FAQ/Walkthrough by unboundbraniac Version: 1.15 Updated: 09/30/13 Search Guide Bookmark Guide. Then, restock and continue the mission. Head on till you run into Angela, choices, then continue on and activate the space bridge. To the left of the space bridge is a sleeping person, to the right is the mission.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/XCOMEnemyUnknown
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- Anti-Climax Boss: The final boss, while not the same joke the one in the original games was (which couldn't attack and could be killed before even entering the room it was in), can be taken down in just a few hits if you bring enough snipers. Woe betide the player who incautiously moves their troops into Rift range and fails to kill him, though - he (and his goons) are more than capable of dishing out a Total Party Kill if you let him.
- One sniper with Squadsight and Double Tap armed with a Plasma Sniper Rifle can take the final boss out in a single turn, before the battle can even begin.
- You can also ghost in some Heavies and rocket-spam him. He can't handle more than two rockets anyway.
- An apparent bug can also cause this, skipping the opening speech of the final boss and causing his underlings not to spawn.
- Ascended Meme: Vahlen's infamous request to avoid the use of explosives where possible was turned into around 5 and a half minutes of scenes of explosives-use and the corresponding request, with 1 minute of that as a Stupid Statement Dance Mix (and a single 'Close range?'), on a stream, looped for 24 hours. It also received multiple humorous references in the sequel.
- Author's Saving Throw: While the game itself isn't this for 2K, since Enemy Unknown was started before the FPS was announced, looks like Enemy Within is this for The Bureau. Just when people saw the final game and got angry, Enemy Within was announced and that rage was lessened, since the trailers were really promising.
- Breather Level:
- Council Missions once you get far enough into the game. You can be losing good soldiers to Sectopods and Ethereals left and right, and then you're asked to clear a map of Thin Men who were only a challenge back when you couldn't One-Hit Kill them. Those missions are also great for training rookies, as their inexperience is not too much of an issue there. They also make for excellent opportunities to fill in your interrogations - if you didn't put off the base raid for a while, there's a good chance you'll have missed the chance to stun a regular Sectoidnote or a Thin Man for interrogation, and they more or less stop showing up after raiding the base, which without the Council missions would make the research credits from interrogating them Permanently Missable Content.
- Operation Gangplank, the final mission of Slingshot. You're on a Battleship, but unlike late-game Battleships, this one is mostly crewed by Sectoids and Thin Men, and they show up piecemeal. Sure, a Chryssalid, a Muton, and a Cyberdisc show up later on, but those are singular in every instance, and are nothing a good team with Carapace Armor and lasers can't handle, especially when compared with the Muton rush that was Confounding Light, the previous Slingshot mission.
- Furies, the final mission of Operation Progeny, counts as well. The previous mission, Deluge, often had Mutons and Mechtoids pouring down on the level, all the while being timed. Though this mission is timed too, the only resistance one faces here are Thin Men and the occasional Berserker. The layout is the familiar Abductor ship level too, so there's no way to get lost either.
- The Site Recon mission is a Shout-Out to Cthulhu Mythos, and it is a genuine Cosmic Horror Story... if you get it when Carapace armor and basic laser weapons are in development, and you're stuck with body armor and ballistic guns. If it comes up when you have a comfortable amount of Heavy and Sniper Lasers and at least the Skeleton Suit, and especially at the plasma-and-powered-armors stage, it's more like Lovecraft Lite. And the desperate flight ending becomes a bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation, as your team could keep killing the waves of Chryssalids until the final turn when it's time to leave.
- If you're competent at rescuing civilians, Terror missions are a breather for the problem of global panic. These missions are not easy in the slightest, but if you manage to save a respectable number of civilians, panic will abate in the country of the terror attack as well as, to a lesser extent, in the entire continent. It's especially important when panic is high on countries you already have satellite coverage over.
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- Broken Base: With a series like this, it was bound to happen. Most of the players can be split into 3 groups:
- The purists who hate the game because they feel it's nothing like the original X-COM.
- The fans who love the game and believe that it's a worthy successor to the X-COM name.
- The moderates and newcomers who don't really care about the history of the franchise but think it's still a pretty good game.
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
- Some possible class skills simply never get picked, due to perceived or actual uselessness. Rarely will you find players with more than two snipers not trained with Squadsight, Supports without Sprinter, Field Medic and Savior, or an Assault without Close Combat Specialist and Close And Personal. Fortunately, Firaxis rectified these issues in Enemy Within, although now the skills to pick are Grenadier, HEAT Ammo (which is absolutely essential for fighting Mechtoids and Sectopods) and Squadsight (again).
