評論

• gamedeal user

  Feb 8, 2022

  This is the hands-down first-rate king of expansion sets for an existing tactical game. Firaxis wanted to do expansions and refinements for the successful XCOM 2 game. The resulting project nearly re-wrote the game, instituting changes to XCOM 2 that definitely changed and expanded game play. This review concerns the actual War of the Chosen modifications. For the baseline game, see my separate review. War of the Chosen (WOTC) is an excellent expansion for the XCOM 2 game. You do need XCOM 2 to use WOTC; if the price tag looks high, wait for a sale or get a bundle that gives you some bang for the buck. The story is still the same, but there are a few new features. The first is the addition of three specialized soldier types, each with an associated Resistance faction that is separate from XCOM, and which might have different agendas than XCOM. The game presents the new content in mission story form for the first playthrough. In a divergence from the original game, the second mission of March 2035 will not be a standard type, but instead will be new content named "The Lost and Abandoned". XCOM is forced to play mediator to two Resistance factions, the stealthy hunters named Reapers, and former Advent CQC soldiers named Skirmishers. The two factions stage a meeting in an old city ruined by the invasion, haunted by its zombified citizens. Just when it seems that differences will outweigh similarities, Advent shows up to remind everyone about "strength in unity". A third faction, the combat-oriented psi troopers named Templars show up later. The three hero soldiers automatically generated are made to be representative fighters of their factions. The Reaper combines the best features of a stealth-build Ranger and a marksman-build Sharpshooter. A Reaper can be used to scout ahead and mark enemy pods, allowing the squad to get closer to the mission objective before revealing themselves on their own terms. The Skirmisher is an agile close-range fighter, armed with SMG and combat claws to overwhelm their opponents. They have a built-in grapple, allowing easier use of elevated combat before the Spider Suit gets researched. The Templar is psi-based melee hell on wheels, able to one-shot foes in the early game in a single slash, then dash to a safe position. Their psi powers diversify with advancement, but remain active combat focused, unlike the typical Psi Soldier. The other factions' gear advances with subsequent tier development as per the standard R&D. Each faction has a base that gives XCOM's ship [i]Avenger[/i] a safe haven and provides a scanning bonus: the Reapers grant aditional Intel, the Skirmishers increase ship construction time, and the Templars provide accelerated healing. The existence of differing factions puts a renewed emphasis on the strategic level of the game. Gaining control of regions and using them is more important, especially as the WOTC game is longer than the standard game. A Resistance Ring is now available for construction, and should be built as soon as possible. Why? The Ring allows for 1-3 soldiers to be sent on covert missions, which if successful grant resources, give soldiers better skill sets, grant tech upgrades, hasten research, or sabotage Advent progress. Sending Rookies on covert missions automatically promotes them to Squaddie, so there is no pressure to build the Guerrilla Training School first, which is practically mandatory for the standard game. However, missions can negatively impact a campaign, resulting in soldiers being wounded or captured by Advent. (That brings on a new covert mission choice: find the POW and set up a rescue mission.) Ut's also possible the operatives run afoul of Advent, and have to run for their lives through a Lost City, pursued by Advent hunters and the Lost themselves. Since it is a longer game, the old XCOM technique of building several teams' worth of capable veterans has been officially added to WOTC. Soldiers that participate in multiple missions in a game month without a rest gain the Tired status. Tired soldiers can be sent on a mission, but they're more likely to get injured on a mission, are more likely to gain negative status, and will be given a mandatory leave from duty afterwards. Players who don't deliberately keep 3-4 teams in rotation as their character pool grows will see vital missions go undone because they have no healthy soldiers to send! But, soldiers who operate on the same team for a while also develop camaraderie in the form of Soldier Bonds. This mechanism allows two soldiers that create a bond to gain bonus actions when they are on the same mission squad. A Training Center is thus included for improving soldier bonds, and letting existing soldiers learn skills outside their specializations. Of course, Advent isn't left out of the fun, and there is a new threat. "The Lost and Abandoned" also introduces the Chosen, three elite antagonists that put a face on the largely anonymous enemy forces. They are the Elders' special minions, charged with counter-resistance actions while the Elders work on the Big Plan. The Chosen are anime-level antagonists, powerful and skilled opponents with a high opinion of themselves and a desire to tell you all about it. They will randomly drop into missions, replacing a standard pod, and will proceed to taunt and torment the active squad, adding a new level of complexity to what is often an already complicated scenario. Ridding yourself of these dangerous pests involves using the Resistance Ring to locate the specific bases of the Chosen, and then raiding them like a story mission objective. A third-party menace is the Lost, the wretched inhabitants of old cities that were ruined and mostly abandoned during the invasion. Contaminated and twisted by alien materials, the residents who didn't flee fast enough have become a zombie-like horde of mindless killing intent. That's right, XCOM has zombies again. Loud noises in a Lost City map are guaranteed to bring successive swarms of them, in increasingly larger numbers. (It's typical to meet at least 30 of them, and I have a personal best Lost kill score of 101, so you've been warned.) This makes the standard default tactic of making everything explode with grenades and rockets counter-productive, so it's best to send a squad that can shoot straight and run fast! On the bright side, the Lost will also target Advent opponents, which a clever Commander can put to good use. Toss in a few new maps for both the new content and some random variations, and WOTC is worth the price tag. The game is longer and has some more choices to make, especially in the early game, but it's worth it. The replay value on all levels of difficulty has increased at an algorithmic rate, The DLC packs for the standard XCOM 2 game are compatible, so with the full package it's possible in WOTC to deploy a squad that includes a SPARK, a Reaper, and mohawked street fighter, and then be pursued by an Alien Ruler through a Lost City. (It was an absolutely crazy and dangerous mission, 5 soldiers including the SPARK wounded, 10/10, would do it again.)
• gamedeal user

