Why does the victory ending have to be the canon one?

[EternallyBored]

SNIP

Imagine if FF7, instead of being about Cloud, was a whole new cast set in the same decade of FF6. Except Kefka won, Terra, Edgar, Gau, Sabin, all of them are dead.
You think you'd be feeling totally happy and pleased and rainbows? Or would you be a little pissed off that they're taking this basically unrelated story about a post-apocalypse world and tacking on "Oh yeah, you fucked up in FF6! Didn't you know that?!" Escentially renaming the final boss Kefka, and because they didn't write in Terra or Edgar, just saying they're all dead.
Its kinda' like saying Iron Man takes place in the same universe of Dark Knight Rises, except Bane managed to detonate his bomb, Gotham and Batman are dead, and so lets move on with the completely un-related Iron Man plot(we just wanted to throw that little monkey-wrench into everything!)

Either keep the canon from the first game or call it a reboot. No point in saying the first game is technically canon, but nothing that happened in it is. Basically the devs are assuming we lost every single mission.

Those examples are terrible, in FF6 we spend the whole game getting to know a group of fleshed out characters with their own motivations, interests, and character arcs in a story that is all about them and their personal struggles while fighting Kefka. Xcom has all of 3 named main characters and 2 side characters who just become the same basic squaddies after their intro mission. Very few people give much of a shit about what happens to characters largely there just to give you context for your research projects and dump your next objective on you. Comparing the characters of FF6 or Batman and Iron man to the meat grinder fodder that made up your squad is just silly.

On top of that, we don't even know what happened to Vahlen, Bradford, and Shen, this is supposedly still the same XCOM, they just refused to shut down after the council gets mind controlled, surrenders, whatever. Shen is likely dead of old age unless he's a cyborg now, but Vahlen and Bradford could still be around.

Yes, the devs are assuming a loss, so much like Enemy Within, it is essentially an alternate universe where things went differently to the base Enemy Unknown timeline, and no, I doubt very many people will care that much about maybe losing the three threadbare voiced characters, 2 DLC characters irrelevant to the plot, and their handful of customizable action figures that had no personality or character beyond what we imagined for them.

To think that this is comparable to seeing fleshed out characters failing in a personal quest is just baffling to me, the game is about XCom as an organization, and none of the characters in the game I will give two shits about if they survive or die in transition to the sequel, nowhere near the level I care about characters like Terra or Locke.

 

[Tony2077]

it sounds like it will be neat with the new tactics i just wonder if stealth kills will be something that you can do

 

[DementedSheep]

In the case of X-com it's a bit weird for them to do this because it isn't a traditional bad ending, they're continuing it off the failure state. I don't really have an issue with it though, the X-Com: EU plot is just an excuse and I suppose they needed some reason to de-power you. Even if the aliens were holding back intentionally and there is a more powerful threat who presumably have better stuff I think it would be a bit hard to work in some of the endgame utility gear like the suits right at the start without it being op.

I find the prospect of having less the best endings being canon as a tricky mistress. The most notable example I can think of is the Metro series. Metro 2033 had two endings, a normal ending and a "true" secret ending achieved through certain actions. The normal ending was the one from the book and was ultimately the canon ending for the sequel. Without spoiling things, this made sense because of how the true ending worked, the plot of the sequel was directly related to the normal ending.

However, Metro Last Light has two endings as well and again each ending would have drastic consequences for a sequel and unless a lot of things are ignored one canon ending must be chosen. And I really don't want one of the endings to be canon so I am kinda bummed that the inevitable sequel might have the ending I didn't like as canon.

It would be interesting to make a game and the do a direct sequel that canonizes the idea that the player failed in the previous game. Zelda sort of retroactively did this but I doubt it was intentional and was simply the only way they could make a timeline at least partially coherent. Would be an interesting idea.

Captcha: who you gonna call. Ghostbusters was not a suitable answer.

Metro 2033 is based on a book. And unlike Witcher, it is not a continuation but a retelling.

The devs took the Book's ending as cannon. Same way that Metro 2035 (book) will say what ending to Last Light is cannon.

