do us part. If a soldier’s bondmate dies, the survivor might not take it well and fly off in a berserk rage and suffer penalties. But they will recover and eventually be able to bond again.
Besides personalizing your in-game experience, there are some inherent benefits to sending bonded soldiers on a mission together
SOLDIER BOND LEVEL I
Teamwork: Grant an additional action point to a bondmate.
SOLDIER BOND LEVEL II
Spotter: This soldier is granted a bonus to aim when their bondmate has attacked or been attacked by the soldier's target. An extra bonus is granted if the bondmate is adjacent.
Stand By Me: When this soldier ends a move adjacent to their bondmate, the other soldier will be automatically cleansed of any negative mental effects.
Covert Operators: When deployed on a Covert Action together, the duration is reduced by one day.
SOLDIER BOND LEVEL III
Advanced Teamwork: Grant an additional action point to a bondmate.
Dual Strike: A combined standard shot attack by the soldier and their bondmate.
NEEDING SOME R&R
Whether or not your soldiers are bonded, though, they will need to rest. The more missions you send a soldier on without a break will start to take a toll. Exhaustion and stress, as well as bad encounters in the field, could lower a soldier’s Will and develop negative traits. This can include a fear of certain types of enemies. For example, after a fight against Mutons that ended poorly, the soldier might panic when they see Mutons again. It could lead a soldier to constantly reload a weapon on their second action, a nervous tick, instead of listening to your orders. These negative traits can be cured by setting a soldier to heal in the infirmary.
Needing to rotate your squad makeup between missions does come with a couple benefits as well: You’ll have to make some interesting choices while selecting who deploys. The other notable perk is that your entire roster will benefit from being more evenly-powered.
NEW SOLDIER ABILITY POINTS
The Training Center – replacing the Advanced Warfare Center from the base game – is an essential facility that XCOM can build. Not only is the Training Center there to enhance soldier bonds in War of the Chosen, but this is where you’ll spend Ability Points earned in combat to buy additional skills and abilities for the regular XCOM troops.
According to Senior Producer Garth DeAngelis, the design team wanted to offer a new way of soldier leveling with War of the Chosen. “Since XCOM: Enemy Unknown, progression has been a binary choice: Which of these two skills do I want,” says Garth. “This was an opportunity to allow more meaning to squad capacity overall. Will I dump most of my Ability Points into a promising hybrid XCOM recruit through the Training Center, or save those points for a balanced approach across multiple units? The AP system is also far more comprehensive by being a direct result of smart decisions by the player.” You earn AP by pulling off maneuvers like flanking and taking shots from height. Gaining a resource from intelligent combat play gives progression an entirely new feel.
This also allows the player to execute on a non-linear approach to spec’ing out Faction Heroes, since the tree now offers more than two choices at once. You can rush for the later abilities, or go for breadth and grab a number of low-cost abilities, up front.
This also impacts the original XCOM soldier classes. Take the Specialist, for example. With Ability Points, you can select previously passed-on abilities from either the Battle Medic or Combat Hacker skill paths. Or, you can opt for a third path made up of abilities from the other XCOM soldier classes. The assortment of available abilities is random for every individual soldier. Only a few of these abilities show up for each soldier.
Essentially, every soldier class gets more powerful in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and we want you to have more of them in your ranks. And then, of course, are the even-more-powerful Faction Heroes joining the cause.
The Chosen are going to be in for one hell of a fight.
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That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen's New Enemies – The Purifier, Priest and the Spectre
As the fight against ADVENT continues, XCOM returns to the outlying areas and abandoned cities lost 20 years ago during the first invasion. It is here we start encountering new enemy units in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. Following is a quick debrief on three new unit types you’ll face throughout the new XCOM 2 expansion: The flame-throwing Purifiers, the stealthy Spectres and the Psionically-amped Priests.
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ADVENT PURIFIER
The Lost – the heavily-mutated inhuman hordes left in the abandoned cities – need to be cleansed. The ADVENT Purifiers are best equipped for the job. Often dispatched to deal with Lost swarms or in civilian retaliation strikes, the flamethrower units cause low, ongoing damage to a wide area.
Not only does the Purifier create sweeping arcs of damage up-close, they also are known to lob incendiary grenades. Keep this ADVENT unit at a distance. Advanced intel suggests that upon death, there is a chance a Purifier will explode.
ADVENT PRIEST
A Priest’s abilities are the result of genetic manipulation of ADVENT forces. While they wield magnetic rifles, their Psionic skills make them a serious threat.
The Priest can Mind Control enemy units, lock targets in Stasis and – in the heat of combat – there is a chance if they sustain mortal damage, a Priest may still manage to come back from the brink of death and shield themselves.
Priests also have the ability to boost allies with a mind merge – Holy Warrior. This presents a challenge and an opportunity. Its targeted allies gain stat boosts, but if you’re able to neutralize a Priest while merged, the other unit will also die.
SPECTRE
The Spectre is a newly-discovered humanoid alien that deals in misdirection. The Spectre is known to transform into a black nanorobotic cloud at will, able to Vanish from sight.
