XCOM 2: War of the Chosen review—A world worth saving

Enlarge / War of the Chosen is by far the most story-driven XCOM product. (credit: Firaxis)

XCOM 2 looks, sounds, and plays like a turn-based strategy game about beating back an alien occupation. Trust me, though: it's really a game about putting out fires. Over time, the game grows increasingly overrun with tasks that force you to pick and choose just a handful of permadeath-laden, turn-based missions to send squads on. Not every mission can be tackled, of course, and you just have to live with the extra aliens, reduced monthly income, and encroaching game-ending conflicts from the fires you can't put out.

That's how the base game began, anyway. Over the course of a campaign, it became clear that XCOM 2 didn't have enough fuel to keep the fires burning. One crack squad with enough experience, arms, and armor could eventually put any number of aliens to shame in the turn-based ground game. The overarching strategy layer then became an exercise in endlessly beefing up until you were as ready as can be for the final assault.

War of the Chosen, the game's first and likely last full expansion, deals with that problem with a simple maxim: more is more. More maps, more enemies, more abilities, more buildings, more to manage between missions, more story and characters, more bosses. In short, more fires that grow into raging infernos in the mid-to-late-game.

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