XCOM 2 is What Happens When You Lose Enemy Unknown

[BeerTent]

I think of it this way, on the "we lost" thing.

The larger number of people who attempted I/I (Ironman Impossible) Lost very quickly. This is the timeline they're going with. XCOM had a lot going for it, and an amazing commander... But, sometimes... You're just beat. The aliens hat FTL travel. Aliens had UFO's that could withstand massive impact and powerful missiles, and still be in one freaking piece! They had Battleships, and Chryssalids. If we funded XCOM IRL, it's just not feasible that we'd win. We lost, and we lost when we were barely on the cusp of laser weapons. We lost around the time EXALT was formed. We were shut down, and torn apart quickly before going into hiding. Some of us got lucky, and squirreled away. But not all of us.

However, those who won any difficulty, and remembered the Temple Ship... You've got a leg up. You already know what the aliens want to do to us. Why they're here, and why we're so special. Consider it an easter egg or a leg-up. I won't spoil what was said. But bear in mind, that in XCOM 2, we never saw the temple Ship. We never saw the Gollup device, or hyperwave beacon, and we never saw the Sectoid Commanders outside of that one glimpse in the tutorial. And we might have seen an outsider once or twice, but never managed to capture one.

Now, 20 years later, after the world said, "We embrace out new alien overlords." some people see things differently. And those people are you. We don't want no goddamn Alien overlords. We want people overlords back! We don't want aliens running a unified world if they're still abducting and genemodding people!! We want to wear our flags on our shoulders and serve our people!! We have a job to do, and that's taking our planet back!!

Spoiler: The real reason why we lost:

The real reason? XCOM would be very boring if we started with all of the top-teir research and weapons already done and built. We needed a way to start over, to begin anew with nothing. We've seen it with the microprose games. (Alien technology cannot work underwater. Seriously?) Firaxis needed a way to force us back to ballistics and this is the most interesting way of doing it.

My concerns at this point? Fuck me, the Archon's ugly as all hell. I'm hoping for a mod that brings back the heavy floater [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/a/a4/XEU_Heavy_Floater.png/revision/latest?cb=20130215164522] skin/model.

 

[Savagezion]

I am just a little disappointed that they didn't remake terror from the deep - only better this time. With harpoons and weapons specialized for submerged combat. I don't care about the fail state starting point. I want a better version of Terror from the Deep.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

- snip-

So why would they have us save the world in the first game if what we did, never actually matters? It doesn't make sense.

Here's an idea, if you think you won, then there is no continuation of the story since there's no more threat involved and thus there is no reason for you to ever play XCOM 2 because your timeline is the only true canon and therefore needs no sequel since the threat of invasion by aliens has been ended. There's no conflict post-winning scenario, thus making playing a sequel based off said scenario worthless.

Personally I want to play this timeline, because it gives a different type of scenario to play through. Just because the "canon" of the sequel may not match up with a winning scenario from the first game doesn't mean its automagically worthless and trashes all expectations. It just means a different style of game and tactics to employ. I like the idea of being a resistance movement rather than the original scenario, makes me feel like the dev's aren't copy-pasting the previous game with a new set of even more bastard enemies, which would make me really feel like the last game's effort was worthless. Its kind of how I felt playing Terror From the Deep, as it was set after the first game with no mention of the previous game's technological advances, and no usage of said advantages.

 

[Thyunda]

- snip-

So why would they have us save the world in the first game if what we did, never actually matters? It doesn't make sense.

Here's an idea, if you think you won, then there is no continuation of the story since there's no more threat involved and thus there is no reason for you to ever play XCOM 2 because your timeline is the only true canon and therefore needs no sequel since the threat of invasion by aliens has been ended. There's no conflict post-winning scenario, thus making playing a sequel based off said scenario worthless.

Personally I want to play this timeline, because it gives a different type of scenario to play through. Just because the "canon" of the sequel may not match up with a winning scenario from the first game doesn't mean its automagically worthless and trashes all expectations. It just means a different style of game and tactics to employ. I like the idea of being a resistance movement rather than the original scenario, makes me feel like the dev's aren't copy-pasting the previous game with a new set of even more bastard enemies, which would make me really feel like the last game's effort was worthless. Its kind of how I felt playing Terror From the Deep, as it was set after the first game with no mention of the previous game's technological advances, and no usage of said advantages.

