The various in-game menus you navigate are also very clean and well designed, giving you the information you need without any clutter or mess. Whether in your base or in battle, the character models and environments are artistically interesting and technically sound, and the game features excellent special effects and lighting that make the experience shine. On the visual front, the prior games looked exceptional for their time, and XCOM 2 ups the ante in nearly every respect possible. In simple terms: the plot of XCOM 2, as with its predecessor, does a lot to engage the player, makes the player the most important person in the game and doesn’t spend too much time bogging the game down, and because of this, it works. It’s also kind of cool (if a little silly) that the game makes you feel like your character is incredibly important to the events of the game, especially during the generally fantastic ending, if only because it gives the player more agency than just being an invisible taskmaster.

Tygan, which makes the franchise as a whole feel a lot more meaningful. Vahlen amidst introducing players to newcomer Dr. The game also makes a point to refresh players on the events of the first game while also introducing its new points, meaning the game will often talk history when you meet with Bradford and Shen, or bring up the unknown fate of Dr. Plot elements are introduced slowly to give the player a chance to really appreciate their impact and meaning, as well as to savor small victories as they occur, given the protagonists are most certainly against the gun. As in the prior game, a fair amount of this plot exposition comes from the first hour or so of play (especially if you play through the tutorial) and after special events, and as such, it’s a lot more effective than it might have otherwise been.

With the Commander back in the control seat, XCOM prepares to go on the offensive against ADVENT, the front for the alien hordes, in hopes of exposing their crimes to the world and discovering the truth behind their mysterious Avatar project, while also hopefully shutting it down along the way. Twenty years later, XCOM now operates as a rogue resistance force fighting a losing battle until, almost by chance, the team recovers the one thing that could help them turn the tide of war: the Commander, imprisoned for twenty years by the aliens and used as a tool against humanity. The story in XCOM 2 is one of recovery, as in the prior game, the aliens dealt a massive blow to XCOM sometime during the war (by all indications during the base invasion mission from Enemy Within) and captured the Commander (AKA your character), leading to the fall of XCOM and the planet Earth. Well, it turns out that Firaxis had a lot of interesting ideas on what to do with XCOM 2, and the end result is a game that’s a lot more complex and challenging than the original while still being just as much of a joy to play, even if it could do with a bit of polishing at times. There’s a lot of potential in an idea like that, honestly, and it’s a far more robust concept than “the same thing, but underwater,” no matter what you do with it. Firaxis, instead of jumping straight into answering that question, spent much of their time refining the original game through XCOM: Enemy Within, but when it came time to go to the sequel, instead of approaching it from the perspective of “We won, now what?” instead asked the question, “What if humanity lost?” That idea frames the basis behind XCOM 2, as instead of playing as a human force beholden to the world’s governments against the alien menace, this time, the aliens are the establishment, and XCOM is now the rebellion attempting to take back Earth for humanity, even if humanity thinks they’re the villains. After Firaxis revived the long-dormant XCOM franchise by way of the stunning return to form that was XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the big question in the minds of fans eventually became “So, what’s next?” While the original X-COM: UFO Defense was a ground-breaking game for its time that brought to life a mostly loved strategy franchise, the sequel, Terror From the Deep, was… not so well received, as most critics of the time felt it was a glorified expansion pack rather than a true sequel.

Xcom 2 switch review