XCOM® 2

Tactics. Consequenses. Percentiles. Everything you can ever want from a game.

Still excellent. A great modernization of one of the best games ever.

>looking for hard game
>ask 2K employee if the difficulty is scenario optimization or sheer luck
>they don't understand
>I pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is scenario optimization or what is sheer luck
>they laugh and say "it's a hard game sir"
>buy game
>it's sheer luck

The absolute best strategy game iv'e ever experienced in over 25 years of gaming. unmatched customisation and never-ending mod support.

Amazing Strategic game. One of the most life-changingly good game

It is great! It is better than Cats. I will play it again and again!

"this is the best game ever and i am going to play it forever" i said back when xcom 2 was first invented in the 4th century. some people never learn

4th play-through with Long War 2 modpack. I have easily spent 1000+ hours on this game and will probably comeback again for a 5th run. XCOM 2 is easily top 3 games of all time for me. Buy this if this genre is your forte.

I have over 100 hours and still haven't beaten the game because it likes to smash your balls with a sledge hammer. Mod make it awesome and makes me feel like a kid playing with action figure though.

Truly my only fault with this game is the hit detection/chance to hit mechanics, I played this shortly before playing Phoenix Point and of the things I could say for both, the targeting system worked better in Phoenix Point, but everything else here, from story, to missions, to the strategic layer, to the music was just better.

I want to recommend this but at the same time i don't

Expect the same old Xcom bullshit, AI bending the rules to fuck with you, even on normal.
Bullshit Crits, some enemies are too spongy even after you get plasma weapons.

On one hand, they did seem to mitigate the "issue" you had in Xcom 1 where towards the endgame you would absolutely SHIT on the aliens (especially with the mech augments and psi operatives). in this game, its one of the major negatives about it.
The content from the 1st games DLCs is essentially gone, with one "reintroduced" via one other DLC (shens last gift) which is, ok, but its not nearly as cool as turning your soldiers into mech nuggets.

same for psi operatives, theyre strong, but its not as good as the first game.

If you really love xcom and you already know what bullshit you can expect, youll be having fun, and youll be raging, this game has it all.
How ever, its still inferior to the original, in many ways. One of the biggest one is the liberal use of timers on missions, which stay just as annoying at the endgame as they do in the beginning (there are mods for that).

Again, i "recommend it" because its not a bad xcom game, the polish is there, the gameplay is there, its Xcom.

BUT, its also horseshit, the UI is a fucking mess, get ready to reload cause you misclicked, or the map jerked and your dude ran right in front of a berserkers face, or for some reason you accidentally clicked a numeral twice and you guy ran face first into a group of mutons.
Its a fun, but also a very frustrating game. Get it on sale. And honestly, dont feel bad savescumming.

Otherwise, get drunk and play ironman.
Get it on a deep sale.

XCOM 2 / War of The Chosen is a great continuation of the classic XCOM / Enemy Within. I went straight to playing War of The Chosen expansion, which is more fledged than the base game. XCOM 2 delivers a really meaningful story while incorporating some of the old charms or enemies and making them feel new. This second game really pulls you in where you want to complete everything perfectly, as this is much more punishing than the first game. Still, it is incredibly immersive—every decision has consequences and every loss stings. The most notable are the villains or the "Chosen," as we call them. These major enemy bosses have distinct personalities, strengths, and irritatingly persistent vendettas. These enemies evolve and grow stronger over time, and while you think they are overpowered, you get the chance to ally yourself with new resistance factions that have their own vendettas with the Chosen and with their own unique classes, whether it is the stealthy Reapers, the psionic Templars, or the high-energy Skirmishers, these units add much-needed variety to your squad tactics and encourage more creative, risk-taking plays thus giving you a satisfying long-game rivalry with the antagonists. Facing them feels personal, and beating them feels like revenge. Getting a piece out of every one of your squad members and ranking them up to become unstoppable is really satisfying. Squad customization is a whole lot better too. Visually, it's as stylish and atmospheric as ever. The voice acting (especially the Chosen) is top-notch, and the narrative flavor is much richer now, with dynamic story moments woven into the gameplay. Even the base management gets more interesting, with covert ops and faction dynamics adding layers of strategic depth. There are a ton of new weapons, gadgets, abilities, and armor that are really fun to try out, and their phasing out to newer tiers is satisfying as well. I do have to say that with both XCOM games, this gets grindy really quickly. Once the campaigns and the various game modes become too repetitive, the mod workshop makes it interesting and replayable with various tune-ups to the base game to complete overhauls and fan-made projects like various Star Wars mods and much more. XCOM 2 has evolved immensely, and hopefully, XCOM 3 can shine the same if one does get made (not Chimera Squad).