Yeah and plus the whole 'leading a resistance against the alien fascist state' is seriously cool and I wouldn't even have cared if they said "The first game was all a fantasy in your head while you hid under your blanket and cried while the aliens took over."

XCOM didn't need a sequel. XCOM rounded off quite neatly. If you don't want to include the second game in your canon, nobody's gonna force it. It's not like beating XCOM ended with a cutscene in which all your soldiers turned out to be sleeper agents anyway. This is sequels done right.

 

[K12]

There's something really odd about the logic behind people being annoyed by the setting of XCOM2.

Admit it pretty much everyone lost XCOM at least once (if you were doing ironman anyway) and this means that you have a chance to rectify that failure so you've saved the world even in the games where you lost.

The alternative would be that success was meaningless because the aliens come back again anyway (unless we're going to play an "Everything-is-fine-simulator").

It's kind of odd that so many people seem to be more satisfied with the "either you won but it's happening again or you lost and everything went to shit" scenario compared to the "either you won and everything is fine or you lost but here's another chance to make things right" scenario.

 

[Frankster]

People are honestly bothered by a "you lost the previous game" story?

I..just don't understand what the big deal is. Like at all. But then I've already been through this with the UFO series.
I suppose I can get that people just wanted the same thing all over again, like a TFTD, but there's only so many times you can pull off that trick and gave BS reasons why all your tech and soldiers from your previously (won) game ain't there or are ineffective/unavailable when the next batch of aliens arrive to do the same thing the previous ones did.

 

[MCerberus]

People are upset because they see an opportunity cost of XCOM going offensive and letting them keep progress from previous playthroughs.

But I think this setting is more interesting.

edit- also this is counter to standard empowerment fantasies

 

[Barbas]

Gorgeous pictures there. The graphics in this game are on a wehole other level. It sounds like an improvement in every other way I can think of, too.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I can understand why some people aren't too keen on this setting, but I think the "resistance movement fighting against the oppressive super-power that's taken over the world" is an awesome set up, and I actually think it lends itself much better to how X-Com actually plays compared to EU and EW.

For example:
-It now makes sense why you can only send small groups of Soldiers on missions, since it's risky to send a bunch of people, plus higher chance of arousing suspicion. Never made sense to me in EU or EW that even if I had 70 Soldiers sitting in the barracks, I could only send six on a mission. Also never made sense that I could only respond to one abduction taking place, even though I had tons of soldiers and more than enough money to afford more troop transports.
-It makes much more sense now that funding and resources are so limited. In EU, everyone on the planet knew an alien invasion was happening, yet you still had to beg to get funding from countries.
-Now it actually makes sense that you're outnumbered on missions.
-The idea of hitting strategic targets and slowly turning the populace against the aliens is just a great set-up, and I think will lend itself to way more interesting hard resource decisions that don't feel as forced as X-Com had (in other words, instead of "well you can only respond to one abduction mission because we say so", it's "is it worth possibly losing Soldiers to knock out this propaganda center just to hopefully get the populace a little more on our side?").

Anyway, totally psyched for the game and fingers crossed that it ends up being as good as it sounds.

 

[Karadalis]

Is it just me or is the question "Why are you making a game that assumes i lost even thought i won most often?" somewhat... erm.. makes no sense?

They made a game based on the premise xcom lost because they wanted to make a game based on the premise xcom lost... why did they had to come up with some timy lime whimy explanation about paralel universes and crap?

The premise that xcom lost against the aliens is simply more interesting then rehashing terror from the deep... or making an expansion out of it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Actually Firaxis have stated that in this alternate timeline XCOM lost the war before they even got to develop laser weaponry.

Meh, sounds like they wrote themselves in to a corner by letting you save the world in the first place.

 

[Winnosh]

I fail to see how the story saying you lose makes what you did in the previous game irrelevant. It shouldn't erase the fun we had going on missions and beating the invasion back. It doesn't for me. I understand that it does for some people but not why.

