Jake Solomon, the creative director of XCOM 2, directly said that War of the Chosen is actually XCOM 3. Actually, any other studio would have immediately sold this content pack as a separate game. But this is Firaxis. The only reason War of the Chosen was made an expansion was because it didn't have a new direction. In the first XCOM, we were the commander of a global organization that openly defended itself against alien attack. XCOM 2 has changed the balance of power - we are now underground, our base is small, mobile, there are few resources, and the clock is constantly ticking, bringing Big Kick-Ass closer.
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Updated campaign
Like Enemy Within, the expansion is fully integrated into the campaign, so you'll have to start the rebellion against the alien power all over again. But the campaign has a new starting cinematic and modifiers, as it was in EW. There are noticeable differences in the characteristics of the fighters, additional obstacles and double the duration of the campaign. But even without modifiers, War of the Chosen will add another 10-15 mandatory missions (and, accordingly, several dozen intermediate ones) to the plot.
The Chosen Ones are a trio of particularly powerful aliens, the developers of which were inspired by... Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (praise the sun, after three years of waiting, other developers are little by little making their Nemesis analogues!). The chosen ones are randomly encountered throughout the campaign, and each time they react in accordance with the flow of your previous encounters. Moreover, sometimes they acquire special features for one battle. Let's say you seriously wounded one chosen one with a sword - then the next time you meet, he will have complete invulnerability to melee combat.
Other rebel factions
As it turns out, you are not the only rebels in this world. The appearance of the chosen ones forced several new groups to surface. And since the Assassin, Hunter and Sorcerer have every chance of becoming insurmountable rivals for you until the end of the game, it’s time to get allies in this war. Each of the three factions has its own characteristics, specialization, motivation, worldview... and it just so happens that they cannot stand each other.
The Reapers are consummate masters of stealth who worship the thief Garrett and Sam Fisher (they even dress similar). Unlike the standard “stealth” of your squad, which breaks down with the first shot, the Reapers have a special “shadow” mode. It does not detect the fighter immediately, but gradually - during this time, your Reaper can snipe several enemies and lay a mine or two.
The infantry of the occupying army consists of hybrids of humans and sectoids, who are much faster, stronger and more resilient than both species. However, the will of these HSOM Uruk-hai is so strong that the mutation is not able to wipe out human consciousness, so they flee from the army. It was these deserters who rallied and became Militants.
But with the templars it’s not so simple. All they have at their disposal are energy swords from Halo and a few psionic tricks. The thing is that at the beginning of the battle they can do relatively little - with each next move they accumulate “focus” points, which will give access to strong skills every time. If your Templar survives on the battlefield long enough, he will be able to reflect attacks (and eventually redirect them at enemies), summon his own battle-ready ghostly clone, and even cover the entire screen with a powerful psionic storm.
As you can see, the fighters of the mentioned groups are unsurpassed in their role; the default soldiers of your squad, in principle, are not capable of such things. And in order to get the opportunity to recruit at least one reaper, militant or templars, you will have to work hard and establish a good relationship relations with the faction. To do this, you will have to complete additional missions, to which you can only send two or three fighters. Of course, you will have to choose who to give an advantage, but if you rip your pants for 40 hryvnia, you will be able to make friends with three factions for a while (they will give you a separate achievement for this!)
New fighter development system
Reapers Fighters and Templars are tough as eggs, but their development system is different from ordinary soldiers. And all because they receive the skill not for a promotion in rank (they don’t have that), but for special skill points. Here it’s worth starting from afar: from now on, each fighter (regular or factional) has a “combat intelligence” parameter, which sort of determines the speed with which your warrior acquires practical skills in battle. That’s right, you don’t gain anything for the fact of fighting; only competent tactical decisions are rewarded (bypass the enemy from the flank, occupy heights, use weak sides a certain enemy, etc.). A higher level of combat intelligence - you will receive more development points at the end of the task.
What’s interesting is that all points received are not assigned to a specific fighter, but go into one common pool. They are primarily needed to improve faction warriors, but if you don’t need an Uber death machine in the face of a fighter, a ninja sniper reaper or a futuristic magician of level 120, for these points you can develop ordinary warriors, unlocking both skills of a certain rank or even skills completely another class.
Guerrillas or terrorists?