Very good tactical game, worth buying during discount.

best game in its class, nails its art and aesthetic. Custom soldiers trained from rookies make being invested easy. Superb game, needs a sequel.

Here to say its an awesome game (You Gotta do WOTC DLC). Hope for XCOM 3 soon!

I played this a few years ago and then put it down. I decided to get back into it but this time started over with the War of the Chosen expansion. I love it. I hope to finish it soon. I am able to stay on top of the Avatar project better than last time as I didn't know what I was doing, lol. That is the best reason I am staying with it this time around.

Buy one game and get to play XCOM, Star Wars, and Mass Effect. Bless those modder.

It's a tough game that I both enjoy and hate. The game is super fun to play but you get into moments when you've got an enemy pinned down and in your sights and... 89% chance to hit... you pull the trigger and... 'whiff'... nothing. And it happens again... and again... it's like your troops aren't even trying.
I like the game... the learning curve isn't awful but sometimes the info will come at you like an avalance and you are going to get snowed under... play this the first time on Easy... don't feel guilty... just get the feel for the game and after that ramp it up.
If yo're ok with the base game then grab XCom 2 The War of the Chosen... it makes the game that much more difficult but also rather fascinating. You really can't go wrong with this one.

I love love love this game, Its great fun, from beginner to pro. You can set the settings anyway your play style calls for (mostly). Replayablity is a big part of the fun! Meny classes to choose from, even make a trooper that even looks like you (mostly). Did I say it's alot alot of fun!! They need to make another one how this game ends, there is more to the story!!!! If you love turn based, this is your game.

Enjoyable.
It takes a while to learn how to navigate and the War of Chosen expansion complicates things all over again, but that adds to the fun.
Its going to take a longtime for this oldie, to be comfortable doing a legendary ironman run!

Very difficult even on the second difficultly, but fun nevertheless. Fun game as a lot of modern games are too easy in my opinion.

One of the most infuriating games I've ever played. I love strategic games, but this is just RNG slot machine with elements of strategy.
You constantly hear from the fans of the franchise about learning risk mitigation to prevent failing, but even if you do everything right you can still lose everything because of bad luck (one time my troops failed to shoot aliens almost point-blank 4 times with 95% chance of hitting).
I know that this is probably because devs wanted us to feel like we are in the guerilla army, but this is just nonsense. If you ever feel like you hate randomness in your games, then don't pick up XCOM.

Great game! A few QOL improvements to XCOM make it even better. It's generally the same game with some enhancements. This is my first time playing it
playing with mods: evac all, true concelmant, gotcha again and perfect information.
link to full list:
https://www.reddit.com/r/XCOM2/comments/v0ltof/comment/iahlnue/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Excellent tactical turn-based strategy game. I love the opportunity cost dilemmas present during the planning/building phases, and the fighting phases are always fun. Pulling extra enemy squads accidentally makes for fun and frantic fights.

800+ hours spent. The game feels good when you're winning. Losing is okay if it feels 'fair'. Unfortunately the game is anything BUT fair due to the massive amounts of bugs and questionable gameplay design decisions that can sabotage your game or ruin your experience, especially if you're playing in Ironman Mode.

Furthermore, there's no point in filing a bug report to the developers. They've abandoned this game years ago. This game is only kept afloat by mods nowadays.

Gameplay-wise it's a huge improvement over enemy unknown, especially with wotc. 10/10

10/10 Would recommend this game, but only if your playing with mods, mods make everything better

This game is so good when you're winning. But sooo tedious when your losing. But to me, that's what makes it fun. Even on easy, you can still feel the struggle and the stakes. you can't risk losing a soldier so all of your moves need to be thought out.

I will also say, I am ALMOST positive, you will not beat this game first try. It reminds me of a rough-like in the sense that sometimes you will encounter something that could take multiple trying to take down, but since death is permanent, one failed mission that resulted in a squad wipe, could very well be the end of a save!

With that said, I still HEAVILY recommend this game! Maybe not for players that want an easy time!

One of my Top 10 games of all time. Incredible game. The WotC DLC is just such a massive overhall as well.

Amazing game, crossing my fingers Zero Squad is even remotely this good. SW deserves a good game again.

To this day this game remains one of the best to ever do it in the genre. The game and its DLC are an amazing playthrough and will squeeze some 40 hours out of you. The beauty of the game however is in its magnificent and still present(as of writing this review) modding scene.

