XCOM 2 - Resistance Isn't Futile

[Aubrielle]

XCOM 2 is promising scarier aliens and a more frightening experience. PC Gamer has more.

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I’m in trouble. I need to put a soldier on the back of a flatbed truck, so I can hack the device it’s carrying and abscond with the alien secrets inside. As it happens, the truck is on fire. It shouldn’t be, but I used a grenade to take out the Advent trooper standing next to it and things sort of got out of hand. I’ve got three soldiers left—the fourth having died earlier—and I don’t want to lose another to a fire I’ve made them stand in. Sadly, I can’t see an alternative, so I pick the XCOM agent with the most health and tell them to burn themselves alive. That’s when the Sectoid shows up.

“The aliens are brutal in XCOM 2,” says lead producer Garth DeAngelis. “I’m really proud of that. If you look at the Sectoid, for instance, of Enemy Unknown versus XCOM 2, the Sectoid in Enemy Unknown could mind-merge and they could shoot their gun. They can shoot their gun in XCOM 2 as well, but they can also do an attack called ‘mind spin’, which will panic or disorient you. Or mind control you. That can happen as well. The first alien in the game can mind control you.”

That isn’t what happens in my playthrough. It’s the second mission, and, after battling through Advent troops, I’m now experiencing my first alien encounter. One of my soldiers is now on fire. The Sectoid waves a hand, and a psionic purple tendril reaches out to a dead Advent soldier. He gets up. It turns out Sectoids can reanimate people, too. This is bad. The zombie has the drop on my burning soldier. I have been outflanked by a corpse. My soldier is able to take down the reanimated agent, but not before he removes a significant chunk of her health. A turn later, uniform aflame, she succumbs to the fire.

DeAngelis smiles as I recount my experience. “That’s great to hear,” he says. “You have the Advent administration on the front lines. They’re tactically interesting to fight, but we want the surprise—the really cool stuff—to come from these aliens that are emerging from the shadows as the XCOM resistance grows stronger. In this world they’ve always been behind the scenes. Humanity doesn’t really know if the aliens are there or not. They just know there’s this Advent administration that are their saviours. And now XCOM is pulling these more sinister aliens to the front, and you have to fight and face them.”

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[azarhal]

I found the enemies in XCOM Enemy Within scary enough.

And did I read that right? The Sectoids can make zombies and mind control now. No. no. no. no. no.

 

[Dragonx]

I found the enemies in XCOM Enemy Within scary enough.

And did I read that right? The Sectoids can make zombies and mind control now. No. no. no. no. no.

PC only, so they can put more scary graphics and better AI into those damn naughty aliens to hurt our squaddies good. I don't think the Developers want us to beat it on the first try lol. MY first playthrough i will play on normal Ironman mode, and not know anything besides a few previews. I refuse to watch any play throughs or enemies showcases on youtube until im done with my first Ironman playthrough.
This will be fun, my favorite game series ever, and i have always been a save scummer until only recently i decided to be a real man and play ironman mode.

 

[sakichop]

I'm glad to see a PC exclusive from a AAA developer but I haven't seen anything that would make me think this couldn't run on consoles. Could they really be spending that many cycles on AI?

 

[azarhal]

I'm glad to see a PC exclusive from a AAA developer but I haven't seen anything that would make me think this couldn't run on consoles. Could they really be spending that many cycles on AI?

Firaxis said it was because their expertise is PC game development, but apparently, the previous XCOM sold poorly on consoles (it didn't even chart on the top 10 for its release month) and a lot of people speculate that's the real reasons (aka the publisher doesn't want to pay for it).