Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
I don't generally pre-order games, but having seen so many early impressions from people I trust AND a really good deal on GMG, I went for it. Pretty excited for this one! XCOM is great for the emergent stories.

In fact I'm going to share one. The game? XCOM Enemy Within. The mission? Base defense. I had never watched this far in a Let's Play, and I had never made it this far in my games, so I was completely unprepared for this mission to hit. Imagine my horror, as the level loads in and I assess my squad, that I had rotated my best sniper out for the last mission - she was equipped with default gear. Cue multiple Chrysallids, Mechtoids and Cyberdiscs. This was the end of Elizabeth 'Low Rider' Petit, and probably a lot of other very important units as well.

Or at least it would have been, if of around 48 enemies killed during the course of the mission, 'Low Rider' hadn't got 30 of them. With about a 90% Critical Hit rate. Casulties? 2 Rookies.

I remember the medal I unlocked at the end of the mission gave my sniper no stat benefit whatsoever but I didn't care. She smurfing deserved it. I gave her a new nickname, 'Critter' (I suck at nicknames btw) and began writing fanfiction about her and her lesbian lover 'Colonel Twitch' who was my best assault.

I need another game that can create these kinds of scenarios. I need XCOM 2 in my life!
This one is looking to be even better for emergent stories.

You now have the ability to carry both wounded and dead soldiers. Even if a soldier falls, you can (if you want) carry them out of the line of fire for a proper burial (but no in-game reward, from what I've heard, it's just an RP thing. Which I love). I also know that you can salvage customized weapons that they have, and if you don't, those weapons will be lost.

There's also a fantastic developer talk panel from Firaxicon where Jake Solomon talked about the changes that customization and the character pool added in.


The ability to create your friends in incredible detail, and have them pop up on missions is pretty incredible. As he says, how do you NOT take the mission to save your mother when she's a VIP? If you see a fellow EoFFer there on a rescue civilian mission, how do you just let them get wiped out?

Plus, since your character customizations are saved, you feel better about customizing more. You won't spend an hour customizing a soldier, only to have them die and be too frustrated to customize their replacement. They'll probably already be customized, so you can just take them and be immediately attached.

Or, you can run with randoms, and then save those who perform exceptionally well and who have earned their place on a more permanent team.

You can even name weapons, and pass them from soldier to soldier, creating stories of their own. What soldier will earn the right to carry Psychotic's legendary Boomstick when he falls in battle protecting the Avenger from a horde of encroaching aliens? Will we carry his body back with us, and see him off, or just leave him to rot in enemy clutches?

We'll have to find out.