The Long War 2/ Long War of the Chosen mods are in my opinion a staple of the franchise and what made me sink so many hours into it. These mods completely change the way, adding so many features that it could be classified as a sequel. It has insane replayability, the difficulty can range from easy to truly masochistic and punishing.

No game since this one has truly scratched the itch XCom2 does with all its mods in full glory. 12/10 game

9 years and still the best turn-based game - speaks for it's self.

A big improvement since Xcom 1, also community made mods makes it even better ! Totally worth it

Yes, it's still here: 1. Lots of terrifying randomness
2. Implicit hit counting
3. Misses from killer positions
4. Spawning enemies in the most inconvenient places
5. System requirements are too high for the graphics displayed by the game
6. Uniform and predictable AI behavior pattern.

BUT to my great regret, there are no or very few worthy competitors with a decent level of technical (gameplay and mechanics) and technological (graphics) performance in a similar techno-fiction setting. Therefore, the rating is 7.5 out of 10.

Be sure to try Phoenix Point, Gears Tactics and the previous part (XCOM: Enemy Within).

A huge thank you to the entire community of this game for a large number of wonderful mods from the Steam Workshop!

I've tried coming back to this game half a dozen times, and it ends the same way every single time: by the fourth mission or so, I'm completely frustrated with the entire game because skill has nothing to do with it. This is ***NOT*** a skill-based game, it is a LUCK-based game, and the house always wins. THAT'S what it's like to play this hunk of trash.

The concept is fine. It looks alright, the gameplay is serviceable, and the story is fine. What absolutely destroys this experience is the unreliable percentages. You can save-scum a single soldier's turn over 20 times in a row for a 75% hit chance and miss ***EVERY SINGLE TIME.*** Sorry XCOM devs, but that's not how percentages and probabilities work; if you have an 80% chance to hit, you WILL NOT miss that attack 9 times out of 10. That is not how that works. The math is not math'ing to a degree that it feels like every single move/attack you can make is PREDETERMINED to miss or hit, and the percentage has absolutely nothing to do with it. In a game that is this difficult and brutal, you CAN NOT take away the only assurances of victory that a player has by royally fudging how a percentage roll works. It is NOT FUN to have to replay the same early-game mission a dozen times in a row because the game decided FOR YOU that you don't get these hits. It is not immersive going into a mission with the dreadful expectation that everything will ALWAYS go wrong. Don't tell me to download mods, either, because YOU have failed if PLAYERS have to retroactively fix YOUR game for FREE.

XCOM 2 is not fun. It has a lot of potential to be fun, but on the basis of experience, it simply is not the overwhelming majority of the time. I refuse to mod this game to make it better when the devs themselves couldn't be bothered to fix their scrambled RNG programming.

While I do find the premise of "anti alien resistance fighters" a bit laughable the game play is solid and the modding community allows for a lot of replayability. The graphics are solid but the animations do drag out after a while.
All in all a solid game but I would wait for a sale before buying it.

XCOM 2 can offer you a hundred hours of playtime before the missions begin to stale. You can reinforce the experience with mods such as Long War, Long War of the Chosen, or ModJam and push that experience to a fresh strategic one that lasts over 500 hours. I'm at 357 hours right now, 2/3rd through my third LWOTC campaign, and looking forward to a 4th with a full Modjam install. Best $25.00 I ever spent.

One of my favourite strategy games of all time, a deep, complex game that is hard to put down. And with the mod support you have a bunch of mod support to play around with.

Best TRPG out there. Your actions here have consequences so you will really have to think about your every move. Its like playing chess but with soldiers sporting cools weapons and armors you havent seen before in other games.

Been putting off buying Xcom2 until now as I have too many game backlogs. So sorry no time to write long review as can't wait to jump back into the game. It's been a long time I have such fun!

I'm completely obsessed with this game. Insanely addictive.

I've played 20-ish hours on PC but over 200 hours on PS and Xbox. Easily one of my top 5 TBS. Certified GOAT status, hardest of the new franchise on higher difficulties. Worth the price when on sale. DLC adds a lot of replayability.

I love this game. It is incredibly addictive. For a full comprehensive review of why I love this game, please refer to other positive reviews with more detailed explanation. I am no good at reviews. Thank you.

Got the game because a streamer I watched seemed to be having a lot of fun, and I don't regret it.
The Classes, while not super numerous, still offer a pretty distinct playstyle.
The settings pretty cool.
Customization is good once you dive into the steam workshop.
The strategy is more about good decision making than complicated skills.

The one thing I actually hate is the crit mechanic, it just feels awful to permanently lose an invested unit because a grunt one shot you from full HP from behind full cover.