Don’t allow this stealthy threat to get in close, though. The Spectre’s Shadowbind ability has been known to lock XCOM soldiers in place and create a shadow version that possesses the same skills. Be prepared to fight shadowy reflections of your own squadmates.
Be wary and keep your distance. Spectres have the Horror ability, which damages the enemy and heals themselves. The Spectres also possess lightning reflexes, making their nanobot form impossible to touch on the first Overwatch shot – so try to set up crossfire positions while stalking them.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - The Lost
When the Aliens invaded Earth, many of the world’s great cities were devastated by bombardment and bioweapons. Those mass graveyards and abandoned buildings have been left alone for 20 years. In War of the Chosen, XCOM forces go back … and find the Lost.
https://youtu.be/PfHWzevw7bI
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The Lost were once human, now husks that fill the old cities. These heavily mutated things are the result of prolonged exposure to the alien tech used to subdue humans during the early days of the invasion. Really, they are mindless ambling shells. A single Lost is no challenge; however, you will never find them alone. The Lost roam abandoned cities in hordes. If confronted, they will start swarming whomever gets in their way.
Worse, the Lost are drawn to loud noises. So, as you’re fighting off enemy forces, you’re potentially calling attention to your units. The Lost swarm in continuing waves, so don’t think you can hold them back. Eventually, you will get overwhelmed.
If there’s any good news here, it’s that the Lost are just as likely to attack ADVENT, aliens and XCOM. As you’re fighting back enemy forces, The Lost can show up on a map and throw everyone’s plans out the window. There is a chance to fight back the Lost hordes for a bit, though. By successfully taking down the Lost with headshots, you score a free action. So, you quickly find yourself chaining headshots and making these micro-decisions while clearing out incoming Lost: What weapons are you using at the time? What’s their range and damage output? How much ammo do you have left? How close is the nearest target? Of course, at some point, you’ll be overwhelmed by them. One suggested tactic before you get overrun: Look for ways to lure the Lost to enemy positions and exfiltrate from battle before more Lost arrive.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update, Commander. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - The Hunter
The Elders are desperate to recapture the Commander in XCOM 2’s expansion. Among the Chosen tasked with finding the Commander: The Hunter, a ranged unit that can stalk its prey from across the map.
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The Hunter revels in slowly tracking, wounding and disabling XCOM units in his crosshairs before striking the final blow. He grows bolder as he sees XCOM blood spilled, but his supreme confidence in his abilities means that he may underestimate your resolve..even as the Hunter actively taunts you on the battlefield.
The Hunter can perch in unusual places thanks to the use of his grappling hook. From those hunting blinds, it can fire a Tracking Shot and target an XCOM solider from wherever they hide on the map. As soon as you see the laser-sighting beam, you have one turn to break line of sight before he takes the shot. The Hunter has also been known to toy with prey using Concussion Grenades and Tranquilizer Shots. Like his siblings, the real threat to your mission is that the Hunter will abduct your troops, interrogate them and try to discover the Avenger’s location.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update, Commander. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - The Templar
XCOM 2’s expansion introduces new Factions, unique pockets of resistance unaffiliated with XCOM. Today we’re introducing the Templars, a reclusive, monastic group of soldiers that has dedicated themselves to pushing their minds and bodies with psionic energy to the brink of humanity.
https://youtu.be/XyAQdUn46Sk
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The Templars – led by Geist, one of the original Psionic soldiers – stayed away from ADVENT and their city centers after surviving the fall of the XCOM Project. In their isolation, they developed an almost religious zeal for collecting Psionic energy. Experimenting upon themselves, they even created weaponry that taps into their latent skills. As ADVENT and the Chosen Warlock begin siphoning Psionic energy across the planet, the Templars are now preparing to strike back.
While the Templar unit can use Autopistols, it is primarily a front-line fighter, easily recognizable by the Psionic blades they wield. Those lethal blades, though, are just an extension of a Templar, amped with Psionic and area-effect skills.
Their abilities get triggered through the use of Focus, a combat mechanic that builds over the course of a fight. Focus enables the Templar to perform superhuman feats such as increasing damage output and mobility. They don’t start off as superhuman, though – it’s about making tradeoff choices on the battlefield: Does the Templar charge Focus to unleash more devastating attacks? Or does the Templar maintain that Focus and boost its general combat effectiveness?
With experience, the Templar learns some incredible Psionic skills, but even initiates possess “Volt”– a Psionic attack that can chain to nearby foes at higher levels. Over time, Templars have been known to unleash Ionic Storm, a massive wave of lightning that will assault nearby foes. Some have trained to create a Pillar of solid energy and use it as cover. Those that further develop their abilities can warp reality and Exchange positions with other XCOM soldiers on the game map. These are just a few of the many known Templar skills.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update, Commander. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!
Obviously, this experience is very different from what you get in the campaign – mostly because every mission seems to have acceptable losses. “You have no vested interest in the soldiers in Challenge Mode, aside from a score,” Mark jokes, “so with the clock ticking, you’re more likely to throw them into the middle of hell.”
