War of the Chosen is going to be one hell of an expansion for XCOM 2. To the point where the developer’s almost made it XCOM 3. You can tell how big it is by the sheer amount of information there is to digest about the expansion. Here, PSU breaks down the details of War of the Chosen. From the new characters to the new missions and more.
XCOM FAQ
What Exactly Is War of the Chosen?
War of the Chosen is an expansion to XCOM 2. Rather than act as a separate thing attached to the base game, War of the Chosen slots into the regular campaign, adding the new classes, enemies, storyline, and all the goodies that the expansion brings. It is twice the size of XCOM: Enemy Within in terms of content, making it Firaxis’ , and XCOM’s, largest expansion to date
What’s the Plot?
Concerned at the resistance XCOM is putting up to their rule of Earth since rescuing the Commander (you), The ethereal Elders deploy three champions to destroy XCOM and recapture the Commander. If XCOM is to continue its resistance, it will need to recruit some outside help…
Does War of the Chosen affect previous DLC?
Previous DLC ‘Shen’s Last Gift’ and ‘Alien Hunters’ will still be compatible with War of the Chosen installed. The Alien Hunter content gets a tweak however to ensure the expansion doesn’t create a nightmare scenario of relentless enemy attacks. The Alien leaders found in Alien Hunters now will not move after every player action as they did before, instead they will move the same as any other enemy.
Are any of the new features coming to the base game alone?
Nope. The only way to experience all of the below is by having War of the Chosen alongside the base XCOM 2.
Sounds grand! When’s it out?
August 29th!
The Chosen: The Elder’s Elite Three
One of the most important parts of the expansion comes in the form of the titular Chosen. This trio of alien siblings are a persistent threat to XCOM, with one of them showing up at random during missions to meddle in your affairs (they each set up shop in a certain area of the map). They’ll resort to kidnapping, interrogating, and generally messing up your soldiers while on the battlefield to gain the Knowledge that makes them more powerful, and they will also sabotage your world map operations as well. So if they’re not dispatched swiftly enough, they’ll only grow in power and influence.
Leave them to get too powerful and you’ll trigger a special mission where they lay siege to the XCOM Avenger to capture the Commander (you). Worse still, if you’ve not eliminated them by the time the endgame arrives, you’ll have to take all three on at once, at the height of their strength. I’m stressing out just thinking about it.
Unlike the trio of Alien Hunter DLC bosses (which follow a similar pattern), The Chosen will have some personality. They are all vying to outdo each other (The Chosen don’t much care for each other, let alone humanity).They’ll goad you, taunt you, and remind you of previous encounters. It’s very reminiscent of the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor, which is of course ace. Defeat any of The Chosen and you gain access to their weapons, which are very, very juicy.
But who are The Chosen? Let’s take a look.
The Assassin
No surprise to hear that The Assassin is sneaky, not even triggering Overwatch shots. She can cloak herself to sneak up on unsuspecting soldiers, and dishes out deadly melee combat with her blades. There’s no word on how fond she is of diving into hay.
The Hunter
The Elder’s own Sniper Elite, The Hunter skulks in the shadows, ready to pick off your crew from distance with his powerful sniper rifle. He’s voiced by Nolan North, so expect to nearly kill him a few hundred times as he barely escapes yet another impossible-looking bit of peril. He’ll probably crack a few jokes too.
The Warlock
The religious wizard of the trio, The Warlock can reanimate the dead en masse, turning any fight into something far more dreadful. He fancies himself as The Elder’s Best Boy.
The Lost: Definitely not zombies
A new enemy type that only shows up during certain missions set outside the Advent controlled areas you usually frequent. These husks of humanity will swarm the player’s squad in droves, drawn by the sound of conflict. To combat a severe numbers disadvantage, each time you land a headshot on a Lost, it grants you another action, meaning you can take out a swathe of them in a single round.
The Lost only have minimal health, dole out only melee attacks, and cannot take cover so they are individual fodder, but attempt to rush past them to the evac point and you’ll soon find your squad overwhelmed by sheer numbers, so even these shamblers require a strategy. Interestingly, they aren’t on anyone’s side, so they will attack any combatant on the game map.