- Some of the new enemy types specifically address the overpowered nature of some class builds. Seekers now actively target isolated soldiers, including Squadsight snipers who normally hide at the very back of the battlefield. EXALT also forces a break from typical tactics, thanks to the fact that large numbers of them will swarm you on maps, reinforcements arrive every turn or so (so you can't simply press forward slowly and trigger one group at a time like with regular aliens) and they use your own tactics against you.
- As several Let's Players point out, becoming complacent is actually a very bad idea when playing this game. To paraphrase one: 'When you're getting complacent, start worrying'.
- 'Training Roulette', a Second Wave option that randomizes most soldier skills save for a few (Squaddie class-specific skills and mostly skills inherent to weapons that other classes can't use, like rockets for Heavies and sniper rifles for Snipers), does away with most of this. That said, it's rare to not pick Bullet Swarm, Field Medic, Lightning Reflexes and Sprinter over almost anything.
- Creepy Awesome: Some of the more unsettling aliens, like the Chryssalids and ThinMen.
- Demonic Spiders:
- Sectopods. Enough health to require almost your entire squad's damage output to put down, high enough Defense to ensure a good portion of your squad will miss anyway, multiple attacks per turn and a free Overwatch shot, the ability to unleash (after one turn) a devastating area attack which, if you're unlucky, you may not see coming. And as a mechanical unit, it is impervious to most psionic abilities, and since it can't take cover, it has innate defense at all times and it's Hardened, so immune to critical hits unless the soldier's chance is boosted in some way like skills or the upgraded S.C.O.P.E.. It gets worse in Enemy Within, where to balance the increase in firepower from MEC Troopers and the versatility of gene mods, they have Reinforced Armor, a bonus that halves all damage taken (rounded up) but doesn't affect Drone repairs, the Heavy's HEAT Ammo only deals 50% bonus damage against robotics, and their death explosion actually deals considerable damage over a wide area, similar to a grenadenote . What's more, in very late game Terror missions, all enemy pods can be Sectopods plus Drones. By the time they start showing up, you better always have a good Field Medic on the team and a setup strategy in mind to dealing with these guys.
- Chryssalids in the early game. Their very long movement range (complete with In a Single Bound, so you're not safe even on the rooftops) and powerful melee attack (which can zombify any human it kills, to boot - even if it doesn't kill on impact, it's poisonous) makes them insanely dangerous, and they're very hard to kill with ballistic weapons, especially since they're resistant to Critical Hits. In the 'Alien Base Assault' stage, they are very likely to appear and close the distance before you even get a turn, and can kill any of your soldiers in two hits at most if you only have Carapace Armors and Skeleton Suits. It doesn't help that they're essentially Big Creepy-Crawlies – almost literally Demonic Spiders, albeit with six limbs, not eight. Fortunately, they have hard counters in the form of MEC Troopers with either level 1 ability (especially the Flamethrower, as it can annihilate an entire pod of them, while the Kinetic Strike Module is a One-Hit Kill on at most two and that's if they surround the MEC), and Scatter Laser-wielding Assault troopers with Close Combat Specialist, and by the time your whole squad has plasma-tier weapons, Titan armor and beyond, they're only really dangerous if they mob a soldier.
- Thin Men in the early-game on the higher difficulty settings. Incredibly mobile, deadly-accurate, twice as tough as they are on normal difficulty, and able to casually leap to higher ground. Many players have reported getting a Code Black on their first encounter with the Thin Men on higher difficulties. What's worse, they tend to be glass cannons with 'Damage Roulette', capable of dishing out up to 9 damage on a non-crit shot.
- The Mechtoids in Enemy Within are nothing to be laughed at. They have a lot of hit points, are heavily armed, can attack twice in a turn if they don't move, just like Sectopods, you can't flank them and if a normal Sectoid mind merges with it, it gets a psychic shield that allows it to tank damage even better. Killing the Sectoid that is doing the mind merging only does a little bit of damage to the Mechtoid. One exploitable vulnerability since they have to be piloted by a Sectoid, they are still vulnerable to psychic powers, so if you are lucky and mind control one, the tables can change very quickly. Additionally, the Sectoid pilot's cowardly nature will come out if the Mechtoid is wounded and there are several enemies in sight; it will choose to retreat (possibly using both moves) instead of taking down as many as it can, as Cyberdisks or Sectopods would. However, they just as often enter Overwatch the moment they're out of sight, so you will trigger a lethal ambush when you go after them unless you have a soldier with Lightning Reflexes on site.
