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XCOM 2 features many new enemy types, including the ‘faceless’ creature seen here, which can impersonate humans. There’s a shimmering effect when you enter the map room, where a 3D globe moves towards the screen and breaks apart into constituent particles as it does so, a sight so beautiful you just want to stick it on repeat with a Pink Floyd album.
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The latter is an incredibly lavish production of what is basically a side-on 2D view of an ant mound, which zooms in and out of the rooms as you click through them. XCOM 2 splits between missions on the ground, where you control a group of soldiers (initially four, soon six) and fight aliens/save civilians/steal technology, and the XCOM base itself. Here the restrictions are as tight as they were but, when you’re scrabbling every day just to find supplies and keep out of sight, the whole setup makes much more sense. At once the scenario fits beautifully with how XCOM 2’s mix of turn-based strategy and base-building works – in the original game you apparently had every nation on Earth’s backing, but could still run out of doctors or scientists or troopers. The tutorial establishes this new XCOM as a ragtag rebel group, abandoned by most of its old allies (who have signed up with the alien rulers) and lacking leadership.
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