It’s difficult to please both new and old fans alike when rebooting a beloved franchise, but in 2012, Firaxis pulled off a game-development miracle when it successfully revived the legendary but long-mistreated X-COM franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The modernized version recaptured the key elements that made the 1994 original memorable: an against-the-odds struggle against a technologically superior foe; the emotional sting that comes from the permanent loss of personalized soldiers heroically killed in battle; and a deep tactical system with an element of randomness that forces you to prepare contingencies in case your plans don’t survive contact with the enemy.

Down, But Not Out

The year is 2035, and XCOM now operates as a resistance movement against the alien occupation. That represents a huge shift in context for both the strategic and tactical battles we’ll fight in XCOM 2. “XCOM never lost the war; they just never stopped fighting and went underground,” explained Solomon. “Players are no longer the commander of this elite military force. They are commanding a very hardened group of freedom fighters and guerrilla fighters, and they’re leading them to ignite a global resistance and wake everyone up, and then try to rescue Earth from the government that now controls it."

The aliens have a weird idea of tourist attractions.

Human Revolution

What he is going into depth on is the tactical battles (which have always been the meat of XCOM games) and how this change in circumstances affects the moment-to-moment gameplay of using teamwork and complementary weapons and abilities to shoot aliens in the face. Solomon described the creative process that led to a guerilla-themed XCOM as gameplay-driven. “The idea for us is that mechanics always come first, and then we look for a setting that’s going to fit the mechanics,” he said. He and his team had some big ideas about how to change up battles and make them more tactically interesting and less repetitive, and the freedom-fighter setting rose up around them.

Sneaking into position to ambush Advent soldiers will be easier than a fair fight.

First of all, we have a new team of battle-hardened XCOM soldier classes that are similar to Enemy Unknown’s, but distinct. The Sharpshooter shares a lot of DNA with EU’s Sniper, but can also specialize in using a pistol as a primary weapon instead of a last resort. The Ranger is the evolution of the Assault class, still specializing in close combat with shotguns and the like, but now comes equipped with XCOM’s first lethal melee weapon: a machete-like blade. The Grenadier? He (or she) blows things up, much like the Heavy. The Specialist replaces Support, and uses a hovering drone called a Gremlin both in combat to stun enemies and buff allies, and out of combat to pull off tricks like long-range hacking. There’s also a fifth mystery class that Firaxis is saving for reveal closer to launch.

We’ll have more on XCOM 2’s new classes next week in Meet The Specialist and Meet The Ranger.

Enemy Territory

The bigger change is that the structure of a typical XCOM 2 mission will be dramatically different from what we’ve seen before. For comparison, let’s recap the typical Enemy Unknown encounter: we arrive on the scene of an alien incursion and, upon spotting something that didn’t belong, immediately engage in firefights until one side or the other is dead. It’s a guns-blazing, all-or-nothing kind of fight. If you’ve played for a few dozen hours, you’ll probably have a good idea of what the map you’re fighting on looks like and where the enemies will be, which eventually makes it routine.

Every map will look and play differently each time you see it.

Solomon wants XCOM 2 to turn these concepts on their heads in several ways. “In XCOM 2, the idea is that you have the jump on the aliens. They’re already there, and they’re not hiding.” That means we’ll have the element of surprise: our small squads (still in the four to six range) will arrive unseen in enemy-controlled territory, at which point we’ll be able to scout out the alien positions and move our troops around the battlefield for as long as we’re able to stay out of hostile units’ detection radius and behind cover. Thanks to a new concealment system and waypoints that’ll allow you to precisely guide your troops’ movement within their two-move radius, setting up the battle will be a big part of what Firaxis intends XCOM 2 to be about. “You have a lot of control over when the engagement starts,” Solomon explained. “Of course, a lot of times you’ll blunder or do something wrong, like come around the corner and get revealed. We give the player the ability to jump the enemy first, and that feels very resistance-y, very guerilla tactics.”

As we see in the trailer, XCOM sometimes gets to take the first shot – and that’s a huge deal. Except in certain situations (Stealth Suits and Battle Scanners), the aliens have up until now always seen us the moment we see them – and when they do, they “scamper” to cover and deny us the chance at a clean shot. In fact, the scamper is probably the most common complaint I’ve seen from other XCOM players, some of whom see it as an unfair advantage for the aliens. Those people will be very happy to hear that they’ll have the opportunity to cancel out that advantage in XCOM 2. “The first enemy that you get to jump on, obviously they don’t get to scamper anywhere,” said Solomon. That’s not all: “Enemies will get surprised, so that prevents them – some of them, based on some factors – from fully scampering into cover.” Between that and hinting at further, yet-to-be-disclosed ways to counteract the scamper, Solomon makes it sound like if we play our cards right, setting up an ambush correctly could turn what would’ve been a losing fight into shooting fish into a barrel. Don’t expect to be backstabbing aliens or picking them off one at a time like Batman – stealth is useful for getting into position to ambush the enemy, but does not replace combat.

Nice propaganda center. It would be a shame if someone fired a grenade launcher at it.

If the maps were the same set of 80 or so pre-built setups we saw in Enemy Unknown, that might give us too much of an advantage over the aliens – but that’s where XCOM 2 throws in another much-requested feature: procedurally generated maps. Solomon summed up the need for a system like this in a way that’s music to any gamer’s ears: “Obviously, replayability is a big thing at Firaxis, and it is a big thing for XCOM. We always talk about value for the player’s dollar, right? And the core of that is replayability, to make your game as replayable as possible.”

With Firaxis’ new system, we’ll see maps drastically change each time we encounter them, drawing from a large pool of components like buildings, roads, and different types of terrain to create battlefields that look good, are more destructible than ever (including by fire that spreads, acid that melts through floors, and exploding barrels), and offer well-placed cover. And, because the maps are procedurally generated, the AI has been made more procedural to allow aliens to navigate and fight on them. All of this together has the potential to extend XCOM 2’s replayability dramatically, and to make each of our experiences unique. “That’s the thing that I’m personally very excited about,” Solomon said. “When you have those moments, and you’re like, ‘This would have never, ever happened in Enemy Unknown.’ That’s what we’re going for.”

More on that later this week in XCOM 2’s Procedurally Generated Maps.

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