- Disappointing Last Level: A major complaint that's been brought against the game is the sub-par nature of the final level. It tends to feel rushed, like it was cobbled together at the last minute by ideas they thought would be cool but came up with late in development, and ends rather abruptly. Enemy Within, which brings so much new content to the game, has the exact same ending – the new alien units don't even feature in it.
- 8.8: 8.2 from IGN, igniting a mass of muttering and furrowed brows from dedicated fans. Metacritic gives it a solid-ish 89/100, brought down by one 70% review. Even Yahtzee liked the game enough to include it on his top five for 2012.
- Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Dr. Vahlen, due to her actions and thinking well reflecting that of many XCOM players. While she may get excited at the sight of new technologies, she does show empathy for the soldiers and fear for humanity. She still does whatever it takes to get the info she needs out of captive aliens and they tend to 'expire' quickly. From their perspective she must be some mythical demon and the reason why you DON'T want to get caught alive by those creepy humans with their stun guns.
- The Thin Men are pretty popular as well, a result of combining cool design, creepy animations and a very memorable interrogation scene.
- Delta-2, who is a premade character in the tutorial with one of the generic soldier voices. However, the fact that the Justified Tutorial effectively makes Delta-2 and his squad the stars of an Action Prologue to the game's story, and that Delta-2 is the Sole Survivor after the rest of his squad gets cut down, gives him a lot of attention from the fanbase. Even moreso if going for the 'Aint' No Cavalry Comin' achievement, as Delta-2 would be the only candidate able to achieve it by partaking and surviving every mission: effectively letting him take a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the aliens who killed his old squad for every single battle in the war.
- Shaojie 'Chilong' Zhang from Operation Slingshot, a former Triad criminalwho defects to XCOM after learning his boss wants to sell off a dangerous alien artifact.
- Annette Durand from Operation Progeny, a civilian who was hunted by both the aliens and EXALTfor her unprecedented Psionic potential. The fact she was powerful enough that the aliens could use her as an Amplifier Artifact to charge their psionic powers to mind-control most of XCOM HQ's staff just before launching their Base Assault is enough to cement her as a girl not to be messed with.
- The three 'Furies' rescued from the final mission of Operation Progeny: like Delta-2, they are pre-generated characters with generic voices, but their Psionic potential makes them all badasses on the level of Zhang or even Annette herself. It helps that two of them seem to be a Brother-Sister Team as well.
- A few of the VIP characters from the Council Escort/Extraction missions, mostly for providing opportunities to fight back against the aliens after being extracted by XCOM:
- Anna Sing, a woman who was a victim of Alien Abduction, and is able to escape her captors before XCOM moves in to save her: while a Broken Bird and The Woobie, she is certainly high-up in most lists for favorite extraction targets.
- General Peter Van Doorn, a Four-Star Badasswho enthusiastically taunts his alien attackers, and expresses remorse for how many of his men were cut down by them (while promising to make the aliens pay for it in aRoaring Rampage of Revenge). Notably, in the Long WarGame Mod, the reward for extracting Van Doorn is having him resign from the UN, and join XCOM as a soldier. The sequel also acknowledges his popularity, allowing you to recruit him.
- Evil Is Cool: XCOM is cool, but the aliens are some of the most badass characters in the game. The Thin Men and Mutons are emphasized in this, as demonstrated by their interrogationanimations.
- Friendly Fandoms:
- In several communities online, XCOM fans and WH40K fans are one and the same. Expect jokes about the Adeptus Mechanicus and the MEC Troopers, countless calls to Purge the Xeno, and praising the Commander as though he was a Primarch.
- Game-Breaker:
- Pretty much all of the Hero Units, though this is deliberate.
- SHIVs. There's three mechanics that make SHIVs exceptionally overpowered: you don't have to pay for their weapons, they get increasingly cheaper from every workshop connection (being completely free at 8 workshops), and in Enemy Within they get continuous healing up until they're critically hit.
- A sniper with Double Tap, Squad Sight, and a Plasma Sniper Rifle is going to pretty much slaughter the opposition, especially if they have the high ground. In The Zone is also pretty broken, but relies on your sniper being in position to flank everyone, or all enemies being out of cover.