When vanilla XCOM 2 came out, we were sad that the developers quickly gave up and did not develop the topic of terrorism. They say that these are not terrorists, but definitely good and noble rebel liberators. And War of the Chosen, although not completely, will partially allow us to look at the global situation from the other side of the barricades. Now, after story missions, official news releases will be broadcast, where our actions will be described from the point of view of a collaborator. Finally, at least somehow the player will be told that he often puts civilians at risk, causes irreparable damage to cities and is not such an unambiguously good force.
In response to this, our base will have its own radio station, and also after each important task, a local DJ will conduct our propaganda in our favor. It would seem like a small thing, but it’s pretty nice that the developers are still trying to solve the problem of the uniqueness of the XCOM world and show their teeth.
Well, now the coolest part - Photobooth! After each mission, the surviving warriors pose in random poses, and the game will allow you to take a photo of the victors, which is then used as propaganda for the resistance. But you can customize the photo mode: apply filters, text, move fighters, change poses and take photos at any time at the base. And if your soldiers also fraternize, they will have a set of unique poses! The game will not only save the pictures taken in a separate folder, but also place them on the walls of buildings during missions (propaganda!). Damn, how wonderful this is!
Firaxis continues its proud tradition of releasing voluminous add-ons. DLC, which was released in quite a large number for XCOM 2 in the year and a half after its release, quite expectedly, did not add anything to the game that would encourage me to play it again. No, of course, someone is probably constantly scaling new heights in terms of difficulty levels and obtaining the rarest achievements, but XCOM 2 really changed only a few days ago - with the release of the War of the Chosen add-on.
Now we have three new enemies - the same Chosen from the game's title, any of which can pop up like a jack-in-the-box in almost any random mission. Fortunately, the arrogant and rather talkative aliens do not cooperate with each other or with the trio of freaks from Alien Hunters. Or unfortunately... In any case, you can’t just kill scoundrels: they will definitely come back again and again until you storm their personal strongholds.
The villains turned out to be interesting, although compared to the background of the “royal” monsters they do not look particularly scary. One of them prefers close combat, the second is a psionicist, and the third can shoot from sniper rifle almost the entire map. Another thing is that he indicates his target and the affected area in advance, so if you get away from it before the end of the turn, then he definitely won’t do anything terrible to you. And they all act approximately in this vein: they seem to be respectable guys with a lot of strengths(for example, protection from explosions) and small - weak, but some of their tricks are too easy to get around. And their fortresses frankly saddened me: all three battles with the “bosses” took place in similar conditions and according to approximately the same scenario, except that each next one was a little easier due to the fact that my fighters were more experienced and better equipped. Including the excellent weapons of the already defeated Chosen.
However, in any case, it will not be possible to ignore the trio of villains, because they harm not only “in the field”, but also on global map. To counter them, three factions of the Resistance have appeared in the game, each of which will allow you to hunt down the corresponding “boss”, carry out special orders (read: bestow bonuses) and share their own recruits, endowed with unique sets of skills unlocked for special points.
Reapers, for example, are specialists in covert operations: they can even kill an alien and still remain cloaked. This issue, however, is solved randomly in the spirit of XCOM, so building tactics based on this feature is quite dangerous. We also have Defectors from Advent, who by default shoot twice per turn, pull enemies towards them, etc. The grouping of psionics turned out to be especially funny: after being hit in close combat, these get an additional action in order to run for cover. If only the rangers could do this!
Now the liberation war is also being waged on the screen of special operations, which take place without your participation, but greatly influence game process. Rewards for success are very different: promotion of a fighter in rank (a great way to level up operatives who have been sitting on the bench), improved characteristics, resources, hiring new employees, reducing the progress of the Avatar project... The same one from the original XCOM 2: the storyline the addition does not change the line. In general, the benefits of such outings, which take place without the participation of the player, are obvious.
But misfires are also possible - then you will have to personally evacuate soldiers (usually 2-3 people) from the zone into which enemy reinforcements are constantly arriving. This is just one of several new types of missions that have revitalized the XCOM 2 campaign. There are also operations to rescue captured soldiers from alien prisons, which can be completed without firing a shot. But most of all the variety was not brought in by new mission objectives or original scenery: to be honest, locations consisting exclusively of underground tunnels are a dubious innovation, because all such operations look the same, and there is nothing even to catch the eye in the surroundings. No, the main stars of the expansion after the Chosen are the wanderers.
