Terror From the Deep always felt like an expansion and I wouldn't be altogether surprised if it became one. Look to the waters, those untouched dark waters that take up so much of the map and yet contribute so little. The sequel cranks up the fear factor with some of its alien redesigns but an expansion could really bring the terror by doing what so many of us expected in the first place. That detour into body horror hammered home the cost of the fight but it's not the kind of horror I want from XCOM. I suspect we're supposed to believe the soldiers have volunteered for the process but I felt like I'd duped them because I hadn't expected the alterations to be quite so permanent. The conversion process requires total limb loss. One nightmare specifically, which was like a combination of Johnny Got His Gun and that one good scene in the Robocop reboot. I didn't write about it at the time but the short cutscene that shows the actual conversion process for MEC Troopers gave me nightmares. More importantly, it added creepy-awesome gene-mangling and bionic troops. With that in mind, I've considered three possible futures for XCOM, with no spoilers whatsoever for XCOM 2.Įnemy Within was a fine expansion, providing the first signs of the narrative bridge that indirectly leads to XCOM 2's occupied Earth. It's also a far more meaningful and consequential sequel than Terror From The Deep ever was. It might not shake up the formula quite enough to win over those who didn't get along with its predecessor but for those who did enjoy Enemy Unknown, it's a weighty and thoughtful follow-up. These are desperate times and you are controlling the last remnants of humanity's heroic streak, a fully customisable army of your family and friends.Īs I said in my XCOM 2 review, the game is an instant classic. The X-/XCOM organisation has never felt more suited to the small-scale tactical scraps they're involved in than during this post-invasion resistance. Beyond that, it doesn't reinvent the wheel but it does expand on the original magnificently. XCOM 2 does fix the linearity of the satellite-building strategic game. I met Jake Solomon while I was visiting Firaxis - a half-jesting query about XCOM met with a variation of "if it ain't broke" and a laugh. Here are a few ideas and hopes for what the game's first expansion might be. These are happy times for the XCOM devotee but I'm hoping for an apocalyptic future. The answer, as we now know, didn't quite fit any of the above. Would it follow the path of the original games and take to the Lovecraftian depths? Would it reach toward the stars and a battle on various alien homeworlds? Would it take risks or rest comfortably on well-earned laurels? The game hadn't been announced but surely somebody was working on a sequel. I visited Firaxis in 2014 to see Civilization: Beyond Earth and it was impossible not to wonder which closed doors were hiding the XCOM 2 team.
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