As a beloved cult classic franchise, XCOM has been around a long time and seen many forms of gameplay. While I eagerly await XCOM3 with a fervor that would put half-life 3 to shame, I’d love to hear your thoughts, stories and future hopes for the franchise. Spoiler warning, obviously.
My personal favorite is probably XCOM2, if only for the sheer number of mods that allow me to customize a single character for hours (only for them to die on their first mission) and completely overhaul the challenges and theme of the game.
I started with the XCOM reboot, which was such a delightfully crunchy little game full of steroid abusers wearing armor made out of hastily repurposed fridges. I would later look at a retrospective of the series and appreciate that the reboot simplified inventory management and condensed the base building down to just one base, which meant you could enjoy the strategy side of things without it wearing out its welcome. Just a fondly remembered game experience all around.
The DLC for XCOM was very welcome as well, adding new toys to play with but only letting you have them if you got off your ass and stopped over watching every turn. It was a good change that forced me to be aggressive in order to get a giant stompy mechsuit or a team full of go-go-gadget soldiers. It definitely refreshed the game for a playthrough or three.
Then came XCOM2, which turned the formula on its head and left me stunned that I canonically lost the last game. This inversion of not responding to random strikes all over the globe but /being the one doing them?/ I was SO in. Even on launch the game was a blast but they came out with some seriously solid DLC.
War of the Chosen is the closest I’ve seen to the universally praised (and regrettably copyrighted) Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor since that game came out, and they adapted it quite well to the style of the game. It rebalanced a few things, added new toys to play with, and gave you just another chance to have a massive wrench thrown into your plans to train up your all-rookie backup squad.
XCOM 2.5 episode 1 Chimera squad. Honestly? I liked it. I think it should stay a side project, a spin-off I can happily say is part of the XCOM family but it isn’t required reading to understand the rest of the franchise nor is it a massive experience you can’t miss on its own merit. It’s good for when you’re itching for a change but still want some XCOM. Can’t complain.
I love this series, one day I’ll go back and try the OG if I can ever get over the controls. Until then I’ll just stay here enjoying good company. So, what are your thoughts and experiences with the franchise (pre or post reboot)? Any legendary tales to share?
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left me stunned that I canonically lost the last game.
I really like their reasoning for it too. It wasn’t done as an arbitrary reason, every save you abandoned is a game the aliens won.
The XCOM 2 combat system ruined trpg’s for me because of how freely you can move and set up characters. I find myself saying “I wish this worked like XCOM” for just about every turn based game
I only played the two originals and X-COM: Apocalypse (which is XCOM3 to me, so I was very confused reading that it’s eagerly awaited…).
The first game (Enemy Unknown) is by far the best, and it’s still being developed today as Open XCOM, with improved gameplay, sounds and a few graphical improvements.
I’ve just played it shortly before Christmas, it’s as great as it was 30 years ago.
I started with X-Com: Terror from the Deep on the PS1. Loved it, sucked at it. I can still remember the fantastic atmosphere though, fueled mostly by my men horribly dying every few turns and the great music of the PS1 version. An example.
I put some time into the reboot, but never made it far, as I insisted on playing on ironman. Tried XCOM2 when it was in a humble bundle, but the timed missions made me quit.
Gave XCOM2 another try a few days ago and timed missions made me quit again. I know I could mod them out but I am not really a fan of changing gameplay elements on the first playthrough. Any tips on how to handle them?
I played two with a mod that disabled timed missions. Highly recommend if you want a less stressful experience.
There’s an option in the WOTC dlc to double the turn timers, if you’re not willing to just mod it. Don’t let turn timers ruin a fantastic game. It was probably a mod (can’t recall) but when I played timers didn’t start ticking down until you had been revealed, which added a lot to ensuring you set up ambushes right.
If you play with the War of the chosen DLC it increases limit on missions
I was a huge fan of X-COM from the 90s. I saw it in some magazine with a couple of screenshots and knew I would love it. I went to my local Media Play (basically like the proto-Best Buy before Best Buy) and they didn’t have it but their selection of PC games was large enough I went to the counter to have them look it up in case I missed it. I didn’t. But they’d order it for me. So a week later I had X-COM: UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown.