There are also new recruits in the ranks of the aliens and their puppets from Advent: a psionic infantryman, a flamethrower infantryman (I advise you to finish him off from afar), and an annoying creature that can create a copy of your charge, simultaneously taking him out of the game. But all this is not to say that it is particularly unusual, but wanderers are a completely different matter. This is the name of the zombie-like monsters that live in cities devastated by invaders. They look like zombies, react to what's happening on the map like zombies, attack only in melee like zombies, and even move mostly in crowds. Like a zombie. But they are called wanderers.
The catch is that these creatures will appear in huge numbers in some missions. Did they blow up a grenade? The strangers will hear and come running. Did you have a noisy shootout with Advent? Now a horde of wanderers is taxiing around the corner. In principle, these guys have no political preferences, so they gladly beat both your soldiers and aliens. Another important point: If you shoot a “walker”, you will receive an additional action. This was done, obviously, so that the detachment could clear the streets and buildings clogged with the dead, because there are not just a lot of wanderers here, but an incredibly large number. It’s a pity that their reinforcements appear in some very careless way: sometimes they appear out of the blue, literally out of thin air.
Overall, War of the Chosen makes a lot of changes to XCOM 2, although not every one of them can be called important. Let's say that friendly relations between operatives do not seem particularly useful to me. But the fatigue of the soldiers really affects the progress of the liberation of the Earth, because it is now unlikely to be possible to take favorites on every mission. Or another little thing: remember the actions to intimidate dissenters? Now on some of them there are more civilians, but they are covered by AI-controlled resisters. Contrary to all expectations, “cannon fodder” is actually quite useful.
And even if short description The key changes made to the original XCOM 2 add-on take up a couple of pages of text. War of the Chosen is an excellent add-on, but still. With it, XCOM 2 grows in breadth, but not in height or, if you prefer, in depth. XCOM 2 is a continuous mission with timers. It feels like there are fewer of them, but in reality, even in those operations where there is no move counter, you will be urged on by, say, crowds of wanderers. XCOM 2 is full of funny AI decisions, because of which a soldier sometimes prefers to climb onto the roof of a nearby building instead of running in a straight line in order to jump off it a couple of meters later. Or heavy mechanical enemies destroying the objects they are assigned to patrol. XCOM 2 is an omnipresent generator random numbers and a very small number of story missions. After defeating all the Chosen Ones, you won’t really get anything other than their things. They say they got rid of the threat - and okay.
The new classes are good, but I personally ended the campaign with soldiers proven by dozens of hours of battle, and not with representatives of exotic factions. Playing through XCOM 2 once again was a pleasure: there was a significant increase in worries in the strategic mode, and new variables appeared in battles. But I didn't have the feeling that I had completely neglected new game. Don't get me wrong: it's an excellent addon and should properly push the boundaries of what is familiar from the original game. But nothing more. Personally, I liked certain features of Enemy Within much more than the Chosen or the resistance factions, but overall War of the Chosen is noticeably larger than the addition to the first XCOM. By the way, XCOM 2 itself has become faster, and loading takes less time. Whose merit is this - a patch, some kind of DLC or add-on? Don't know. It's a small thing, but nice.
While playing XCOM 2, you might wonder how the Resistance even survived until you took over. Arriving to fight off an alien attack on another rebel base, you saw only a bunch of frightened people. The War of the Chosen expansion finally answers this question. However, not only this one.
War of the Chosen is the first major expansion for XCOM 2. The previous ones were more likely to be cosmetic expansions that had little impact on the game. Yes, the Lords appeared, introducing a certain confusion into what was happening. Yes, it was possible to take a huge robot onto the team. But those additions did not provide the depth that the game needed. Despite the procedurally generated tasks, the DLC did not differ in variety and became boring rather quickly. Especially if you didn't rush things by completing all the story missions before receiving the plasma rifles. War of the Chosen changed that in many ways. Without adding new missions or a separate mini-campaign, the new DLC nevertheless embodied the ideas that should have been present in the game from the very beginning.
