2K games announced that XCOM 2 will release on February 5th for the Windows PC, with Mac and Linux versions coming through Feral Interactive, possibly at a later stage. They’ve also revealed that their XCOM 2: Digital Deluxe Edition is now available for pre-purchase for $74.99 USD (the base game pre-order costs $59.99 USD). The Deluxe Edition adds the “Reinforcement Pack”, a 3-DLC pack to be released at a later stage which can be bought separately for $19.99 USD.
Details on the Reinforcement Pack:
The Reinforcement Pack includes the following:
- Anarchy’s Children: featuring rebellion-themed content with more dramatic soldier customizations (releasing spring 2016);
- Alien Hunters: introducing new gameplay surrounding XCOM as an elite alien hunting unit tracking down “Ruler” aliens, along with a new mission, soldier customization options and more powerful weapons and armor (releasing summer 2016);
- Shen’s Last Gift: offering a brand new soldier class with unique upgradeable weapons, armor and customization features, as well as an additional narrative-driven mission and map (releasing summer 2016).
The pre-purchase offer, which is granted either one buys XCOM 2 or XCOM 2: Digital Deluxe Edition, is the “Resistance Warrior Pack”, which adds further soldier customization options such as “bonus outfits, headgear, and custom facial war paint”. The “Resistance Warrior Pack” also unlocks a survivor of the old war as a recruit in the barracks.
Time to rebuild the XCOM project Commander? Hopefully, the bugs and glitches will be less this time, the maps more varied, the progression feel less scripted, and the inventory management more interactive. If all that is achieved and the aesthetics level is maintained or improved then we may be headed for something very special. We shall see.
We’ll continue to follow XCOM 2 and will offer more updates if they are pertinent, and naturally our review afterwards when the game is officially released.
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I don’t pre-order anything, any more. Now I wait for reviews. And then a sale :)
Wow,,,seriously,, the base game is $60 just to pre-order,, how much they going to charge at release date…. ?
Seems like I’ll be waiting a couple of years like I did with current X-COM Enemy Unknown ,,for the sale price on steam…
Is modding tools available on launch? I know Firaxis has been making a huge deal about modding support and how it cares about the PC market but seeing all these future DLCs in the pipeline, I imagine modding support will happen later rather than sooner.
It will all come down to whether this game proves to be.
Will it be just X-COM with better graphics and a few new mechanics? That may be the best possible outcome compared to the alternatives, which could be a milking or that the game is a shadow of itself despite the graphic improvements. There is also the risk of a SOTS2-like bug-fest.
Firaxis has damaged a lot of goodwill within the 4X community. I cannot recommend that anyone buy this game until we see it.
I hope it’s good, but I won’t be surprised if it does suck. Disappointed again, but not surprised.
A lot of youtubers have posted hour long gameplay of XCOM 2. People like Beaglerush and Angry Joe were invited to Firaxis to try out a campaign demo so check out their channels and make up your mind.
From what I saw, it’s a good evolution of the game based on the core mechanics of XCOM. If you liked XCOM then XCOM 2 is a safe buy. If you were on the fence about the original then still get it when it’s cheap because mods will definitely make the game shine.
I don’t really worry about bugs when it comes to devs like Firaxis (and yes, I bought SOTS 2 too). There will be some bugs of course, but they’ll either be patched quickly or just a minor nuisance. Beyond Earth had another project manager/lead designer so I wouldn’t tar both games with the same brush either.
What I want to know is if your soldiers will still turn into screaming children and gun down the rest of your team because they completely lost their shit at the sight of the aliens or because they saw one of their friends die. This one single mechanic ruined the last game for me.
Yes, it will be.
In the original, your panicking soldier had enough action points to shoot more than just one of your own guys so be grateful for this iteration. =)
It’s not the game’s only problem. I just tried the original Xcom again with the famous Long war mod and I stopped playing after a few hours. There is just so much bullshit in this game. I hate it for example how enemies like thin man can just literally drop from the sky without warning. It makes luck too big an element within the game. The mission that made me rage quit was one where I was escorting a scienctist to a safe zone but then just before he got there a thin man dropped from the sky out of nowhere and killed him, causing me to lose the mission. If bullshit like this is still in the sequel then I won’t buy it.
The original was a DOS era game – http://store.steampowered.com/app/7760/
With the escort missions, there’s no time limit, so just put everyone on over watch. I usually have 1/2 the team surrounding the target, which are always on over watch, and 2 or 3 ppl up front, triggering the aliens.
My top tip do not play the Long war mod until you have at least played through the Vanila game once otherwise you gonna die, die, die, die, die and loose and get frustrated extremely quickly. Because long war is extreme hard! The difficult curve is extremely steep If you can’t manage the basics tactics there is no chance you are going to survive the MOD.
I also forgot to mention other game breaking bullshit in the last game, like unfair enemy tactics. The AI got an extra move when they saw you (thankfully removed in the sequel I hear), and some enemies like the thin men would literally just drop from the sky out of thin air completely messing up your strategy at no fault of your own. All of these little flaws combined ruined the whole experience for me.
EDIT: Oh, and then there’s the often random hit percentage. I would often move my soldiers to locations close to the enemy on the assumption they would have a high hit chance, only to be met with a estimate of 30-50% when I was expecting something much higher. It’s nonsense.
I started playing X-Com: EW using the Long War mod simply because you started out with what I believed to be a more realistic set of parameters…namely, being outfitted with weapons/armor/gadgets like a real military organization. To offset this, and as I would expect, you are woefully under-powered for a good while against the aliens and research takes a long (war) time.
Given that I haven’t played Vanilla, I will resort to save scumming since I don’t always know what to expect, but I haven’t had to do it too often except for missions that are just bat shit insane. My last bomb disposal mission had upwards of 3 Mutons per node…sometimes with Floaters with special abilities like Covering Fire. There was so little time to be able to combat them smartly, I had to essentially run a Scout across the map to reach the bomb. Two out of three times, she would be nailed in full cover by a Muton. De-activating the bomb brought a six-pack of Thin Men. However, that was a Council mission that brought in $230 and dropped panic almost to nil in Australia. Crikey!
However, with that said, I still enjoy LW over Vanilla. Going back to Vanilla is like beating up kindergarteners after what you learn in tactics from LW :) There is no useless soldier in LW.
Tips:
1) Always, always try to get to full cover. Also, choose Low Profile/Lightning Reflexes for all Scouts to break Overwatch and get to (usually) safe locations.
2) Run, don’t walk, to Lasers
3) Get Sapper for Engineers. Nothing like extra damage from those grenades (x2)
4) Suppression will save you…many times
5) Search for ‘Ursinus1 Long War” on YouTube for a dude that is working his way through LW (currently 220 episodes).
Long War is a great mod but my god it suffers from a lot of padding. In fact, grinding large UFOs became so tedious I just stopped playing after a while.
Also, like all mods, the designers are far better at adding great stuff than keeping good things out – the amount of weapon choices was really heading to bloatville before they decided to call it a day when XCOM 2 was announced.
I think that there is a variant of Long War out that gets rid of most of the bloat.
It’s only the hardcore who have lots and lots of spare time that are able to finish the Long War. For most of us with jobs and lives, we cannot possibly devote that kind of time.
Oh, yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t mention that I’m playing the Dynamic War option (50% of Long War) and chose Cinematic Mode (soldiers are more accurate) because I have patience…but not that much :). I most likely won’t finish the game, but I keep going until I either get burned out or feel like I’m in a corner that I can’t escape. Since we “lost” in X-Com 2, I’ll just thematically consider leaving the game as losing the war.