XCOM 2 is, in every sense of the word, more XCOM. More content, more aliens, more weapons and gadgets to deal with those pesky alien invaders.
This time, however, the aliens have already won, and you find yourself grasping to reclaim our once-great Earth. Set 20 years after XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 tells a very familiar story of desperate survival against a stronger, more advanced army. Only this time, the humans are on the offensive.
This, of course, results in a tougher, more organised alien force right from the beginning. XCOM 2 definitely launches players into its punishing world with the expectation that you are pretty familiar with the previous game.
Enemies start with double the health, deadlier weapons and access to lethal psionic abilities, giving the early stages of the game a sharp learning curve.
As with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the half of the game that isn’t fighting aliens is spent managing your base of operations. Largely the same in terms of layout, your base offers the same sorts of push-and-pull that it did previously. Will you invest in further scientific research to aid your troops? Or will you seek to contact other nations on Earth in order to increase income and potentially expand your control?
XCOM 2 features the same secondary layer of more long-term strategy but with all kinds of new tools, gadgets and cool alien tech to analyse.
Unfortunately, at launch anyway, the game is riddled with bugs and struggles with a number of optimization issues, causing it to often run less than desirably. You may want to hold off until the patch some of the more glaring issues before picking this one up.
Ultimately, XCOM 2 is simply more of what the previous game offered. If you enjoyed what the previous game had to offer, there’s little reason not to check it out.
Platform played – PC
Publisher – 2K Games
Certificate – 16
Rating – 4/5
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