Welcome Back Commander: XCOM 2 Invades Your PC In November

Fanghawk

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Welcome Back Commander: XCOM 2 Invades Your PC In November

XCOM 2, the sequel to Firaxis and 2K Games Enemy Unknown, looks forward twenty years to a new alien threat.

Few games struck the perfect mix between challenging and engaging quite like <a href=www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6468-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown>XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Between its limited resources, hard-to-replace soldiers, and increasingly powerful alien forces, players were <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/9964-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-Review>on the edge of their seats until finishing the final mothership assault. Now Firaxis and 2K Games will start the whole process again with XCOM 2, but there's a twist - this time XCOM are the attackers overthrowing an alien regime.

XCOM 2 is set twenty years in the future, where Earth ultimately lost the war against the alien invaders. The XCOM organization is long forgotten, but hasn't disappeared - it's moved to mobile headquarters while waiting for the right moment to strike. Now XCOM is the invading force, using its limited resources to avoid detection, build up the resistance, and expose the true alien agenda to the world.

Making XCOM a resistance movement isn't the only change for this sequel. XCOM 2 will introduce procedurally-generated levels that make every mission unique, even when objectives are identical. Firaxis is also rolling out five updated soldier classes, new soldier customization options, and "evolved tactical combat". Of course the aliens themselves have upgrades of their own, adding all-new enemy types to the series. And if you're a gamer who enjoys custom gaming experiences, XCOM 2 will scratch that itch with a deeper level of modding support.

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"The feedback from the passionate XCOM community played an important role in the development of XCOM 2, driving us to push the visual, gameplay and replayability boundaries of what a strategy game can be," XCOM 2 creative director Jake Solomon said. "We're thrilled to implement long-time fan requested features such as procedural levels and modding support, as well as adding more of what makes XCOM great like new aliens, enemies and soldier classes."

Best of all, XCOM 2 should launch for PC on Nov. 2015, with Mac and Linux ports to follow. Sounds like this holiday season is the perfect time to become a Commander once again.

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Andy Shandy

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Jun 7, 2010
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As someone who loved EU/EW on console, I don't think I've ever went from massive hype to overwhelming disappointment quite so fast.



Now I have to live in hope of a console release later down the line I guess.
 

Valkrex

Elder Dragon
Jan 6, 2013
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More XCOM?!?!? WOOHOO!

Procedurally-generated levels, resistance movement, updated classes!?!??

THE HYPE IS REAL!


*ahem*

So this looks awesome! If it can strike the same balance of challenge, terror, and satisfaction the first game had then my friends won't be hearing from me quite a long time when this comes out.
 

Weresquirrel

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Oooh, I just got a little tingle... Could this be the legendary "hype" that people talk about so often? I think it could be...
 

tippy2k2

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Andy Shandy said:
As someone who loved EU/EW on console, I don't think I've ever went from massive hype to overwhelming disappointment quite so fast.

Now I have to live in hope of a console release later down the line I guess.
We need to create a support group. In great times of crisis, console gamers need to band together to support each other in this grave time of need.

If anyone needs me, I'll be weeping in this corner.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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Cool.

I just hope they find a way to even out the influence of dice rolls. Got really tired of having games go pear-shaped because I arbitrarily miss four 80% shots in a row.
 

Aeshi

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I don't think I've ever seen an X-Com style game where you were the invader, that's a really nice spin on the formula.

I wasn't particularly fond of Enemy Unknown, but I'll be interested to see how this turns out. It's a bit of a bummer that XCOM canonically lost though. Makes me wonder what the point of anything we did in the first game was.
 

Evonisia

Your sinner, in secret
Jun 24, 2013
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tippy2k2 said:
Andy Shandy said:
As someone who loved EU/EW on console, I don't think I've ever went from massive hype to overwhelming disappointment quite so fast.

Now I have to live in hope of a console release later down the line I guess.
We need to create a support group. In great times of crisis, console gamers need to band together to support each other in this grave time of need.

If anyone needs me, I'll be weeping in this corner.
I imagine that they'll eventually port to console to get those sweet, sweet money dollars, and I refuse to let the hype die.
 
Mar 30, 2010
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Oh good, my favourite console strategy game is getting a non-console sequel. -_-

Andy Shandy said:
As someone who loved EU/EW on console, I don't think I've ever went from massive hype to overwhelming disappointment quite so fast.
Your pain ... I feel it.
 