Yep. I've also seen people complain about the "good" ending in Metro 2033 being obtuse and too hard to get but I always saw it as just a hidden "what if" ending that they decided to put in. It was never the "real" ending.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Having played lots of XCOM (both the original and the "reboot"), the far more likely ending in a canonical sense would be a losing ending for the first game. Caught with our pants down seems to be the theme of XCOM, no matter how good your soldiers are, there always seems to be that feel of near-hopelessness during the whole conflict. It honestly feels like the winning scenario is the least likely one to happen. We're technologically outclassed from day 1 and honestly feels disingenuous to win, but its fun being the underdog and making a comeback. However it doesn't really lend itself to a sequel considering the leap in technology. It'd be like the DBZ effect of yesterday's powerful enemy is no threat when compared to today's jackass of the week. I like the idea that the first game was a losing battle, and the second game is humanity working within to wreck the alien's collective shit after they think they've won.
It sounds like fun, and I'll go for it.

I'm not miffed the least by a losing scenario being the "official" canon because in my head, the winning scenarios all ended up being losing ones anyway as humanity, with no more alien threat, ends up turning on itself with all this new tech.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

To those questioning whether it IS canon that we lost in the first game. We did. You can find developer quotes on IGN saying XCOM never even managed to unlock the exotic tech. That's how they get us to start at level 1 again with chemical firearms as opposed to energy weapons.

I absolutely agree that perhaps they should have given us a "you won the battle but lost the war" scenario. We don't know the true might of the alien war machine off planet. But... If humanity knows how to make psionics and plasma guns that's Pandora's box and you can't really explain us unlearning how to.

Custom campaigns can work around that, mine was after the war Advent took control of the reclamation of alien artifacts decided to recruit the aliens into their fold rather than exterminate them. Using their clout they drive XCOM's influence into a shell of it's glory days. Eventually the aliens take over and bam, XCOM 2 starts with us having only ballistic weapons while the aliens took over without firing a single shot.

It sure beats being turned into morlocks living in the blasted remains of Sydney though.

 

[Redryhno]

I'm not miffed the least by a losing scenario being the "official" canon because in my head, the winning scenarios all ended up being losing ones anyway as humanity, with no more alien threat, ends up turning on itself with all this new tech.

Oh, I can understand that, but it's just...sorta underwhelming that you go to all the trouble of doing all that, there not being a Metro-like "good" end, and it's just a continuation of events that we, as players, never saw. No problem with it as an excuse for more Xcom, but it is sorta...bitter that all the effort and work put into it essentially means nothing inside the game world.

Those examples are terrible, in FF6 we spend the whole game getting to know a group of fleshed out characters with their own motivations, interests, and character arcs in a story that is all about them and their personal struggles while fighting Kefka. Xcom has all of 3 named main characters and 2 side characters who just become the same basic squaddies after their intro mission. Very few people give much of a shit about what happens to characters largely there just to give you context for your research projects and dump your next objective on you. Comparing the characters of FF6 or Batman and Iron man to the meat grinder fodder that made up your squad is just silly.

On top of that, we don't even know what happened to Vahlen, Bradford, and Shen, this is supposedly still the same XCOM, they just refused to shut down after the council gets mind controlled, surrenders, whatever. Shen is likely dead of old age unless he's a cyborg now, but Vahlen and Bradford could still be around.

Yes, the devs are assuming a loss, so much like Enemy Within, it is essentially an alternate universe where things went differently to the base Enemy Unknown timeline, and no, I doubt very many people will care that much about maybe losing the three threadbare voiced characters, 2 DLC characters irrelevant to the plot, and their handful of customizable action figures that had no personality or character beyond what we imagined for them.

To think that this is comparable to seeing fleshed out characters failing in a personal quest is just baffling to me, the game is about XCom as an organization, and none of the characters in the game I will give two shits about if they survive or die in transition to the sequel, nowhere near the level I care about characters like Terra or Locke.

So what you're saying is you never bothered to customize any of your soldiers and give them joke names and watch your little action figures grow? You're missing out on half the narrative experience doing that. Some of the best games are the ones you can just make shit up as you go along.

I had a Sniper that got bowled over by the first Muton I ran into, almost died, and after that, rarely passed against Muton charges and Will tests. A rookie Heavy with his first plasma that instead of cowering down like the rest of his squad, went berserk, ran out into the middle of the ground with no cover, and shot down a group of Cyborgs, giving the rest of the Captain and above squad time to recover and died because the AI targeted him. The stories and personalities write themselves if you allow them to do it and adds a new depth to the storytelling you don't get out of games as often anymore since they've got fully voice-acted and linear enough that you start thinking in Y=mX+b when you play games, Xcom was nice in that it was linear, but it had personalities you could write yourself to give the game more story than "Aliens attack, marine #2486 has a grenade thrown at them, replace arms and legs of wounded soldier to ready them for combat again."