I loved it. It was hard but I loved having multiple bases, being invaded as part of the sandbox experience and the tactile stuff you could do. I love how you could destroy almost anything and the strategies you could do for that. Like if there’s an alien you can’t see on the second floor of a farm house but you can see the shots coming from there? You can just toss in an incendiary grenade in there and it’ll burn down the floor and spread. Maybe the alien panics and runs out. Maybe it falls through the floor. Maybe it burns to death.
Yes a first turn wipe with an alien grenade in the sky ranger sucks. but it kind of does add to the charm…after the fact when you think back on it later. Dumb civilians are dumb.
The pixel art is fantastic and you can really see it shine in the city maps with all of the cool details.
The biggest downside to the OG is that you can easily fall behind because there was essentially a static clock. You could doubly feel this because of the quick lack of funding as your funding lowers and nations leave. It would have been cool for those nations to try to fight back if they left you due to you ignoring them, even if that meant that the forces may be hostile to you if you happen to be fighting on the same turf or something.
X-COM 2 was more of the same but underwater with some bug fixes. X-COM 3 was different and I could see myself liking it if it was actually finished and focused on either real-time or turn-based.
When the XCOM reboot came out I thought I was going to hate it, especially with the simplified movement but it was great and even better with the expansion. The only thing I didn’t like was having to overwatch my way through at the beginning or risk losing a lot of people. The system of pods was also annoying. Also not being able to re-take nations after defeating the alien bases unmodded was annoying. Having basically “XCOM but bad guys” was also really cool to go along with the exosuits.
XCOM 2 was better, including with its expansion. I thought I’d hate more timed missions but it does force you not to overwatch all the time and in XCOM 2, you really don’t need to, even early on. Fantastic game. Being confined to one base was OK but I do prefer multiple bases but it made sense in the story and was still pretty cool. I have to always have three mods though: Evac All so I can just click one button to evac everyone in the square instead of going through each one-by-one; the one that makes the zombies equal chance to attack aliens, mostly for immersion; and lastly the mod that makes the rebels actually be armed and not be super dumb though they can still be really bad shots with really crappy guns, also mostly for immersion.
I hope XCOM 3 adds underwater and hope it just reboots again or does something very interesting with interstellar travel.
Really I would like them to treat XCOM like they do Civilization. Instead of a continuation of a story that will eventually be terrible, just keep revising the game every time but don’t do the Civ thing and release it again but hold back features from the last one just to be able to put them in a DLC later.
The first encounter part of almost all X-coms really suffered, if you walk into aliens and it isn’t enough of your teams turn then the baddies get a full round of shooting back at you just because you triggered their fod of war. Chimera Squad really good great with this because you got to breach each encounter and spend extra points to get a better first turn or not and the rest just come in waves.
Midnight suns is also fantastic and I consider it a spiritual cousin or whatnot.
I only discovered midnight suns some months back, quite happy with it though I never finished it. I should go back sometime
The important thing about XCOM is naming all your soldiers after your friends, that way it hurts more when they die!
My first experience with XCOM was with Enemy Unknown, although I’d heard whispers about the earlier games for years. My campaign was a wild experience and it fully sold me on the concept of permadeath.
I had a mid-game mission go terribly; I lost half my squad (Cyberdiscs, ugh) including my most senior officer. By this point in the game, I’d developed a taste for the randomness, and I started inventing narratives in my head for my troops. When it came time to recruit replacements, my newest assault Rookie was a British woman named Sarah Jones. Between the way her first mission played out and my growing confidence in being more aggressive with my troops (especially the new recruits), my headcanon set her as this plucky, reckless newbie. A couple missions later, when the game assigned her the nickname “Geronimo,” the narrative was set in stone. This was how I was going to play the character.
Rookie Jones became Colonel Jones, making it all the way to the last mission, becoming the star of my run. By the end, she became a little bit tempered by experience, but she was still Geronimo. Looking back, savescumming would have robbed me of that experience (a trap I’d sadly fall into with XCOM 2). I still think about Sarah Jones from time to time.
Mine was Sarah “Vandal” Hashim from Egypt. Tomboy haircut and black armor. I can’t count how many times she has saved my ass from tight situations.
I played X-COM UFO defence, TFTD, Apocalypse, XCOM Enemy Within, XCOM 2 War of the Chosen and even Chimera Squad.