  May 6, 2022

  To me, this is the best iteration of the modern X-Com games (X-Com: Enemy Unknown and X-Com 2 with DLC expansions). Note that in "War of the Chosen" (this DLC) you will play the X-Com 2 game from beginning to end, this DLC will just give you much more stuff to choose from (weapons, armor, types of soldiers) and much more variation (mission layout, enemy types). Thus, this DLC is NOT a continuation of the story in X-Com 2, but an "alternate" (and superior) way to play the game. I especially enjoyed the addition by this DLC of boss enemies and the improvement to the level layout. If you're thinking about playing X-Com 2, I'd definitely recommend the game - but get this DLC as well, and then just play the DLC version of the game. You can choose to play this DLC version on the very first window that pops up when you start the game.
• daan9559

  Oct 10, 2022

  2K launcher provides no additonal features but demands you create an account. 2k then does not secure its (I mean, my) data and lets it leak onto the open internet. I don't understand why Valve allows these types of customer experiences.
• Doctor Sho

  Dec 11, 2022

  One of the earlier missions, the part that is supposed to acclimatise a player to new concepts, is just wave after wave after ridiculous wave of never ending zombie people. In an urban setting, your entire squad will turn a corner and be set upon by a dozen such zombies, resulting in mission failure as a character you are supposed to keep alive is killed. This particular map is needlessly large, and in the earlier stages of the game, where a butter knife could kill your squad, highly unbalanced. Uninstalled at this point.
• OneWickedSon

  Dec 19, 2022

  I don't ever remember buying this "DLC" - but it was in my library so I thought I'd revisit XCOM2 after enjoying it a few years ago and recently catching up on XCOM (1). What an impressive update this is. I cannot remember the last time a game grabbed me this hard - the "one more mission" addiction is huge and this is very much a massive leap from the vanilla XCOM2. The production values have been hugely ramped up and the new Chosen bosses are a considerable challenge. The swam missions / Chosen and variety of missions are a small part of what is a range of massive improvements Firaxis have made. I cannot recommend this enough. Also - love the surprise voice acting credits this update adds; lots of fun for fellow Trek fans. :-)
• gamedeal user

