Xcom 2: Preview

Successfully restarting the classical strategy of the 90s in 2012, employees Firaxis and do not think to stop there. And although the way out Xcom 2 was postponed from November this year to February 5, 2016, there is plenty of information about the project. And the fact that the publisher pushed the release for a reason and developers will eventually release a product of the highest grade, there is no doubt – Firaxis Not a bast.

Xcom upside down

The second part is based not much from the first: the strategy is still divided into the global part, in which you can get reports from the fields, distribute resources and set tasks for the base personnel, and step-by-step tactical battles, where each soldier has two points of action. For example, during the course of the XCOM fighter moves to a certain number of cells and takes a shot. However Firaxis I would not have been if, having retained the familiar from the time UFO Defense Basic, did not turn everything else upside down.

Authors under the leadership of the creative director Jake Solomon (Jake Solomon) developed the history of the game universe in a very original way. Aliens, whom we methodically destroyed in ENEMY Unknown, Still seized the land and by 2035 built civilization at the junction of their and local technologies. Having pulled the entire population into huge megacities, the invaders created sterile totalitarianism there – just like in City 17 from Half-Life 2. While smiling TV presenters report the next successes of the “Friendship of Peoples”, the number of patrols, scanners and other control systems, including the monuments, grows on the streets. After all, it is more difficult to hide information about arrests, and centers of resistance arise around the world.

One of these partisan detachments, or rather, underground, who went underground, the XCOM group under the care of the looting commandant Bradford, we will be offered to head. If earlier the aliens were engaged in sabotage, now they were enlisted by the consent of the silent majority, and small daredevils who disagree with the anti -human regime act in the role of saboteurs. Accordingly, the situations also changed the conditions of the fight against the invaders: no international support and monthly bonuses for satellites in orbit. From now on you will have to be content with small. Instead of an impersonal army of engineers and scientists, a handful of volunteers, each of which you will remember with time not only by name, but also by person. And instead of a well -equipped base underground and hangars on each continent – the Avenger ship repelled from enemies, most compartments of which have yet to be repaired and adapted to the case.

The aliens were hiding before, and now the XCOM fighters are hiding, wandering on the Avenger on the backyards of the map. Like any partisans, they should not only establish contact with resistance cells, maintain riots and pack the enemy in every possible way, but also independently extract funds to fight. The captured weapon will serve in the next operation, and the researchers will probably come in handy for technologies, which, like containers with the composition from ENEMY WITHIN, lose value a few strokes after the start of the battle. Therefore, impudent raids to the warehouses and convoys of aliens are even more important than the destruction of enemy’s manpower: the resources of the invaders are practically inexhaustible, and you will have to protect everything from people to weapons.

Our business is dark – the victory will be behind us

Tactics in Xcom 2 great differs from what we are used to in the original. Now it is important to plan both a sudden attack and a retreat

without loss, because to tighten the shootout is more expensive. Unlike ENEMY Unknown, Where the defenders of the Earth and the aliens noticed each other at the same time, the second part gives a couple of moves to prepare and the maneuvers of the fighters, who will remain inconspicuous if you use shelters. So you can take the enemy by surprise, but the factor of surprise is perhaps the only advantage that will be given to use. Otherwise, due to the advantage of the enemy, in force and equipping, the battles remain complex, requiring the interaction of the entire detachment. Returning to the evacuation point, it is important to collect trophies and take out the fallen soldiers from the battlefield – if such heroes died earlier, now doctors on the Avenger will patch them and put them on their feet.

The abolition of the standard set of levels that were repeated from time to time in ENEMY Unknown. Having studied this or that location along and across, it was possible to plan the battles perfect from a tactical point of view, and in ENEMY WITHIN – also know in advance where containers are located with the composition. Now the levels are generated randomly, so each sortie turns into a surprise for both aliens and players. Together with a girl who has not been the opportunity to ruin the walls and fences, this does not make the passage of the missions at all.

In the spirit of such “partisanism”, developers redoed the classes of fighters. The Sniper was replaced by Sharpshooter (in principle, the words are close in meaning, since the second since the time of the Civil War in the United States implies the same sniper armed with a carbine of Sharps system). This class still specializes on well-aimed shots, but since tactics Xcom 2 Almost excludes the concept of a rearguard, can also exercise in handling a gun. Grenadier (Grenadier), replacing heavy infantrymen (Heavy) from ENEMY Unknown, remained with their explosives. Instead of attack aircraft (Assault), “the first to enter the battle and the last to leave it” rangers – with a shotgun at the ready and a sword behind his back, such a fighter is more useful with close contact. Finally, the support soldier was replaced by Specialist: he acts in the company Gremlin drone, with the help of which he crashes enemy turrets and distributes bonuses to his comrades.

Each character will be allowed to configure as you like: to change gender, race, nationality, to play with the appearance, as if in solid RPG, select clothing options and give the weapon a unique look. That is, emotional attachment to individual fighters will be stronger than in the first part. In order not to part with them forever, you will have to keep the game more often – Xcom 2, Like ENEMY Unknown, will punish for errors and a lost opportunity to make a “save”.

In the new strategy from Firaxis not only wards, but also enemies became more expressive. Thanks to human DNA, sectoids added in growth and dexterity, mutons began to act more carefully, and the berserkers and Crisalids dangerous in close combat acquired a truly threatening look. From classic aliens, familiar X-Com a model of the 90s, Viperov (Viper)-serpentine monsters, pulling the fighters from shelters will be returned to the game of 2016.

Although Xcom 2 It turns the soldiers of the Earth from the defenders of the world order into wrestlers with him, and instead of the usual shootings for destruction, he puts stealth at the forefront, the strategy still looks promising. Given the success ENEMY Unknown, There is no reason to believe that the developers will give a swing with the second part. Sleepless nights behind the solution of tactical puzzles, emotions from defeats and victories, convulsive attempts to correctly distribute resources when it is too late to do this – all this awaits us in February.