While The Lost are usually confined to their own mission type they aren’t limited to one style within it. A sitrep system governs them, a way of balancing mission threats and bonuses. A regular ‘Lost’ sitrep sees them show up in a mission, but if a ‘Horde’ sitrep is applied, then the number of Lost becomes far greater. There’s one instance where they can appear outside regular parameters, and that’s triggered by a Dark Event that puts The Lost in every mission for a month.
The Spectre: Probably as nasty as the film of the same name
While The Spectre hasn’t been seen yet, the information about it sounds exciting, if dread-inducing. A late game threat to counterbalance your increasing strength, The Spectre evokes the classic John Carpenter sci-fi The Thing, as well as a touch of Predator, The Spectre can sneak up on your soldiers and clone them. The Spectre then gains every ability of the soldier it cloned, a devastating outcome if it happens to clone your super-swanky best soldier. A neat allegory for having your power turned against you.
Factions: Rebels with a cause
With the threat of The Chosen and The Lost to contend with, you’re going to need some help, and War of the Chosen adds three new rebel factions for you to try and persuade to join the fight against the elite of the Elders.
Each faction has unique skill sets, and tracks an individual member of The Chosen. Your job is to get them to team up with you by helping them out with their own hunt. Problem is, the three factions really aren’t all that friendly with each other, something you’ll need to remedy if you want to recruit their hero units to your cause, and oh boy, you’ll want to recruit them.
First up, you’ll need to do Covert Actions to get in their good books. Covert Actions sees you take a pair of soldiers on a faction-specific mission. If they are successful, you gain favor with the faction, eventually gaining enough influence, respect and trust that you get to recruit the hero unit.
Juggling the needs of the three will prove difficult, but the payoff looks like it’ll be worth it given the abilities each hero unit and factions brings to XCOM. Resistance Orders act as faction bonuses, giving you extra advantages in both the ground battles and the world map. You’ll have to pick and choose which Resistance Orders to use, as you’re limited to one active Order.
So who are these squabbling rebel factions? Let’s have a gander.
The Reapers
The Reapers are all about stealth and sabotage. Unlike regular soldiers, The Reapers can remain concealed after taking a shot, but only if the game of chance that is Shadow Shot allows it. Each shot taken sees the odds of remaining concealed diminish, but if it keeps up, they can do some serious damage without ever being seen.
Reapers are expert marksmen, and make use of claymores to surreptitiously tag unwitting enemies with an explosive punchline. Amusingly, and devastatingly, they can remote destroy any cars on the map, creating impromptu bombs to aid your chances. The explosion does more damage at a greater range than any regular car explosion too. ADVENT and The Chosen best fear these Reapers.
The Skirmishers
ADVENT use human/alien hybrids to fill out their roster of war, even down to the troops and officers, but just because ADVENT made them, it doesn’t mean they all agree with the horrible, callous ideals of the alien and human coalition. Enter The Skirmishers, a band of former ADVENT soldiers that gone rogue.
These guys are war machines, good enough to win a fight single-handed once you understand their skills. They can gain an extra action if attacked, and can fight back with both actions. The Skirmishers’ Overwatch has some extra tricks too, allowing you to perform any type of attacking action, not just shooting. The juiciest skill Skirmishers have though, is ‘Battlelord’.
When Skirmishers’ Battlelord skill is activated, it allows them an action for every enemy action. After dealing with that nightmare in the Alien Hunters DLC, and with The Chosen having similar skills, it’ll be nice to turn the tables.
The Templars
We have an Assassin, so of course we have Templars, but thankfully, this lot aren’t after a sodding apple. The Templars are psionic purists, equipped only with melee attacks rather than guns. The sweetener here is that with each turn, Templars gain ‘Focus’, which further amps their skills and abilities as they go, allowing them to finish missions with some formidable powers such as bullet deflection. Like Spectre and Codexes, Templars can clone themselves and have said clone aid them in a fight. They also have a version of the Ion Storm attack that sends tendrils of electricity outward to damage nearby enemies. Protecting a Templar in a slog of a battle could be the difference between success and failure, such is the potential of their power. They’re quite reclusive, so getting them onside could be particularly tough.
