It’s hard to even find a place to start when considering the prospect of writing a review for XCOM 2. This is a game I’ve been playing on and off for years since it’s release and one that I simply can’t let go of. XCOM 2 is the perfect mix of turn based strategy with enough challenge and customization to ensure almost unlimited replay value.

Every couple of months I always find myself thinking about this game, wondering if the time I remember spending really was as good as I remembered or if my memories were just tainted with nostalgia. And every, single, time, I get drawn back in like a moth to a flame.

Wether it’s a new mod I want to try, a character I want to make, or a little rush of courage taunting me to go ironman just one more time, XCOM 2 has become ultimate video game comfort food and something I could legitimately have playing in the back of my head at all times. Sure, it can still be buggy and frustrating, but the mechanics and gameplay loop displayed are so damn good I genuinely find myself looking for a similar level of prestige in a bunch of other games. Usually with little success.

I started another run a week or two ago after taking a good look at my backlog and realizing I was feeling too lazy to boot up a brand new game just yet. “Just one more for old time’s sake” turned into a relentless steam workshop dive and yet another obsessive playthrough that had me cheering, yelling and cussing out my monitor at all times of the night.

With the addition of War Of The Chosen, what was already an insane package becomes this ridiculously good story crafted by your own soldiers, their respective triumphs and defeats, and stakes that are always looming over you. Everything from the base and time management to the tactical gameplay and world events just fits together perfectly to create an engaging experience that is so, so hard to put down.

For what it’s worth, nothing in terms of turn based strategy has come close to this game for me. Both a blessing and a curse, XCOM 2 has cemented itself as one of my favorite games over the course of many years and many campaigns. Until the sequel inevitably comes out, I’m sure there’ll be many more hours to come where I will be absolutely rinsing this game, but in the meantime, don’t forget your advent burgers.

>99% hit chance
>miss
>10% hit chance for enemy
>hit and crit
fml

XCOM 2 sucks due to one system and one system only. Everything else about the game is great. Unfortunately, it's held back by the way enemy spawning works.

When one of your units gets close enough to an unseen "pod" of enemies, that effectively spawns those enemies, causing them to enter combat. Those enemies immediately get one free movement action and will then act on the next enemy turn. It sounds like a fine system, but it carries with it a bunch of incredibly unfun implications.

First of all, it means you're CONSTANTLY playing around this mechanic, with every single movement decision you ever make prioritizing the risk of spawning enemies above all else. Spawning new enemies with your first soldier's action on your turn is great. Spawning new enemies with your last soldier's last action basically means you lose on the spot. You have to constantly be mindful of never sending anyone too far from your other soldiers and never sending anyone too far ahead of your first one or two movements. The problem with that is... it means your actual tactical options in nearly all situations are incredibly limited. I quickly learned that trying to flank enemies on most maps (unless making use of very specific mechanics like a stealthed unit) is beyond pointless- you get a better chance to hit if you get lucky, but if your flanker bumbles into enemies they just die on the spot.

This mechanic was present in the previous XCOM game and incentivized just slowly and methodically moving your squad through every map without taking any risks. It was kind of a mess, though the game was ultimately still pretty fun. XCOM 2 tries to spice this up by adding time limits to missions, which is sort of a good idea but doesn't really fix the core problem. It's still suicide to try to do anything remotely clever, you just have to make sure you're moving your squad EFFICIENTLY now. They also tried to balance the game a bit more by making classes (including the special DLC ones) that specialize in close combat WAY stronger, which is nice, but doesn't work too well in practice. Yes, if you get a soldier with a shotgun directly next to an enemy they'll pretty much one-shot it, but the act of doing so risks extending your vision far enough that you'll just spawn more enemies, throwing the risk/reward ratio off.

Once you understand these systems the game isn't all that hard (though it's generally much, much tougher than XCOM 1 which is nice) but it's often just.. boring. So often I felt like I had ideas for what I wanted to do, risky or interesting maneuvers to take advantage of the terrain, but had to nix the idea because it involves moving in such a way that I might spawn enemies and die on the spot.

One last unrelated complaint- the randomness adds interesting variance and emergent situations but I've always been baffled by games of this nature that are weirdly unwilling to just give you a 100% chance sometimes. If you actually do manage to get one of those close-range soldiers up close only to find they have a 91% chance of hitting and then they miss and die (because they're at close range and in danger) it just feels so arbitrary and pointless.

Edit: There's actually another massive problem with the game- the base-building meta-progression stuff. It's mostly just kinda uninteresting, but the real problem with it is you have to complete research projects and whatnot without knowing what their results will be, but (especially on higher difficulties) you can REALLY screw yourself by not getting the right tech within the right timeframe. This means either trial-and-erroring your way though and potentially losing a run because you fell behind or just looking up a guide or something. It's not inherently problematic to lose a run because you failed to manage your base properly, the problem is the base management is boring- I'm in it for the tactical combat, I don't want to lose because I didn't have foreknowledge that it's a waste of time to perform an autopsy on Glup Shitto and you should instead prioritize building the Blowjob Factory.

this is hard to explain but ill try, i love the gameplay, its tense, punishing and precise, but i despise everything else, presentation most of all, WHAT do my band of revolutionary insurrectionists look like? insane missed opportunities to give players sawed off shotguns, home made rifles, molotvs, kamizaki drone;, base management is crazy dumbed down, you can do whatever at any time and it will work, didnt like that there were so many story builds too, music is whatever, certainly worst than the first game, again, missed opportunity to capitalize on the revolutionary mercs angle, the story is lamer gurren lagann lol, whatever, will probably play again with the sounds turned off

the platonic ideal of a sequel, really. still has the core appeal of the first game but not afraid to be its own thing as well - the feeling of justtt scraping by, just barely being able to win missions and get supplies is so enthralling, especially when coupled by the avatar project mechanic. it makes the game so engaging so early, and when that pressure loosens up as you get deeper into it, with more assets at your disposal, the game really opens up into the most fun i've ever had in a strategy game. the fact that this is on a vanilla save file, with no dlc or mods, is all the more exciting. really can't wait to delve into dlc, and maybe eventually modding. fantastic game, i think i like it more than EU, if only slightly

Facilmente um dos jogos mais punitivos/recompensadores que já joguei. Um dos seus problemas é não se explicar suficientemente bem para o jogador, sendo a aprendizagem majoritariamente por tentativa e erro até ser capaz de entender o que o jogo espera dele.

A progressão é uma maravilha. Em uns bons momentos fiquei felizão de ter adquirido certa compra, feito um novo loadout e aprimorado meus soldados pensando no squad como um todo. O combate é intenso, tanto pelo level design, com uma geração procedural muito boa, quanto pelo RNG das ações. Tem uma história que não fede nem cheira.

Pra quem curte turn based strategy é um ótimo jogo.