Hello, Commander. We’ve had a change of heart. Turns out this silly war was a big misunderstanding. Please cease all operations and prepare to receive our new unification ambassador. All hail our glorious alien overlords!

XCOM 2 has been officially announced, complete with a website update and IGN-first trailer. We’re not jealous, honest. Twenty years have passed since you lost the war (great job by the way). The aliens rebuild shining cities for humanity while stamping out dissent wherever they find it, but on the fringes of civilization, XCOM survives and is bent on eliminating the alien threat. What little information on the official website there is promises a huge repurposed alien supply craft will serve as the new mobile headquarters of XCOM operations. No word yet as to whether you can dress in a black leather coat and don an eyepatch.

The trailer sets the tone as newscasters spout alien propaganda and ask the populace to ‘obey’. Cameras/scanners populate every lamppost while a masked militarized police force watch the streets. Before Roddy Piper can make his move, XCOM show up and starts doing their resistance thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E_-2wIJIzQ

XCOM 2’s predecessor XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a successful 2012 reboot of the classic 90s X-COM series using turn-based combat and a light strategic base management. Some old fans of the original series disliked the streamlining on the base management front in particular, but overall the game was generally well received and brought turn-based strategy into the limelight, if only for a moment. After several lukewarm DLCs a full-fledged expansion came out for it in 2013 called XCOM: Enemy Within. Enemy Within introduced EXALT, an opposing human faction as well as psychic abilities, new equipment, and the Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit (MEC). There’s even an XCOM board game, its called XCOM: The Board Game. I’ll stop saying XCOM now, though you may still hear it on the wind.