How the Faction Heroes level up
The new Faction Hero units don’t level like regular soldiers. Instead, you have to purchase their skills with Ability Points, gained from doing standard manoeuvres during missions Each soldier has a Combat Intelligence score which modifies the amount of AP earned. Back at HQ, AP is spent on unlocking skills for Hero units. Regular soldiers can also have AP spent on them at the Training Centre; while they’ll still earn skills for ranking up, AP can be used to unlock skills from their unused skill tree, or even teach them the abilities from other classes.
What else is New, XCOM 2?
Bond of Brothers
Getting attached to your squad of soldiers is not a new thing in XCOM, hell, It’s one of the main reasons I play XCOM to begin with. Forming backstories for your bags of meaty fodder gives the series a Walking Dead/Game of Thrones feel where even your favorite character can die. Firaxis know this, so we now have bonds between soldiers in War of the Chosen. With bonds, one soldier can form a kinship with another, and this obviously makes them a better team out in the field, giving you access to new abilities. The dramatic flair comes in when one of them is inevitably killed, and their best mate flies into an apocalyptic rage that has similar effects as panic does. As with The Chosen, this adds a bit more personality to XCOM, but not too much that it stifles what your imagination can add to it. Oh and if you want to really make your new friendships special, there’s another new thing for that…
Photo Ops
XCOM 2 will now get a Photobooth mode, and this is truly amazing. Not only can you pose and personalise photos of your soldiers with it, but the best ones will appear during missions as posters in cities and the like as propaganda. It’s a small, almost inconsequential addition on paper, but it adds a bit more of a personal touch to your campaign. You can also make regular posters for propaganda use as well.
Stars of Radio and Television
Adding to the personal touch and propaganda, you now have competing outlets for the war efforts mouthpieces. ADVENT have their tv news channel where they mask XCOM successes with *ahem* fake news, and naturally mock XCOM’s failures. Timely. Meanwhile, on the lef…I mean the resistance’s side, you have a radio station reporting on the truth of XCOM’s triumphs and failures. The DJ is none other than Jake Busey. Yes the son of the mad bastard Gary ‘I was in Hitman’ Busey.
Fatigued in Fatigues
If things are going well, and they actually do sometimes, it’s tempting to use the same handful of successful soldiers for every mission, meaning if you should lose some of them late on, the replacements are rookies taking on the best of ADVENT’s forces. To combat this (and to add another tactical layer to the many tactical layers you already have) Firaxis will introduce a fatigue system to your soldiers in War of the Chosen. The result? Tired soldiers can still go on missions, but too many will result in them becoming fatigued, and then unavailable. This creates a need to rotate your squads more often, which hopefully leads to less of a reliance on a select few, as well as instilling even more fear and despair in you.
Let Me See Ya Quirk It
The personality train doesn’t stop there, folks! Your soldiers can also develop quirks. This can be a help, but most likely a hindrance. A soldier who’ll only move sideways? One that refuses to use grenades? The darkly amusing despair you’ll encounter is endless! Thankfully they aren’t permanent, as you can ‘fix’ these quirks in the Infirmary, one of the new rooms you can build aboard the Avenger. Speaking of which…
Room With a Muton
The Advanced Warfare Centre is dead! Long live the three new rooms that replace it!
We’ve already covered the Infirmary, so what are the other two? There’s the Resistance Ring, which covers the Covert Actions needed to get sweet with the new rebel factions, and then there’s the Training Centre which is where you apply those much-needed Ability Points to Faction Heroes (they can also be given to regular soldiers to fill out missing parts of their rank tree).
For Science!
In the existing areas, there’s some new tweaks and additions. Take scientists. They can now have Breakthroughs and Inspirations. Breakthroughs provides bonuses on specific projects, such as higher damage for a weapon. Inspirations reduce the time taken to research. The catch is that both must be accepted immediately when the in-game pop-up occurs, if not, that’s your chance gone. Do you risk putting off the research you currently have going on to pursue these opportunities? That’s one of the numerous tough questions facing you in War of the Chosen.
Sitreppin’ Ain’t Just For The Lost
We mentioned sitreps earlier when talking about The Lost, but they can apply to more than just that. They act as mission modifiers of sorts, giving you a tasty new tick or skill for one mission, but balancing it out by making the mission harder somehow. At the very least, this should add to mission variety for long-term players.
That’s it for now, More info will be added as we get it in the run up to the August 29 release.