 

[DrOswald]

Sometimes a technology gap simply cannot be overcome. The combined might of every navy on earth circa 1800 could not hope to take out even a single modern battle group, and I think we have a similar situation here.

I don't have time to go into detail now, but...

How much ammo does a modern battle group carry?

Easily enough. They have entire cargo ships dedicated to resupply.

Similarly, nukes are necessarily heavy, so it is still plausible that a small alien force might not be able to bring enough to decisively beat Earth.

Nukes are not as big as you think they are, and the aliens were willing to fly a skyscraper to earth for a survey mission. They can handle a few hundred tons of bombs for sure.

What do they do when a thousand cities are gone but there are still hundreds of thousands of small towns? Do they have enough troops to fight the small towns? Or would the billion or so remaining humans actually reproduce faster than the aliens could kill them?

They don't want to annihilate humanity they want to subjugate them. Historically we see that conquered populations falls in line under puppet governments and militarily superior occupying forces but support a strong dissident movement for years after, usually resulting in a strong underground rebellion with great support from the population.

 

[EternallyBored]

So what you're saying is you never bothered to customize any of your soldiers and give them joke names and watch your little action figures grow? You're missing out on half the narrative experience doing that. Some of the best games are the ones you can just make shit up as you go along.

I had a Sniper that got bowled over by the first Muton I ran into, almost died, and after that, rarely passed against Muton charges and Will tests. A rookie Heavy with his first plasma that instead of cowering down like the rest of his squad, went berserk, ran out into the middle of the ground with no cover, and shot down a group of Cyborgs, giving the rest of the Captain and above squad time to recover and died because the AI targeted him. The stories and personalities write themselves if you allow them to do it and adds a new depth to the storytelling you don't get out of games as often anymore since they've got fully voice-acted and linear enough that you start thinking in Y=mX+b when you play games, Xcom was nice in that it was linear, but it had personalities you could write yourself to give the game more story than "Aliens attack, marine #2486 has a grenade thrown at them, replace arms and legs of wounded soldier to ready them for combat again."

I did those things, I personalized most of my squad, especially the ones that were high level and got the exotic equipment, but that doesn't make them characters, and it doesn't give them story arcs and detail on the level of actual detailed characters, because no matter how much I customized them, they were still just my chess pieces on the tactical gameplay map.

That's why Silentpony's comparison doesn't work because no matter how much we may have liked some of out customized soldiers, they were still just action figures with a couple lines of combat dialogue, no sequel would have taken the nameless mooks into account beyond maybe the volunteer. Even if Firaxis changed the storyline for XCOM 2, those characters would still be essentially pointless, none of what they did would have effected the sequel as they have no way to account for that type of thing.

The customizable characters are a nice touch, but they are still blank slate nothings that only develop any sort of attachment through our imagination, why should I care about them not technically being in the sequel when I can just create more in the new game and develop new stories surrounding those characters.

 

[baddude1337]

For all those saying we might have won and someone else came in, no. In the IGN interview Solomon stated the canon ending was that you lose.

Now, for those who are saying people like me are entitled, no. They could have done a couple of different things rather than retcon the only actual ending to a failure state, including a Terror From The Deep scenario.

It's doesn't make sense comparing to a game like Skyrim which was multiple choice, as those are different endings. This game had one. The lose was a game over screen.

My main beef is they hinted at a lot of possibilities of even more powerful aliens out there, and the ramifications of humanity achieving psychic powers, but instead all that has been brushed under the rug for a rehash of the first plot.

I'm still looking forward to it, for sure, but I feel they could have done something other than a retcon.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

We did get an ending for this outcome. You might not have seen it since most people quit before they finally lose. I never saw it in game I reloaded well before it happened. And yet This is apparently the canon ending. Its interesting how they mention that it was a series of misunderstandings with an overzealous response. This will probably be the line the propaganda media use to explain why there was a war with the lovely helpful 'father knows best' aliens.

I still dont get the connection though, people are saying this invalidates their gameplay, that somehow this invalidates the 100hr ironman campaign they waged. How can that be? How can a piece of media somehow be retroactively invalidated by new stuff? I think prehaps we've all learned to take the concept of something being canon a little too seriously...

