The addition of a “concealment” system works in concert with these changes. The constant reminder that failure is only a few missteps away evokes a sense of doom, urging the player to consider the high stakes of every battle. What exactly this will mean isn’t clear until near the end of the campaign, but XCOM 2 is quick to inform that, should the bar fill up and the project complete, the game is lost. Periodically, pips on a red progress bar fill up on the top of the screen, acknowledging that the aliens are moving ever closer to Avatar’s completion. While resource balancing and agonizing research choices do much of the work, a significant contributor to this tone is the alien’s “Avatar Project”-an ominous icon in the middle of the ocean that the invaders are constructing. Rather than simply use occasional cinematics and dialogue to state that the XCOM project has become small, inadequately funded, and desperately outmatched, Firaxis infuses every moment of play with a palpable sense of desperation. ![]() The soldiers who drop into direct battle never seem to be as well equipped as they could be-with the game’s “supply” currency being so hard to accumulate. Inside the team’s mobile base, there always seem to be at least half a dozen construction and research projects that need attention. The overhead strategic map-an overview of the globe with points of interest marked in various regions-is dotted with oppressed nations waiting for the XCOM resistance’s help. Where Enemy Unknown was a game about managing a deteriorating situation, the player always growing more powerful as they fought back the alien invasion, XCOM 2 is focused on making the best out of a bad situation. ![]() In the years that passed between the two games, the aliens have been integrated into national governments, leaving only a small resistance movement commanded by the player to fight back against a totalitarian force.ĭespite the relative unoriginality of its underdog storyline, XCOM 2’s narrative provides a welcome change in tone from its predecessor. Whether or not the player triumphed in Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 starts with the earth having been dominated by the invaders. ![]() The opening mission sees the player taking control of a handful of soldiers planning a guerrilla attack on an alien-dominated city.
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