  Jan 24, 2023

  When I bought the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen DLC in a bundle, I figured it was a short sequel set after the XCOM 2 story, since it launches separately from the main game. Having just played through the game twice (once vanilla, and once with the Alien Hunters and Shen's Last Gift DLC), I was initially a bit disappointed to find I was going to have to stop the Avatar Project yet again, because War of the Chosen is, once again, the base game with different DLC content woven through it. Still, though, the experience is different enough to be worth it. War of the Chosen introduces three factions separate from XCOM that have been fighting the Advent forces. These factions, as you might imagine, introduce three new soldier classes with new abilities to unlock. You'll have to work with the factions, in the form of completing special missions for them AND lending them use of your soldiers in order to gain their trust and further advantages. This last one's an especially strange and unsettling feature, as your soldiers may return wounded, get captured, or trigger special ambush missions where they have to fight their way out. Speaking of your soldiers, a series of new features get introduced to perhaps get you more attached to them, so as to make it hurt more if you lose them. Before, soldiers under fire could end up with the 'Shaken' status, which would lower their Will and make them more susceptible to Psi attacks, Panic and other ailments. Now, your soldiers have a whole host of traumatic problems they can suffer, which might for instance make them Hunker Down out of caution or attack on sight out of paranoia. It rather reminded me of the Quirks from Darkest Dungeon. It's a mechanic that's more likely to pop up if your Soldiers are Tired, which is a new feature similar to the Wounded state. Combat actions tucker your soldiers out, requiring you to leave them at base to keep them stable. All in all, I find it requires you to keep a bigger pool of regulars around than in the base game. Your soldiers, if they spend time in combat together, also have a chance of developing bonds, which provide them with little bonuses and special actions if they're fielded together. There's a slight adjustment to the Buildings, too, with the caring for the wounded no loner being done from the Advanced Warfare Center, but from the new Infirmary, which can also cure their mental issues. There's also a mandatory building added in the form of the Resistance Ring, to keep track of your Covert Actions with the various factions. Since the amount of space in the Avenger is the same, this means you'll have to consider even more carefully where and what to build, and what not. Aside from the factions and the heroes they send your way, there's the titular Chosen - three humanoid alien brawlers who will taunt and harass you through missions. The game tends to give you ample warning if they might show up on a mission, but get ready to see them a LOT. Though you'll be forced to put them down, they'll teleport out and unfortunately don't require the kind of recovery time your wounded soldiers do before they make a reappearance. The writers of this DLC clearly like these characters a lot, as they do a whole lot of trash-talking, either during missions or inbetween, as they mock you long distance. I couldn't help but feel like the writers rather wished they were doing fantasy instead of sci-fi this time. The Chosen kind of feel like they walked straight out of Warcraft, and both they and the new faction heroes talk and act like they're from a Saturday morning cartoon. It's all very heavy-handed with everyone getting quasi-religious, the faction heroes about their struggle and the Chosen about their Elder masters. The developers cast some recognizable Star Trek actor voices in this DLC, such as Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn, who both kind of sleepwalk through the clichéd dialogue, and John de Lancie, who sounds like he's having a bit more fun with it. You can choose at the start whether or not to involve the the Alien Hunters or Shen's Last Gift DLCs. You can either have them as normal, with their associated missions coming up, deactivate them completely, or have them integrated without their associated missions, which is the default. This means you'll have the Alien Hunter weapons pop up as a research option, you can build SPARKs as soon as you build a Proving Ground, and you'll be warned if one of the Alien Rulers is set to appear at a location. It's your choice, but you might want to carefully consider if you want it all on together. Especially early on, the game feels really overwhelming as it just keeps throwing prompts at you about stuff that needs doing. The Chosen start showing up while you're still fielding rookies, XCOM and the Faction characters start haranguing you to do covert stuff, and all the while, the Avatar Project ticker keeps on ticking. Having to deal with the Alien Rulers as well might be a bit much, though the associated gear remains helpful. Not every new element that War of the Chosen introduces works as well as intended. Research now has a feature where your scientists frequently become Inspired, and either a unique research project will pop up, or the research time for one of your existing projects will be lowered, IF you immediately go for that project next. It's a nice idea, but it ends up feeling like your research gets railroaded along a path the game sets. But set against that, there's a lot to like. The presence of the Chosen adds a new element of suspense and danger to the missions (though I could see it becoming an annoyance after a while). There's new procedurally generated environments to explore, and if any of your soldiers get captured, you can undertake rescue missions that involve a lot of stealth, and there's zombies. The base game had Psi Zombies, but in War of the Chosen, there's the Lost - dessicated fast zombies that result from the bioweapons that the aliens attacked human cities with in the first XCOM. They like to swarm, which is offset by the fact that they have little health, can of course only perform melee attacks, will attack Advent forces as well, AND every succesful kill against them grants your soldier an extra action. Not only are they another suspenseful element, it also shows that the XCOM 2 playstyle could probably be adopted well to other genres than sci-fi. There's updates on the practical side as well. Notably, War of the Chosen seems to have much reduced loading times from the base game. Missions, briefings and actions load much faster, and while I'm sure there's a reason for it, I don't understand why the base game doesn't have these improvements. There's still considerable bugs that haven't been ironed out, though. On one occasion, I was unable to complete a mission where the final objective was to kill all enemy forces, because I combed the entire map, and there weren't any left. On another, reloading an in-mission save meant that two of my squad members got popped back to the location where they started the mission, with the rest fully entrenched. And later, a VIP was suddenly no longer selectable before I could move them into the evac zone. I guess it's just something to be expected, but it honestly makes the Ironman play impossible. While it's a bit of a bummer to have to play the Avatar Project scenario again, War of the Chosen adds a lot to make it worth going back in. Very pricey for DLC, so wait for a good deal on a bundle, as I did.
• Tyranid