- A pretty great way to get the high ground is via the Archangel Armor (especially so with the Advanced Flight Foundry project). If you fly high enough with that you're simultaneously unlikely to be targeted while also being likely to be in a good position for squadshotting enemies and providing far-reaching overwatch. A properly equipped sniper can end up being a critical attack fiend and even possibly your squad leader due to racking up kills easily.
- With a Heavy to clear the aliens' cover and lower their health, an ITZ Sniper can kill all opposition, and still have a turn to spare.
- Mimetic Skin in Enemy Within. Soldiers with Mimetic Skin have auto-activating invisibility if they move into high cover from outside enemy sight range, and can remain invisible in that position until they move or attack. And it becomes available very early in the tech tree. This enables extremely aggressive and risk-free scouting, ensuring that you will never run into an enemy ambush, and it also allows you to rain fire using a Squadsight Sniper with complete impunity. The fact that it has infinite uses makes it arguably better than Ghost Armor, a very late-game active stealth suit that many considered to be a game breaker to begin with. It can't stack with the Stealth ability from Ghost Armor or Grenade, and the fact that you need full cover can limit its usefulness in some maps... except for Major-ranked snipers and above, thanks to their 'Low Profile' ability, which makes low cover count as full, meaning any kind of cover at all can trigger Mimetic Skin. It says something that its cost was substantially raised in a later patch. The only conceivable problem with Mimetic Skin is that it's not a 'get out of jail free card' when the operative is trapped by Suppression or will trigger an Overwatch by moving.
- As noted above, in vanilla Enemy Unknown, the Ghost Armor can be incredibly powerful, as four usages can often be sufficient for most of or the entirety of the map in all but the longest missions. By the time you're going to be fielding Ghost Armor, chances are explosives and destroying alien equipment is going to be less of a concern for you, which is great because ambushing enemies with grenades or rockets becomes significantly more viable. Instead of needing multiple units or multiple turns to take down a single enemy, a lone Heavy or grenade-toting other unit can potentially clear out three or more enemies with a single attack. Chances are you might already have other ability combinations that are pretty powerful, but few things compare to the low risk, high reward strategy of ghosting. In particular, Terror missions become significantly easier when you can save civilians via a de facto victory over clustered aliens.
- Enemy Within made Snap Shot viable by reducing the Aim penalty after moving, so a Colonel with Snapshot, Mimetic Skin, Low Profile and In The Zone is a walking hurricane of headshots, as they can slip undetected through an enemy line to take cover in the perfect position, then shoot them all dead the next turn.
- MEC Troopers. Even with their basic starting loadout these guys have a huge minigun that will rip apart most enemies, and their starting MEC gives more health than any of the armor worn by normal soldiers except for the Archangel and Titan Armor, and the only normal armor that gives higher defense is the Ghost Armor. Though the MEC Troopers can't use cover, the Kinetic Strike Module system lets them One-Hit Kill anything short of a Cyberdisk or Mechtoid (and if upgraded, only Berserkers, Mechtoids, Sectopods and Ethereals can survive a hit from it), and its Flamethrower is easily among the best Area of Effect attacks in the game, that causes all organic units to panic if it doesn't kill them. All this before getting any of the MEC upgrades or class abilities, which in the late game can make a single well-used MEC almost unstoppable.
- With Training Roulette, you can potentially get incredibly powerful characters by mixing and matching certain combinations of skills. How about an Assault class with Sprinter and Low Profile to help them close the distance with a shotgun and then be in decent cover afterwards? Low Profile also pairs well with the Mimetic Skin gene mod, as it allows essentially any cover to trigger the free ghost stealth. You could even pair it with Muscle Fiber Density to leap up buildings or Adaptive Bone Marrow to make sure that even if your Assault does get hit, they'll be able to heal it up over time and likely recover quickly after the mission anyways. If the Assault is also gifted with Gunslinger, he or she is the perfect scout and a Meld-collecting machine, not to mention a superb covert operative. Even with the restrictions that covert operatives can face, with the right set of equipment and abilities it's like EXALT was essentially infiltrated by Superman.
- Genius Bonus:
- Several in the research project codenames:
- The Blaster Launcher research project is codenamed 'Tunguska', no doubt after The Tunguska Event.
- The Sectoid interrogation is codenamed 'Roanoke'. Roanoke Colony was established at the coast of what is today North Carolina in the late 16th century by more than a hundred English settlers. A ship returned there a few years later and found the colony completely deserted, with no signs of struggle, and none of the settlers were found in later investigations.
- The Sectoid Commander interrogation is codenamed 'Voynich'. The Voynich Manuscript is a book dating to the 15th century written in an unknown script and language, and no one has been able to decipher it thus far. Experts are divided on whether it some kind of artificial code or cypher, the only specimen of a dead language or mere gibberish.
