#Xcom 2 war of the chosen long war 2 mod#

But sadly, none of that is actually reflected in gameplay – the moment you run up against a Chosen they decide to unite against the common foe all on their own, and none of the choices you make risks angering them you only decide which ones you want to improve relations with first. In the new intro cinematics, these three rebel factions talk a big game (in the recognizable voices of Star Trek: The Next Generation actors Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, Denise Crosby, and John Delanci) about hating each other’s guts and needing to be unified under the XCOM banner. Soon after that you can meet the Templars. Starting a new campaign with the story mode enabled quickly introduces you to the powerful Reaper and Skirmisher soldier classes with a multi-part scripted mission that effectively teaches you their basics by splitting your squad into two before joining up for a six-person squad battle against the a Chosen. On the XCOM side, we more than keep pace with the new threats.

#Xcom 2 war of the chosen long war 2 mod#

That said, much of the dialogue is fairly generic “You’ll never defeat me!” supervillain stuff, and as a fan of the Quiet Bradford mod I wonder how many campaigns I’ll play before I’ll want to see them muzzled. They’ll remark specifically about your actions, taunting you when you take losses, dismissing the deaths of disposable Advent troopers as meaningless, and calling out the use of special weapons like the Bolt Caster. The Chosen are meant to add personality to the otherwise faceless aliens of XCOM 2 (besides the Spokesman, who you never get to shoot), and to some degree that’s successful. If you do, though, they have some nice weapons as a reward.Ĭhosen start with two strengths and two weaknesses, but the strengths grow. And because they’ll keep coming back from the dead until you track down and destroy their resurrection chambers, they’re not easy to put down for good. When the Hunter gained an invulnerability to melee attacks and then an Avatar-like power to teleport whenever he took damage, the fights against him took on a very different feel. Their random weaknesses (a vulnerability to one of the three hero classes and one type of attack, such as explosives) and growing list of random strengths are a clear nod to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's outstanding Nemesis system, and that keeps the threat scaling up as you increase XCOM’s power.

Because of that, and the fact that they only get to move once per turn (though they seem to have either a lot of actions or several special abilities that don’t cost an action), they didn’t feel like unfair squad-killers like the Rulers from the Alien Hunters DLC, but they aren’t pushovers by any means, either. “Then, when you get up close enough to directly engage them, the Chosen will try to abduct and interrogate your troops rather than kill them outright. The Low Profile sitrep allows only low-ranking soldiers. On top of that, there are tons of new Dark Events, such as giving all Advent troopers Lightning Reflexes for a month, and a huge amount of new continent bonuses, including one that provides a chance for a random Advent soldier to defect and join you in a mission. One populates the map entirely with beasts like Faceless, Berserkers, and Chryssalids another removes the fog of war (for you, not the enemies) and one scatters high-explosive containers around that you can avoid or use to your advantage. Any mission is subject to being affected by modifiers known as Sitreps that put random twists on conditions that can have major effects on what squad and equipment you’ll want to go in with. Many of the original map sets have noticeable new elements to them, such as the Advent City’s new bridges.

Neither is what I’d call pretty or colorful, but they’re just as detailed as the original set of locations, and more is always better. “Many of those take place on new map tilesets like the Abandoned City or the decaying underground sewers – both a stark, refreshing contrast to the gleaming Advent-built metropolises.