XCOM: Enemy Within, Standalone Expansion, Coming This Fall

[Greg Tito]

XCOM: Enemy Within, Standalone Expansion, Coming This Fall

Firaxis keeps the strategy flowing with a follow-up to last year's XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

The dreaded first person shooter set in the XCOM came out this week to middling reviews [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10535-The-Bureau-XCOM-Declassified-Review-Boots-on-the-Ground], but strategy fans can rejoice because Firaxis is still letting you blast aliens the way you should - one turn at a time. Firaxis and 2K Games announced the imminent release of XCOM: Enemy Within coming on November 12th, 2013. Enemy Within doesn't advance the storyline in any way, but it adds new features and mechanics to the same alien invasion of the 2012 surprise hit. XCOM: Enemy Within will retail for $29.99 for the PC and Mac, and a separate boxed copy can be had for your Xbox 360 or PS3 for $39.99. No iPad or next gen version will be coming in November, but 2K representatives said more news on that front would be coming soon.

The standalone expansion introduces a new resource called Meld, which must be found on every tactical map instead of merely earned in the strategic layer. You can spend the Meld you find to upgrade your XCOM soldiers in two new ways - Gene Mods giving surreal powers gleaned from alien autopsies and MECs. MEC stands for Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit; you'll be able to fight aliens in giant robot suits. There's also a slew of new equipment, maps, enemies and advances to multiplayer in XCOM: Enemy Within.

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For the full rundown on everything Enemy Within has to offer, The Escapist spoke with Lead Designer Ananda Gupta [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/10537-XCOM-Enemy-Within-Standalone-Expansion-Changes-and-Additions]. He's very excited about one specific aspect of XCOM that fans have been asking for - international voices.

"One of the things that our fans have been most vocal about, no pun intended, is all the soldiers sound American, so what we decided to do was reorganize the voice data so that all the localized languages are available no matter what language you installed it," Gupta said. "Assuming you install in English, you have French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian and Polish as available languages for your soldiers. They can all speak different languages; you can have your whole squad speak Spanish if you want. It's up to you, and that we feel will really make XCOM feel like the international game that it's always been intended to feel like."

To learn more all the changes and added features in XCOM: Enemy Within, read the full interview with Ananda Gupta here on The Escapist Magazine. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/interviews/10537-XCOM-Enemy-Within-Standalone-Expansion-Changes-and-Additions]

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[Zaydin]

This cannot come out fast enough for me. Loved XCOM; was one of the first new games I got after upgrading my PC in December.

 

[1337mokro]

But have they fixed the visual glitches of people shooting through walls?

 

[Jadak]

To be honest this sounds like a lot of 'meh'. New maps are good, but that's about it for me. The rest sounds pretty minor and plain uninteresting in light of existing mods that already do more. 'MELD' sounds outright annoying, hopefully it's not as bad as it sounds and canisters are placed where you'll be going anyways, but one thing missions don't need to be is a scavenger hunt.

Anyways, a great deal for anyone who doesn't already own Enemy Unknown given that it's a standalone expansion, but doesn't quite sound $30 worthy at the moment, I'll be waiting for a sale unless further details sound more interesting.

 

[Erttheking]

That sounds pretty good. Looking forward to not understanding a word of what my squad is saying.

 

[Teoes]

Well I enjoyed XCOM enough that even just a little more of the same will likely make me happy. More soldier upgrades and mech troops? This'd have to be some sorting of stinking failure of a release for me not to be interested.

I honestly never really cared about the visual glitches..

 

[Amaror]

I hope they finally fixed that lag spike everytime a berserker moves towards your squad when you shot at him. That's annoying and the reason why i didn't finish Enemy unknown. Last time i checked it was still there.

 

[Bindal]

Okay, I am sold. Loved Enemy Unknown to death, gonna buy it (or pre-order, even!) when possible.
Just the "doesn't continue the storyline"-part is a bit disappointing, but that I can deal with.

 

[mad825]

What? no more new missions?...wtf?

This is a DLC pack, not an expansion. This would be nice to have this when I'm replaying but I'm not even going to consider to buy this in the near future.

