

Firaxis has released the first major patch for XCOM 2 that aims to fix many of the problems the game saw at launch. It wasn’t released in the best condition, and was great in spite of its bugs and technical problems. Fortunately, this patch should alleviate many of these issues. The patch will automatically install when you start up Steam.

The first major patch comes out ahead of the game’s first DLC, details of which were announced yesterday.

In addition to bug fixes, the patch adds balanced tweaks and several performance optimizations that should improve the game’s framerate and improve load times. Players can also check out the new “Zip Mode” which creates a faster pace experience that speeds up animations and removes certain gameplay delays.

Firaxis recommends that after installing the patch, players should go to the graphics tab under options and select “Auto Detect Graphics Settings” to get the new features and optimizations set up. Simply installing the patch alone will not fix this.

You’ll also need to do this once: If you have mods installed, you’ll need to launch the game once, close the game, and launch it again for the mods to load up properly. The mods will not be initialized to work with the patch until you do that, so don’t hop directly into one of your saves before doing this.

Here’s everything it does:

Performance

Added Zip Mode gameplay option. While Zip Mode is enabled animation (like step outs & gremlin movements) speeds are significantly increased. Normal movement animations are moderately increased

Fixed an issue where shadow rendering during glam cam shot transitions was slowing down performance

Support for nVidia SLI and AMD Crossfire

Removed MSAA options from default presets and adjusted autodetect to target 40FPS instead of 30FPS

Reworked Light Clipping Manager

Particle Vertex Buffer Reallocation

Optimization to shadows in the Avenger

Enable triple buffering to fix VSync performance

Shadowed light fade out within Avenger; Disabled Post & Pre Mission cinematic lights not being used

Disabled shadow casting from character lights w/in Avenger

Reduced High Shadow Resolution – Reduce shadow resolution when set to HIGH to 1536, instead of 2048

Reduces the impact count of the Avatar Rifle

Removed a hitch that occurs when the camera enables/disables building visualizer

Deferred profile saves to next tick. This prevents multiple calls within the same frame from creating multiple requests to save the profile

After changing graphics settings, based on the selected preset, extra crew will be capped

Character head mesh optimized

Balance

Mimic beacon rebalance: Price increased to 75

Mimic beacons can no longer take cover, and are guaranteed to be hit by enemy shots

Wet Work is no longer retroactive

Graze is no longer a chance for 100% shots. Targets being shot by a concealed attacker cannot dodge

Gameplay

Added a new recommended Steam Controller configuration with support for additional actions

Fixed an issue where VIP units would take damage when their origin location was damaged

Fixed an issue where Promotion Earned text appeared before action is seen on screen

Fixed an issue where civilians pathed to the base of ladders and blocked XCOM units

Fixed an issue where Character Pool choices like Class, Attitude, and props did not save

Fixed an issue where weapons did not keep names and customizations upon tier bump

Fixed an issue causing some scan timers to go into negative time

Engineering items that are full squad upgrades are now designated in the UI

Fixed an issue where strategy project timers reset if players started building a radio relay immediately after making contact with a region

Fixed an issue with POIs not spawning when first visiting the Geoscape if Beginner VO is turned off

Removed start-of-turn hang during certain missions where enemy units had fallen out of the world. Auto-saves (and ironman saves) made in these situations should now be playable

Minimized action camera obstructions

Minimized camera look-at hopping during AI abilities

Fixed an issue where Psi abilities did not trigger death cams

Kill Zone now respects concealment status

Fixed an issue where the Ever Vigilant AWC perk did not work for Sharpshooters

Buildings don’t cut down when tabbing through units

Fixed an exploit that skips the AI turn by spamming the END/BACKSPACE button while the Player’s last action is being visualized

Rapid Fire and Chain Shot visualization optimized to get the second shot to fire faster

Fixed an issue where shot HUD wings would fail to re-open after taking an action that required the wings to close

Fixed an issue where crit chance would be negatively affected by shots with a success chance greater than 100

Optimized Return Fire hits causing long delays

Optimized AI reveals causing long hangs

Optimized Wait actions causing long timeouts

Optimized falling unit visualization to timeout faster

Updated the Geoscape save description to use the localized HQ time, instead of previously used GMT game time

Fixed an issue with an invalid spawn point on a specific Retaliation mission plot

Destroyed cover does not take reduce % to-hit on enemies

Systems

New option to only use Character Pool creations until the pool is exhausted

Bulletproofing bad saves from causing main menu crashes

Fixed an issue causing hitches in strategy

Fixed an issue where armor customizations did not save

Graphics

Unit Highlighting Flash when targeting units

Multiplayer