Of course, XCOM 2 was great before, but sometimes it felt like a lot was left behind the scenes. There was a lack of enemy customization - you were fighting a faceless mass of aliens who had taken over the planet. Even the alien leaders did not possess any sane personality, representing universal evil that could be destroyed without any emotion.
Now you will have to fight with the Chosen - the champions of the invasion, each of whom has a memorable face and behavior. There are three of them in total, and each of them has a unique specialization. The Assassin is a variation of the evil ranger, the Sorcerer is a very powerful psionicist, and the Hunter is a sniper that would make Deadshot jealous. The chosen ones have divided the planet into zones of influence, and from time to time they will prevent you from completing tasks. Essentially, this is a development of the Overlords from Alien Hunters, only more balanced. The Chosen do not walk after your every action and do not have the titanic health of the Overlords. But this does not mean that you should not be afraid of them. Their main strength is their ability to adapt. They come out to each battle more experienced, with a new set of strengths.
The enemy in XCOM 2 was seriously lacking in personalization, and the Chosen solved this problem. Now you are fighting not with abstract evil, but with very specific opponents.
In addition, it is impossible to completely destroy the Chosen in open battle. To do this, you need to find a fortress in which the resurrection chamber is located - only in this case will you be able to take them out of the game. By the way, there are quite a few tasks in the game where the appearance of another enemy (especially such a strong one) will force you to bury at least half of your squad. In addition to the opportunity to ruin your life on missions, the Chosen will fight you on the global map, depriving you of resources or hunting for your air base. You definitely won't be bored.
But you won't be alone in the fight against this new threat. It turns out that not only you are fighting the aliens, but also three resistance groups, each of which has its own goals and tasks. By making contact with them during a special mission, you will receive their champions and related bonuses. Among them there are reapers - best snipers resistance, intercessors - former soldiers ADVENT, capable of attacking twice, and templars - psionics who love close combat.
Their warriors develop, although a little differently. They have more specializations and you don't have to choose from a couple of options. But at the same time, it cannot be said that they have some kind of ultimate power, being able to destroy sectopods with one glance. At a long distance, they look even a little weaker than ordinary soldiers, who will still form the backbone of combat operations. New heroes will only add flexibility to your tactical planning.
War of the Chosen is an even larger expansion than Enemy Within for the original XCOM. In addition to new mechanics, here you will find dozens of minor fixes and new features.
Tactical planning in the game has become very important. New Dark Events can seriously ruin your life. For example, enemies may have ammo that causes heavy bleeding. Without large quantity specialists are indispensable. War of the Chosen forces you to pay much more attention to team building. This is largely facilitated by the mechanics of friendships among your soldiers. Thus, veterans who often fight side by side can receive special perks if they go on missions together. But this also has a downside - if one of them dies, the other may become uncontrollable, showing anger and activating skills that you do not need.
Not the least role is played by tasks in abandoned cities, captured by the so-called “lost”, a kind of zombies. They always attack in crowds and are able to surround your squad quite quickly, causing certain problems. But if your soldier hits the “lost” one directly in the head, he will have the opportunity to perform another action. Thanks to this, the “lost” can be destroyed in dozens, and after the middle of the game it turns into a regular massacre. You just need to monitor the number of cartridges and try to get the opportunity to reload for free. It is also important to understand that snipers with an emphasis on pistol combat and grenadiers with the ability of chain or cone shots work especially well against the “lost”. But it’s better not to use grenades - they will only attract more zombies. Specialists, rangers and SPARK robots are slightly less effective against them. This must be taken into account when recruiting a team.
New locations have also appeared, which somewhat diversify the standard rural and urban areas. Recognizing the need to fill new maps with new enemies, the developers added to War of the Chosen the opportunity to meet the previously hidden soldiers of the Lords of the Earth. We can only advise you to stock up on protection from psionics and fire. And endurance. Because in the war with the Chosen Ones you will definitely need it.
Let's go directly through the points specified in the supplement information and understand its strengths and weaknesses.
The innovation that was promoted most actively during the Firaxis marketing campaign is, in fact, the addition is named after them. The chosen ones are three new opponents, each of whom is stronger, smarter, more cunning and more dangerous than any standard enemy on the battlefield. Each of the Chosen Ones has a goal to destroy XCOM and return the Commander, that is, us back to captivity, back to captivity.