Steam sales 75% off go forth!

 

[Kahani]

So it adds a couple of optional upgrades for your soldiers and... that's it. And they expect me to pay more than many full games cost for that? I loved the original game, but everything they've released for it since then has been utterly pointless, massively overpriced shit.

 

[Strazdas]

evil escapist. you put a video at the end of an article, and then make it autoplay. when it started boosting at full volume at work and i didnt even knew where to sound is coming from it was really really bad idea. and it repeats that in the forum thread. i liked when you actually had to click the videos to play.....

 

[Bindal]

So it adds a couple of optional upgrades for your soldiers and... that's it.

And more enemies. And more maps. And a whole new type of resource.
But yes, totally ignore THAT...

And they expect me to pay more than many full games cost for that?

No, they expect you to pay 30? for it - the usual price for an expansion pack.

 

[nasteypenguin]

I'm not quite sure why this is a standalone expansion. Every other standalone expansion I've ever played at the very least has a separate campaign from the base game, even if it's a multiplayer focused expansion, but this just straight up adds some things by the sounds of it.
I was also expecting something better than one new class type, a single enemy type (judging by the fact they are never mentioned, and only one appears in the screenshots,) a quirky resource gathering addition and some new maps - granted there are a fair few new maps if it's ~50%. No mention of base defenses though, I'm actually quite disappointed so far.

That said;

Woo I can't wait, loved enemy unknown and will probably get this pretty early.

My convictions are strong.

 

[Genocidicles]

I was kind of hoping for a 'Terror from the Deep' kind of thing, but this'll do.

 

[Quellist]

No new missions? no new storyline?

Sorry, but i finished this game already, why would i want to pay $30 for some new bells and whistles?

 

[saintdane05]

"A heretic may see the truth and seek redemption. He may be forgiven his past and be absolved in death. A Traitor can never be forgiven. A Traitor can never find peace in this world or the next. There is nothing as wretched or as hated in all the world as a Traitor."
-A Witch Hunter, from the Ordo Hereticus archives.

 

[Bertylicious]

$30!? That is outrageous! I would not pay more than $5 for that.

 

[Bindal]

No new missions? no new storyline?

Sorry, but i finished this game already, why would i want to pay $30 for some new bells and whistles?

Well, because it adds about 50% new content? So that's a bit more than just "bells and whistles", it's the entire chorus you're getting. Not a whole church, then again, this is an EXPANSION PACK.

a single enemy type (judging by the fact they are never mentioned, and only one appears in the screenshots,)

So, because they decided to keep possible other new enemies a surprise and hence don't mention them by name and only say "new enemies", you instantly turn the plural into a singular and declare that they add only one new enemy...

 

[Genocidicles]

So we're getting:

New enemies. Only one shown so far which is the Mectoid (a sectoid in a battle mech).

New soldier class, which is the cyborg mectrooper.

Gene upgrades for all soldiers.

New resource to collect to get the aforementioned cyborg soldier and gene upgrades, which requires a change in tactics to collect.

50% More maps

New items

Double the amount of multiplayer maps, as well as a few changes to multiplayer.

And international voices for all the soldiers, so now they won't all sound American.

I dunno whether that's worth £20, but I'll certainly pick it up eventually. I just hope we get to choose which classes soldiers become when they level up now. It's always a pain in the ass when you need another support soldier and your latest rookie becomes your seventh heavy.

 

[Quellist]

No new missions? no new storyline?

Sorry, but i finished this game already, why would i want to pay $30 for some new bells and whistles?

Well, because it adds about 50% new content? So that's a bit more than just "bells and whistles", it's the entire chorus you're getting. Not a whole church, then again, this is an EXPANSION PACK.

a single enemy type (judging by the fact they are never mentioned, and only one appears in the screenshots,)

So, because they decided to keep possible other new enemies a surprise and hence don't mention them by name and only say "new enemies", you instantly turn the plural into a singular and declare that they add only one new enemy...

An expansion pack priced the same as what i bought the game for in the first place...so No.