One thing I can say is I like these type of games for different reasons, the older games were more logistically focused, less individually power fantasy but you knew your star players eventually from exemplary service and the gear you crafted did the heavy work. The power scaling felt good in the sense of being a managerial super star making sure your pixels were well equipped and armoured, you tried to understand your enemy and targeted their weaknesses. Bonus for the bullet physics felt “fair” - in the sense that it would go in the general direction where you fired.
Personally liked Apocalypse setting the best, even if it was incomplete and not fully realised.
Older games, I felt like desk jockey general drawing out the plans and thinking of the big picture.
The newer XCOMs streamlined the logistics and focused on that individual power scaling and making each soldier important as you are restricted to less per mission. I loved the MEC suits in Enemy Within and it played a lot smoother than the old ones, and I got used to and learned to enjoy the camp with War of the Chosen. It really made one care for soldiers and allowed for easier roleplaying. I personally get annoyed at the animation jank( especially misses) but overall the focus on ground combat is fun and challenging and I have a far easier time making stories in my mind how an operation played out.
I felt like my job was battlefield analysist and I would provide “real time” intelligence support.
Chimera Squad, I enjoyed the world building, breech mechanics and the turn system I think is a step in the right direction. I can accept the voiced and locked in team, but didn’t like the lose of freedom to manage a team. Felt like streamlining too far, still was a fun contained spin-off that has the roots of Apocalypse dragging around.
Wait, they’re doing an XCom3? When should I start getting hyped?
I finally picked up WotC when it was in the Xbox sale a couple weeks back and have been slowly working through it. I’ve been struggling a bit with the sheer amount of new mechanics being piled on since I haven’t played the base game since launch, but I’m enjoying it and I’m trying really hard not to save scum!
Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised when I recognised the voices of 5 (or 6?) Star Trek:TNG actors, it felt like a bit of a reunion.
Don’t get excited, it sounds like it’s in a bit of a development hell as they try to figure out what to do with it and the big names behind the first two leave the studio
Ah well that’s a shame. I guess I’ll pretend like I never found out about it.
Tales from:
UFO Defence
- Using flying suits with heavy plasma to make holes on the top of an alien space ship and dropping High Explosives in the subsequent hole, alternatively getting visual on aliens with blaster launchers and mind controlling them
- Using low psionic skill soldiers as stun rod specialists and using them as point men on missions
- Doing Terror Missions and completing them with a positive score
- The feeling of power having global radar coverage, a powerful airforce, and enough ground defense systems to ignore any alien attempt to try and stop you from shooting down all their UFOs
TFTD
- Being able to smack a lobsterman with a melee weapon
- Being able to complete at least one of every terror mission type specifically cruise ships and artifact sites
- Learning about and being able to prevent the sneaky ambush attacks the enemy likes to do
Apocalypse
- Successfully identify and investigating infected buildings and getting a 100% hit rate
- Watching highly advanced trans-dimension alien craft being shot down by a swarm of hoverbikes
- Laughing maniacally when the aliens drop a Kaijuu on the city and it targets your enemies first
- When you can research and build shields and teleporter packs and can be decked out in XCOM propriety armour
XCOM Enemy Within
- MEC Trooper kinetic punch execution animation on all the big aliens
- Building a sniper that acts as a guardian angel with an archangel suit
- Making sure tutorial survivor, Hernandez does every mission and becomes the Volunteer
- Doing a mission with Annette and the Furies once they are Psi-Ops
XCOM 2 War of the Chosen
- Having to deal with a Warlock Avenger Defence during the Lost Dark Event, casually sniping for an hour trying to thin the aliens out, out pops a surprise Gate Keeper, PC stutters and I thought it froze as it revives I can only assume minimum 50+ enemies, most of it Lost and me bringing out every weapon and ability at my disposable to make sure the Gatekeeper dies before I do. I think that mission ended with close to 400 kills
- Having a templar rush into a group of enemies, activate his ghost, and have one of the ghosts and the templar reflect on the same turn from two different enemies while having bladestorm kick in with both ghosts and templar.
- Using a Reaper on supply drops with Lost, try get the Lost and Advent fighting each other while I keep my team hidden nearby the supplies for quick tagging when I need to go loud.
- Do final mission for legendary win - which is like attempt 80+ or something for this run, with a team of faction members plus 3 of my best units - templar is my unit I put most care into, chip down the last objective enemy, rush it with the Templar, it standing next to his objective and finishes it off with an Ionic Storm