 

[UrinalDook]

Actually Firaxis have stated that in this alternate timeline XCOM lost the war before they even got to develop laser weaponry.

Meh, sounds like they wrote themselves in to a corner by letting you save the world in the first place.

What corner? Why is there this assumption that just because there's a 2 on the front of the box, the game has to be a direct, linear continuation of the plot? X-Com: Enemy Unknown/Within is a single, self contained story. That's it. That's all there is to it.

The setup for X-Com 2 is just 'what if we took the premise of the first game, the same aliens with (presumably) the same objective but they succeeded in taking over Earth early on?'

There is as much story continuation between these two games as there is between, say, a couple of Warhammer 40k games you might play against a bunch of different people. Same setting, same basic units, different outcomes.

 

[Bobular]

If they had called the game 'X-Com: Alternate' would it still have people complaining?

I'm genuinely asking as I like the new concept, but am wondering if those of you who don't like it would feel better about it if they basically came out and said 'wining x-com is cannon, this is an alternate universe'?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Why is there this assumption that just because there's a 2 on the front of the box, the game has to be a direct, linear continuation of the plot?

Up until this very moment in time, having the original title plus a 2 on the end implies a direct sequel. Games which have taken an "alternate universe/what if" approach have always had a title that implied it was not taking place in the primary timeline.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

"Concealment is a new mechanic..."

Tell that to my psionic medic with mimetic skin who almost literally carried my first classic ironman game. Saved my ass at least once per deployment, that one. Though, I attribute her badassery to having the Jennifer Hale voice more than any other aspect. Every playthrough, on every difficulty, with every class, the Jennifer Hale voice set characters were by best ones.

More on point, I think a lot of players who are salty over Firaxis' decision for metagame reasons seem to be suffering from selective memory, overestimation of their own abilities as players, and/or are completely full of it. Enemy Unknown could get downright roguelike on classic and impossible difficulties, setting aside advanced and second wave options. Bad starts were relatively common, would doom even the best players, and especially with the game's seeding mechanic being somewhat deterministic.

Most games, by the end of March you were either restarting the game, or resting assured in your long-term ability to take down the temple ship. And honestly, on classic+ difficulty the majority of the time you were restarting. I'm not uncomfortable in XCOM 2 (indirectly) acknowledging that some (most) times, you were just hosed no matter what.

I just hope Firaxis is taking notes from the Long War mod, in making XCOM 2 more of a grueling macro-focused back-and-forth exchange between humans and aliens, than Enemy Unknown/Within was. Especially when it came to the impromptu, do-or-die, truly hard choices you had to make over the course of an LW game.

 

[Niccolo]

Well, I'm unsuitably aroused.I shouldn't have read this on a full bus.

 

[Gretha Unterberg]

If they had called the game 'X-Com: Alternate' would it still have people complaining?

I'm genuinely asking as I like the new concept, but am wondering if those of you who don't like it would feel better about it if they basically came out and said 'wining x-com is cannon, this is an alternate universe'?

Yeah, I think thats the case.
Noone (or at least very few) complained that enemy unknown didn't continue the story of apocalypse.
A slighttly different take on the X-Com scenario ,a reboot , everything is fine.

Labeling something X-Com 2 is pretty much how you announce it as the canonical sequal right from the get go.
And telling people that it takes place years after the alien invasion (what happens to be the event of X-Com 1) drives that idea home.


"This is a different story about an alien invasion"
raises less fan-pushback then
"This is a sequal where almost everything from the prequal didn't happen"

 

[Lawbringer]

Maybe I missed it, but what reason was given for the sequel assuming you failed the first game? All I saw was a bunch of stuff about level design.

Most people lost there first games and most games are lost in comparison to people winning the war so they used that as a way to play on the next game.

But that's not at all what the article said! The reasoning was:

"XCOM 2 is based on those times - few though they may be - that you failed to fend off the invasion. It's a redemption of your losses, rather than a retcon of your wins. They went so far as to address folks who may never have lost, in that you're cleaning up other players' messes"

So basically it's to make up for those times that you did lose...think of it as a branching campaign for if you lose X-Com 1. If you win? Great! The Earth is saved again! If you lose? Nevermind...get X-Com 2 booted up and fight back!