Neurotic Void Melody

Bound to escape
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Jul 15, 2013
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Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.
 

Jake Martinez

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Andy Shandy said:
As someone who loved EU/EW on console, I don't think I've ever went from massive hype to overwhelming disappointment quite so fast.

Now I have to live in hope of a console release later down the line I guess.
It's not like the last game was all that graphically impressive, so are you saying you don't have a single PC or laptop that could run this game?

Yeah I just checked, the last game's minimum requirements was 2ghz CPU and 2 GB of ram, 20 GB HD space. That's practically a mobile phone these days.
 

Bindal

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Alright. I'm sold. I love the remake with both base game and expansion and while I feel it didn't age too well in terms of controls, the original is also a game I enjoy. Even got a good time out of The Bureau (albeit having only paid 4? for it, being well worth the money wasn't hard in that case) and I hope that in this case, we get a bit more connection to The Bureau than Enemy Unknown had.
Pre-Order garanteed (one of the few times I will actually do that).

Just one question: How did we LOSE the war in the first game when we basically wiped out the entire leadership and main-base of operation and the only mayor outpost the aliens had? I suspect there is another, unseen conflict in that 20-year-gap we didn't see (after all, the Ethereal did hint at 'another group' when you finished the game - so I currently suspect those are the guys we lost to in those 20 years)

Aeshi said:
I don't think I've ever seen an X-Com style game where you were the invader, that's a really nice spin on the formula.
Apocalypse and Interceptor both featured that as a vague theme. You weren't directly the offense, but it was apparently not uncommon to fight the aliens on their hometurf a few times in the end-game instead of just the big finale.

Xsjadoblayde said:
Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.
Laundrylist of reasons. Some of the obvious ones are: Console-sales or feedback was too poor to be worth it, PC Sales were way higher than console, consoles can't handle the modified form of input just with a controller, no interest in making a console-port for an otherwise PC-only franchise...
Which of these reason is true we may never know. Could be one, some, all or none of them.
 

bliebblob

Plushy wrangler, die-curious
Sep 9, 2009
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Yaaaaaas! This is exactly what I was waiting for, exactly what neither enemy within nor long war offered: moar story!
 

Ishal

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Oct 30, 2012
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Well...


This might be my first PC exclusive new game since I built my PC. Huh. Well, we'll see how it looks. Let's get some more info and gameplay. Otherwise I'm interested.
 

The_Darkness

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I look forward to my troops going "This isn't right. THIS ISN'T RIGHT! WE NEED EMERGENCY EVAC!" as Chryssalids once again pour from the walls...

So... I guess we canonically lost the first game? Or did the aliens just come back in force, wondering what happened to their scouting party?
 

Jake Martinez

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The_Darkness said:
I look forward to my troops going "This isn't right. THIS ISN'T RIGHT! WE NEED EMERGENCY EVAC!" as Chryssalids once again pour from the walls...

So... I guess we canonically lost the first game? Or did the aliens just come back in force, wondering what happened to their scouting party?
Probably the first, because you were playing on classic difficulty with ironman mode enabled.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
On one hand, FUCKEN YAY. On the other, it seems rather contrived that your playing the attackers when the aliens have already taken over earth, it would have been so much more interesting and could have added some really cool morality if you were invading an alien home world. Wouldn't even have to be like THE homeworld or anything, maybe just one of the races one to knock them out or something.
 

The_Darkness

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Jake Martinez said:
Probably the first, because you were playing on classic difficulty with ironman mode enabled.
To be fair, I won my Classic Ironman playthrough. Not my Ironman Impossible playthrough though... Dammit EXALT...

On that note, I wonder what role, if any, EXALT are playing in this game. Would those be the enemy human soldiers that we saw in the trailer?
 

Bindal

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The_Darkness said:
So... I guess we canonically lost the first game? Or did the aliens just come back in force, wondering what happened to their scouting party?
Apparently the former (which would be a bit bull, to be honest) but EU did hint at "something else being out there" which the Ethereals wanted Humanity to raise to fight against. Might be that those other guys came a lot sooner than expected or that we weren't actually ready.
We do have 20 years of blank in the timeline, after all.

The_Darkness said:
On that note, I wonder what role, if any, EXALT are playing in this game. Would those be the enemy human soldiers that we saw in the trailer?
None as we did eradicate them almost entirely. I suspect that those humanoids are just another type of alien, just a bit closer to human shape than before. Think "Thin Men", but a step further (and probably also a bit more sadistic to deal with)