  Feb 21, 2023

  So good, it's practically necessary
• gamedeal user

  Jul 24, 2023

  I honestly did not like this dlc. It just seemed too forced and it took away from the experience in my opinion.
• Up&Up

  Sep 17, 2023

  Very good, but, unfortunately, you can NOT marry the chosen hunter; I've tried many times to take his hand in marriage, IMPOSSIBLE, probably a glitch, please fix this ASAP.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 29, 2017

  Finished my first play through. God it was so fun! I could have clear the game much earlier but I wanted to explore everything first and I avoid touching the last two shadow chamber researches. [ New classes ] Reapers enable real stealth gameplay, with the combination of repeaters and talon rounds it is possible to wipe out multiple enemies without being touched at all. Skirmisher's grappling hook makes him a perfect disrupter:pulling strong enemies towards your team so your team can them quickly or lauch himself towards enemies for cancelling their overwatch. Templar is my favourite. They are like a badass psionic ninja/jedi hero that go up close using double blades to kill. Templars are fast, can reflect damage, and do decent AOE damage. New classes are fun as hell, they add so much variations into gameplay and strategic planning. [The Chosen] The three chose and enemies hero units that randomly appears, just like the special aliens in the Alien Hunter DLC, but less OP and more fun to fight against. They have different strengths and weaknesses (e.g. certain class or certain attack types) and have very different combat styles so it doesnt feel repetitive when dealing with them. Although they are not overly powerful, they still deal a lot of damage and can disrupt your team alot both IN and OUT of combat (by sabotaging your resources, for example). I actually look forward for their appearance in battle as its really fun to fight against them! You can assign your soldiers in factions missions to locate their bases and hunt them down. I am not gonna spoil, but the rewards of hunting them down are totally worth it! [Other changes] Ability points - Soldiers can keep learning skills using ability points accquired in missions after they maxed their level. You can have your favourite soldies to keep learning new skills and keep progressing - small change, but nice. Bondings - Soldiers that bond together have additional benefits in battle such as giving bondmate additional action or joint attack with bondmates. This makes you consider who to send out in missions for ultilize this benefit rather than sending out your "best" soldiers. Missions - More missions types, larger variation of maps. Much less repetitive. Factions - Factions missions are missions that you send your soldiers away for a few days in order to gain certain benefits such as intel, loot, huntung down the Chosen etc. You also gain faction influence by doing so, where higher influence means more help (order) from them. This is also the only way to hunt down the Chosen and recruit the three new classes. Researches - There are occasional research breakthroughs that enabled you to research current tech faster or improving current tech (e.g. increasing hp on certain armor type); small change, but now you have to make decision between researching a tech that you wanted or spend time on these breakthroughs that are available within a limited time only - spiced up the research process a bit. Story - The story is basically XCOM2 with new elements incoporated (just like how Enemy Within works with Enemy Unknown). There are also new cutscenes explaining a little bit more as well as a new ending sequence. Nothing too new, but its nicely done. Optimazation - I must say the game is a lot more optimized than the base game. Missions load much faster and framerates are more steady now. Mods - Most of the old mods wont work. Some modders are working really quick for updates though. Thumbs up for them. \\\ Old, first few hours of WOTC comments below \\\ Ok, its really expensive for a DLC. However, having few hours into the game, it does not feel like a DLC at all. Every aspects of the game has been revamped and improved, it's more like a sequel, or at least "XCOM 2.5". Gameplay is a lot more fun now: 1. Exploring the world map is now different, with so much more things to interact with and to do e.g. rescue and recon missions for factions 2. There are new techs as well as new ways of researching, occasionally tech breakthroughs or inspirations has spiced up the originally click-and-wait research 3. Combat feels different with the addiction of new classes as well as minor changes e.g. it is possible for soldiers to enter "berserk" mode in addition to "panic" 4. New stories, new cutscences, it even has a new tutorial which isnt grounbreakingly different, but cool. That's it for now, I will come back to add more comments when I progress further. \\\ TL; DR \\\ Pros: - Greatly improved gameplay - More variation and challenges - Better optimized Cons: - Expensive - Old mods won't work - I hope there's more new elements to the story All in all, it is expensive, but its like playing a completely new XCOM. Gameplay is improved, has more variations and feel much less repetitive. Totally worth it. Lookling forward to the next XCOM. Meanwhile, I will start my second play through.