 

[Rastrelly]

(1)Just make it like Half Life

(2)Yeah when I hear the new game assumes we lost when that wasn't a thing, thus negating the entirety of X-Com 1 and my 100+hrs of game play on hard mode without losing a single operative...well lets just say I won't be getting 2 until its on Steam Sale for a buck fifty.

1) In HL you won, and this is why all Vortigaunts treat you like a messiah. Humans lost to those guys Nihilanth was running away in the first place. Basically, the reason Earth was conquered is because you brought Combine attention to Earth by starting Resonance Cascade. And removal of Nihilanth made that invasion even easier.
2) Who said you actually lost in XCOM:EU? You won over some strange overlord-ish person who led the first invasion. Maybe someone more smart took over, and second invasion happened the way first one should happened - by diplomacy and mind control combo?

 

[baddude1337]

Who said you actually lost in XCOM:EU? You won over some strange overlord-ish person who led the first invasion.

Creative Director Jake Solomon and his team are going in an entirely different direction: instead of changing the setting, they're changing history to make XCOM the underdog again. How? Surprise: You didn't beat the aliens - they steamrolled you.

Solomon painted an alternate version of how the war unfolded: "When the aliens showed up, XCOM suffered massive casualties, and governments around the world crumbled in face of popular support to surrender. Then, the Earth was quickly overrun. And so, 20 years into the future, the world is a very different place. The aliens rule Earth from giant shining megacities where all the people of Earth are flocking; that's where they're promised an easy life, a secure life free of disease."

From the iGN interview:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/06/02/xcom-2-welcoming-our-new-alien-overlords

You canonically straight up lost in the first game.

 

[ryan_cs]

SNIP

Imagine if FF7, instead of being about Cloud, was a whole new cast set in the same decade of FF6. Except Kefka won, Terra, Edgar, Gau, Sabin, all of them are dead.
You think you'd be feeling totally happy and pleased and rainbows? Or would you be a little pissed off that they're taking this basically unrelated story about a post-apocalypse world and tacking on "Oh yeah, you fucked up in FF6! Didn't you know that?!" Escentially renaming the final boss Kefka, and because they didn't write in Terra or Edgar, just saying they're all dead.
Its kinda' like saying Iron Man takes place in the same universe of Dark Knight Rises, except Bane managed to detonate his bomb, Gotham and Batman are dead, and so lets move on with the completely un-related Iron Man plot(we just wanted to throw that little monkey-wrench into everything!)

Either keep the canon from the first game or call it a reboot. No point in saying the first game is technically canon, but nothing that happened in it is. Basically the devs are assuming we lost every single mission.

Those examples are terrible, in FF6 we spend the whole game getting to know a group of fleshed out characters with their own motivations, interests, and character arcs in a story that is all about them and their personal struggles while fighting Kefka. Xcom has all of 3 named main characters and 2 side characters who just become the same basic squaddies after their intro mission. Very few people give much of a shit about what happens to characters largely there just to give you context for your research projects and dump your next objective on you. Comparing the characters of FF6 or Batman and Iron man to the meat grinder fodder that made up your squad is just silly.

On top of that, we don't even know what happened to Vahlen, Bradford, and Shen, this is supposedly still the same XCOM, they just refused to shut down after the council gets mind controlled, surrenders, whatever. Shen is likely dead of old age unless he's a cyborg now, but Vahlen and Bradford could still be around.

Yes, the devs are assuming a loss, so much like Enemy Within, it is essentially an alternate universe where things went differently to the base Enemy Unknown timeline, and no, I doubt very many people will care that much about maybe losing the three threadbare voiced characters, 2 DLC characters irrelevant to the plot, and their handful of customizable action figures that had no personality or character beyond what we imagined for them.

To think that this is comparable to seeing fleshed out characters failing in a personal quest is just baffling to me, the game is about XCom as an organization, and none of the characters in the game I will give two shits about if they survive or die in transition to the sequel, nowhere near the level I care about characters like Terra or Locke.

Yeah I disagree with that example because of that too, but what about the stories where the characters are pretty much blank?
What if in Half-Life 2 the story was Gordon Freeman died and the Xen took over? It makes little difference in the end, but it's not an enjoyable feeling knowing that you can just forget about the adventure because it never happened.

Basically I'm fine if the story was that they are successful, but got invaded again and lost. I'm not fine with the adventure never having happened in the first place.

Still... X-Com: Apocalypse did have you travel to an alternate universe, and I've always thought multiple playthroughs are that, so I'm not too bothered by it.