Actually, for this purpose, they will pursue the player and his charges for most of the game, interfering in both strategic and tactical leadership. It is worth recognizing this innovation as successful: each of the three chosen ones opposing us has its own distinctive character and unique style battle. Their actions on the “globe” can really, if not destroy, then significantly spoil your future plans, but in battle. Not to say that they are as dangerous as we were assured. After a couple of face-to-face meetings, you will already have figured out their tactics and will be able to calmly fend off further attacks.
Three factions designed to help XCOM destroy the Chosen, and along the way provide assistance with new soldiers and abilities. Emotions from this innovation remained mixed: everything associated with the new capabilities of these groups, namely their unique fighters, secret missions and bonus cards, looks decent and fits into the game.
But as for the history of the factions themselves, their “contradictory” motives and various features, then all this is revealed somehow very poorly. Positioned as three factions with their own philosophy and their own special style, in fact they are not much different from each other, not counting weapons, equipment and leader. Basically, throughout the entire game we are only informed that the factions do not like each other, and that we need to unite with them.
Even the so-called “long-awaited reconciliation” looks very ridiculous and forced. And if XCOM weren't primarily a strategy, this flaw would be very serious. But in fact, you can leave it and continue to enjoy how factional fighters easily deal with the next detachment of aliens.
In XCOM 2 they tried to convey to us that all the capitals and large cities destroyed during the war were rebuilt by Advent. In War of the Chosen, it turns out that not all. Some of the DLC missions will take place in abandoned cities, over which neither the aliens nor the Resistance have established control. It's all about an alien biological weapon released 20 years ago, which turned the residents of the affected cities into mysterious Wanderers.
And I must admit, the design of these levels is really good. The locations of the old cities really differ from the sterile centers of Advent, the atmosphere of complete destruction and abandonment is commendably conveyed, and the tasks taking place in this territory themselves become partially unique.
So, these were the three main innovations of War of the Chosen, but there are also a few more topics worth mentioning: Fighters are no longer the same type of units with different models And different abilities. They may become tired after participating in a series of tasks, develop various phobias, and also form friendly relationships with their comrades. All this makes them truly individuals, distinguished from others now not only by their name, nickname and flag on their armor. Adding this to the vanilla customization system and the ability to write a full-fledged biography, we can safely assure that War of the Chosen, for the first time in the series, presents fighters as not cannon fodder, but as versatile people united by one goal.
I did not encounter any bugs and poor optimization, which became the main problem of XCOM 2 in the first months after its release, in this add-on. Sometimes there is an incomprehensible pause between the transfer of moves, but nothing more. The crude strategic part of the original received enough new mechanics, and at the same time the expansion of old ones, so that now it does not create the impression of a trimmed version of Enemy Unknown. There is a nice bonus in the form of a challenge mode, updated every week.
In conclusion, it is worth answering main question: “Does this expansion make XCOM 2 what it was supposed to be from the start?” I think no, it doesn’t, Long War copes with this task better, without going beyond the mechanics of the original game. However, War of the Chosen should not be ignored, as it makes XCOM 2 feel like a truly different game. A game with many possibilities, a lively strategic and tactical part, and in addition with quite good replayability. Regardless of your opinion about the vanilla version, you should buy and play the original XCOM with this expansion at least once.
War of the Chosen– the first major addition for XCOM 2, which includes many innovations that greatly transform the game. We'll tell you what fans of the series should expect in this review.
We'll start with new factions. First, we have to meet the Reapers, who prefer to fight secretly. The second is the Intercessors, Advent soldiers who have gone out of control. Third - Templars who use psi energy.
Each faction will give new classes of fighters, which differ from the standard ones by a more diverse pumping system. From the reapers we will get a sniper capable of hiding and moving over long distances, which allows him to become an excellent scout. Intercessors will provide a fighter who can shoot twice and also climb to high places with a grappling hook. The Templars will share a fighter capable of using psionic abilities. Also, all three new classes use their own unique types of weapons and armor.
The matter is not limited to new heroes - factions also help you in developing your base. Reapers will allow you to collect intelligence. Intercessors will speed up construction. Templars will help treat the wounded. However, in order to use these services, you will have to give up other tasks on the global map. There are also secret missions that your soldiers will do without your participation. The rewards are varied - from collecting materials to reducing the progress of the Avatar project. These tasks are not without risk. If you're unlucky, you'll have to use special missions to get your fighters out of trouble.
