By comparison: after the first real-world month or two of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, it became apparent that anyone who intended to play it for that length of time would have a base build order down to a science, know exactly what to research when, and memorize the best routes through the pre-built maps and have an idea of where enemies would appear on them. But one of XCOM 2’s biggest strengths how it resists your efforts to fall into repetitious patterns. Not being dead on your first game is one thing – you almost certainly will die as a result of walking into countless unknown traps, especially if you play above the normal difficulty (as I mostly did – normal, or “veteran,” is a cakewalk for anyone who knows XCOM). You might think an 80% shot is guaranteed to hit… but in the one time in five that it doesn’t connect, you need to have a backup plan for what happens, or else you can’t complain when you’re dead.Ībove: See an XCOM 2 Retaliation mission. But XCOM 2 asks you to make that same gamble – or often much worse – with the lives of your soldiers on virtually every turn. but you’d have to be crazy to put your life on the line with a 16.6% chance of blowing your brains out, because way more often than you’d like, you will. Think of it this way: Playing Russian Roulette with a six shooter with one bullet, your odds of survival are five out of six, or 83.3%. Deciding when and how to upgrade and use each soldier’s abilities, then crossing your fingers and hoping they’ll make their clutch shot, creates non-stop suspenseful, triumphant, and tragic moments.

As with Risk, Monopoly, Warhammer, poker, and anything else involving chance, XCOM 2 is a game where you can theoretically do everything right and still lose to bad rolls of the dice, but on the whole a good player will generally come out on top. Just like before, XCOM’s high-stakes turn-based tactical combat dares you to become attached to your customizable characters (I made most of IGN’s staff in the character editor) knowing that on any given mission they could be permanently killed off because of mistakes or just bad luck.

Xcom 2 made whole