 

[ryan_cs]

Basically I'm fine if the story was that they are successful, but got invaded again and lost. I'm not fine with the adventure never having happened in the first place.

The way I see them doing it - XCOM got formed, was initially successful and put up some good fighting at first, while the invasion consisted of a couple of small saucers of Sectoids shatching people, but as soon as aliens brought out the serious forces XCOM was quickly overwhelmed, skilled operatives dropped like flies, newbies proved incapable of handling terror and priority missions and governments pulled their funding in a matter of weeks.

You know, kinda like it often happens in game on higher difficulties - terror missions start happening, your vets get slaughtered by chrysalids in a small case of bad luck and you're left with gunpowder-armed rookies against floaters and cyberdisks. Only this time Commander didn't have the save/load button.

This is probably another reason I'm not too bothered by it; I went through that too, and as mentioned before that playthrough was an alternate universe to me. Still... the story for XCOM 2 had better make sense why a victory is possible from a position of severe disadvantage when victory wasn't possible from a position of relatively mild disadvantage.

 

[Tony2077]

Basically I'm fine if the story was that they are successful, but got invaded again and lost. I'm not fine with the adventure never having happened in the first place.

The way I see them doing it - XCOM got formed, was initially successful and put up some good fighting at first, while the invasion consisted of a couple of small saucers of Sectoids shatching people, but as soon as aliens brought out the serious forces XCOM was quickly overwhelmed, skilled operatives dropped like flies, newbies proved incapable of handling terror and priority missions and governments pulled their funding in a matter of weeks.

You know, kinda like it often happens in game on higher difficulties - terror missions start happening, your vets get slaughtered by chrysalids in a small case of bad luck and you're left with gunpowder-armed rookies against floaters and cyberdisks. Only this time Commander didn't have the save/load button.

or the commander isn't the player but someone who doesn't really have good leadership and tactic skills and the aliens win one battle after another till they claim everything then you step up to the plate in xcom 2 and things start to improve

 

[Rastrelly]

Who said you actually lost in XCOM:EU? You won over some strange overlord-ish person who led the first invasion.

Creative Director Jake Solomon and his team are going in an entirely different direction: instead of changing the setting, they're changing history to make XCOM the underdog again. How? Surprise: You didn't beat the aliens - they steamrolled you.

Solomon painted an alternate version of how the war unfolded: "When the aliens showed up, XCOM suffered massive casualties, and governments around the world crumbled in face of popular support to surrender. Then, the Earth was quickly overrun. And so, 20 years into the future, the world is a very different place. The aliens rule Earth from giant shining megacities where all the people of Earth are flocking; that's where they're promised an easy life, a secure life free of disease."

From the iGN interview:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/06/02/xcom-2-welcoming-our-new-alien-overlords

You canonically straight up lost in the first game.

Oh. Then sorry. Devs REALLY know how to fail at sequel constructing =)

 

[DrownedAmmet]

With how much I sucked at X-Com, the defeat ending is way more canon to me

 

[cathou]

i think they could have work with the orignal ending instead of going for the alternate universe.

i dont know, it could had been somethig like this : after the temple ship explosion, the fallout of the explosion poisoned the atmosphere and create an EMP like wave that disrupt tech. People start to blame xcom, and the world leaders start to cut funding of xcom. before xcom have fully restore their base after the EMP, the xcom base is raid by all the remaining alien forces.

you start the game. first mission is the base attack, with endless wave of attacker, it's impossible to win. you lost. the commander and a few base personal flee the base.

The aliens after destroying the xcom base attack several city without resistance. with the environemental disaster still gpoing on the humans are on their knees. the alien offer them to surrender, human accept, they contruct huge megacities where human are basically obligated to flock to, because the rest of the earth is getting barren.

the xcom commander and the few operative that survive decide to fight back. but without the base and their research database, they cannot recreate what they had before, so they go underground and very slowly rebuild their force, they return with conventional weapon, because even if they know that plasma weapon exist, they dont know how to build them anymore. qfter a while, after recruiting in the shadows and training, gather ressources, they manage to attack a ufo and capture it to make the new HQ. regaining the technology needed to at least start research and produce high tech equipement.

start the real game.



there. it took 5 minutes to think about it. a whole team working could have come up with something better i guess if they really wanted to.

now we have to think XCOM as a final fantasy series where the games are not really connected...