Also, while trying not to spoil anything, theres a certain earlyish game enemy that can hit you with one of their abilities from behind walls. They are the viper with its poison spit ability

Great graphics, gameplay mechanics, and fun elements of science and mystery.

One of the best games of all time, especially with mods! It takes the foundation of Enemy Unknown and builds on it while also turning the premise around so that we're fighting to reclaim the Earth and halt the aliens' nefarious plans before it's too late. If you enjoy turn-based tactics abd don't mind the heavy RNG and a bit of 2016 jank, this is a great game to pick up (especially for the current sale price of $3).

One of those games where I can't understand the appeal at all, and the rating seems either flat out faked/bought or totally wrong. Completely RNG and random fighting, which is fine, if it wasn't for the fact that in most levels aliens are pretty strong, and they get stronger over time than you do. Your troops only get stronger if they stay alive, and it seems like the enemies target the strongest one, or weakest health one to kill them. Late game, this translates into a bunch of low levels that get crushed if something so much as blinks at them. I appreciate trying to take the story into a different perspective, where you try to reclaim Earth from the aliens, but the tactical and strategic part of it is literally nothing like actual XCOM, it's completely gutted.

You just run around the map from place to place, all the while there's a giant timer that counts down to you ending the game, which is so cheesy I almost always turn it off, that alone ruins the game. The whole game is just pushing back the "game over" timer, and then certain events will trigger that speed it up.... like who tf is responsible for this core gameplay? They should have been fired and replaced immediately. There's nothing XCOM about this game at all, except for the general setting, units, and overall theme.

You don't interact with any of the nations, or any key political figures to get one up on the aliens in a realistic way, you don't make any secret colonies trying to build a bigger army, spread the word, etc, yet the enemy can build complete BS that speeds up the instant death timer, or super buffs their units.

This game is literally just playing Fallout Shelter, with a death timer that you push back, running around the map looking like a monopoly piece, trying to get basic resources in RNG combat that usually cost you your current best soldier, all the while the enemy does whatever they want. The DLCs aren't much more substance, the "War Of The Chosen" isn't bad, until you realize that it just adds 3 bosses that also each do their own thing, and buff all the other units, and/or make the death timer go EVEN quicker. Strong support effects means the bosses are strong right? Nope, guess again. I found all of their actual boss fights, although pretty cinematic, painfully plain and gimmicky. The only ones that do anything for you, are just cosmetic minus the robot one, and pack, but that also seems like a shell of what it should be and is quite lacking.
All the "Reinforcement Pack" really does is add another class, some cosmetics, some random bs, and unkillable bosses that can RANDOMLY show up in levels that usually just keep attacking and taking multiple turns per turn until you lose everything. Btw, this pack contains those 3 dlc you can't buy separately. Guess just by the reviews, which of the 3 is the one that makes the game unplayable?

If you want to have some form of fun in this game, I forgot the name of it, but there's an overhaul mod that makes this game feel more like it's supposed to. Your units are weaker and progress slower, but it's easier to save them when they go down, and you can use like twice as many per mission. However, this is where tactics comes in, the mod has some proper stealth mechanics, including the bigger your mission squad, the more enemies they add to the area. It also adds the colony system, setting up little safe areas across the world where your rebellion works underground, recruiting people, and getting the previously tedious to acquire resources over time. Also fixes/changes lots of other stuff, more skills in the skill trees, more dynamic robot people, better, balanced versions of those op mini-bosses, making the game over timer feel a little more forgiving, making the enemies ramp up slower, and more reactively to you and your activities, and pretty much improvements everywhere.

As much as I like mods though, I will never play a game that's dependent on them to make it fun in the first place, that's supposed to be the job of the people the company hired and pay for, not unpaid people who wished the game was better. This reminds me of Dawn of War. First game comes out, rave reviews, one of the best of all time. Sequel comes out, entirely different gameplay and vibe that's an overall decrease in gameplay quality in exchange for cinematic quality. What will complete this comparison, is if XCOM 3 comes out, is entirely different from both 1 and 2, and so bad it immediately kills the entire franchise on launch.

My favorite game. Infinitely replayable turn-based tactics.

Awesome game for anyone who is a fan of turn based tactical gun play, the best actually in my opinion, got the vanilla game and WOTC on offer for less than £6, best £6 i ever spent

If you enjoy a good Strat, turn-based RPG like BG3 then this is the game for you! This game was way ahead of the times when it came to a good turn based. I've owned this game for many years and played it many years. BG3 Revived that tasted for games like this. Only down side is, the base game itself is able to be beaten in a good 20-40 hours.