Perhaps the main feature of the add-on is the new kind enemies - the Chosen. There are three of them in total, but each of them is unique and represents a mini-boss with unique skills. One of them is a killer who can disappear, another is a sharp shooter, and the third is a powerful psionicist. Moreover, each of them has its own character. These are not just soulless dummies, but full-fledged characters who will often contact you, giving great amount various phrases.
The meetings with them were also unusual. Now, when completing tasks in the territory of one of the Chosen Ones, you run the risk of meeting him, as a result of which you will have to spend energy on him. But having defeated him in battle, you will not get rid of him forever, but only drive him away. Also, sometimes they can kidnap your stunned fighters, or draw information from them, which is much worse.
The fact is that the Chosen do not just appear on the battlefield - they constantly interfere in the affairs of the resistance and acquire new abilities over time. But the most unpleasant thing is that they find out the location of your base, which is displayed in a special scale. And if it fills to the end, consider that you have lost.
All this makes the game much more intense. Not only are the aliens engaged in the Avatar Project, and missions are pouring in with such frequency that your fighters do not have time to get out of their hospital beds, but also the Chosen Ones are looking for information about you. At first you will meet one Chosen One, but gradually you will meet others, each trying to uncover your secrets.
To get rid of the Chosen One, you will have to complete a series of secret missions to find his lair, and then organize an attack. At first, the battle with the Chosen One in his stronghold is impressive. First we make our way through the guards, and then we fight with the Chosen One himself, the battle with whom takes place in several stages, during which the tension increases greatly. But only the first fight is impressive. The assault on the citadel of the second and third Chosen Ones does not differ at all from the first battle. In the end, there is no need to search weak spots and come up with some tactics. You already know in advance what to expect and how to act. And this is the main disadvantage of the Chosen Ones. The developers could add some flavor to each battle with the Chosen One.
Another major addition was a new type of enemy - wanderers. They are hostile to both you and the aliens, and they are mindless zombies - victims of the aliens' massive biological weapons. Whole new maps and missions with wanderers have appeared - usually these are gloomy abandoned cities.
Wanderers appear in droves, which is why the developers added a new feature. When you kill a wanderer, you are given an additional action, as a result of which one fighter can kill several zombies at once. You will also have to be more careful when using grenades and other weapons with explosions, since our noise will attract even more wanderers. Everything is according to the canon of zombie horror.
At first, the new opponents are really impressive, as the game changes greatly during the battle with them. But the most the main problem wanderers is that their theme does not develop in any way. Stronger wanderers differ from others in terms of health and damage. You won't see any radically new species. As a result, at the end of the game, missions with wanderers begin to irritate, since shooting them becomes tedious and a waste time. You greet new crowds of wanderers not with tension, but with irritation at the fact that you will again have to perform boring actions. Maybe on high levels The difficulties will indeed force the wanderers to strain much more, but on “Normal” these zombies are only annoying. You also begin to hope that the theme with wanderers will be developed in a couple of new story missions with sinister secrets. But after you meet the wanderers, nothing new will happen to them.
There were also other smaller innovations. New weapons have appeared, relationships can now arise between soldiers, which adds new tactical possibilities, and the developers have seriously improved optimization, as a result of which levels load much faster.
Of course, all the negatives with the final battles with the Chosen and Wanderers can be forgiven if it were not for the price of the add-on. 1399 rubles is, roughly speaking, 2/3 of the cost of the original game, and frankly speaking, it’s a bit expensive for such a quantity of content. At the same time, there is a feeling that the developers in some places did not complete the addition, such as the final battles with the Chosen. Plus, when you destroy all the Chosen, War of the Chosen will cease to be surprising. In the second half of the game, the add-on simply won’t be able to offer you anything radically new.
Overall, the expansion does a very good job of deepening the original game, making it more complex and intense, adding new challenges to players. If you evaluate the add-on in isolation from the cost, then you can give it an 8. But if you consider War of the Chosen as a product, then my personal rating is 7 points. Basically, if you haven't played XCOM 2 yet, you can wait for discounts and purchase the game along with the expansion.
In the material: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen