You’ll more often than not begin missions in a state of concealment, hidden from the enemy, albeit briefly, giving you a chance to manoeuvre your squad into flanking positions, set up beautifully choreographed ambushes and utilise that all-important overwatch to ensure that when you’re spotted, you can at least begin an engagement with the upper hand. Indeed striking from the shadows is the order of the day here, working itself as it does into the very heart of the gameplay through one of the biggest changes to XCOM’s action, Concealment. You’re no longer part of a stuffy, government funded war machine with all manner of military hardware at your disposal here you’re a desperate and scattered network of rebels working from the shadows against a vastly superior alien machine. The underdog premise of XCOM 2 makes for an immediately more engaging setting than the previous entries in the series. As Unification Day celebrations and speeches get under way, XCOM, now a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters, take the opportunity to launch an explosive attack against Advent forces, which serves as your opening and tutorial here. Spamming the airwaves with their propaganda, Advent have cemented the notion that they came to earth in peace, to better the lives of humans, and that attacks against them from the now guerrilla XCOM are very much based on old prejudices. It’s been twenty years since the events of Enemy Within and earth is now completely in the hands of the aliens under the guise of Advent. I’ll keep fighting though I’ll keep sending terrible celebrities into the combat zone until one day that prize is mine. I sent my best crew, New Kids on The Block, to their deaths, they came home in body bags after Donnie Wahlberg screwed up trying to skulljack an Advent officer, he got his band-mates killed, all of them, even wee Joey. I don’t have the tactical wherewithal to even know where I’d start and, believe me, I’ve tried.
Beating this game on its hardest setting in Ironman mode feels like it’s beyond me.
Sometimes I think I’ll never unlock XCOM 2’s Valhalla achievement.