- Several in the research project codenames:
- Good Bad Bugs:
- Units firing may bug out and be shown shooting in a completely different direction... but the rounds will still go right into their target. It's especially notable when a Sniper in cover uses Disabling Shot – they'll actively aim away from the target before shooting.
- Suppressing melee enemies will have them stand still out of fear of provoking a reaction shot from the ability, and can take no other actions if not adjacent to attackable units because melee enemies can only attack in melee or move. Of course, them standing still for a turn to let the rest of your troops get in position to shoot them to ribbons is more likely to be hazardous to their health than one reaction shot while they run for cover. Fixed in Enemy Within, where they'll either take the gamble and move.
- Snipers with Squadsight, when put into Overwatch, can take reaction shots at sniper distance even with a pistol (which is incredibly beyond its maximum range). Good pick for taking out a low-health enemy not trapped by Overwatch from a soldier within its sight.
- Sometimes, when using their sidearm, your soldiers will still keep their primary weapon model on their hands, so this can result in your trooper holding a plasma sniper like a pistol and shooting regular bullets. Typically happens when they get to cover and you give them the command to switch weapons before their animation for settling in finishes playing. Something vaguely similar happens when an EXALT Elite Medic fires off his Regen Pheromones and then uses a Medikit immediately afterwards.
- The Ethereals' attack reflector has a few setbacks:
- It doesn't work on missed shots from an Assault's Rapid Fire skill, and if it reflects the first but gets hit by the second, the first shot won't be reflected.
- They'll reflect the first few shots fired from Suppression. The reflected shots deal no damage, since if the user isn't a Heavy with Mayhem, they're not meant to cause damage.
- If a Mind Controlled alien is killed, they're treated like a fallen squadmate when it comes to their gear. That is, their inventory is salvaged after the mission, so you often receive bonus Plasma weapons and grenades.
- At least in Enemy Within, Floaters can now get themselves stuck on terrain, and waste both their moves trying to escape, leaving them sitting ducks for your soldiers.
- Spontaneously, the weapon camos in Enemy Within can bug out and leave you with the default camo.
- Occasionally while travelling to the far side of the Earth (e.g. XCOM Europe to Melbourne, Australia), the Skyranger will fly to the north pole and teleport to the south (or vice-versa) and continue on to the destination as if it hasn't suddenly broken all known laws of physics.
- Related to controls: Using a mouse lets you more precisely aim a grenade or rocket, but using a console controller (e.g. Xbox 360) seems to let you extend your maximum range via analog sticks at the cost of being noticeably harder to aim. Depending on the positioning of enemies, this extended range could be enough to give you the edge on a turn when enemies are clustered but far away.
- In the otherwise awful Vita port, using an item while in cover makes you get stuck in it... or lets you clip through the wall the soldier is leaning on. Used properly, it can be a get out of jail free card that also allows you to damage aliens/EXALT with a grenade and leave their line of sight.
- On the PC version of Enemy Within, the game very rarely allows a MEC Trooper to move after using their last action point on a non-movement action. It happens most often (but not necessarily) when the MEC Trooper is the last squad member to act in the turn by killing the last enemy in sight.
- Rarely, a soldier will have an action after using the grappling hook even if they use it as their second action in the turn (after moving/firing with Bullet Swarm/something else). Typically only a few actions will be available, but if the soldier isn't a Heavy, switching weapons will make all actions that aren't on cooldown (except movement) become available.
- Goddamn Bats:
- Floaters: unlike the original game, many players actually hate them now. Their jetpacks mean they'll almost always find exactly the right spot to land in where your entire team is flanked and they're safely behind cover. Heavy Floaters are The Same But More: more firepower (regular plasma rifle, and a grenade to make things worse), more mobility, more aiming accuracy, and more hit points.
- Thin Men as well, as they're highly mobile like Floaters, and pack the same amount of firepower. Sure they die in one shot (unless you shoot them with your basic sidearm or are playing on Classic or Impossible) most of the time, but they have the annoying poison attack (which reduces a soldier's Aim) that never misses and they explode into a cloud of poison when killed. They're especially good at flanking injured troops at just the right time to deliver a killing blow, which thanks to their considerable aim, almost never misses. Especially with Damage Roulette, they can whittle down even an advanced XCOM team that's having problems moving without ending up flanked or exposed.
- Drones are a pain. They have very low health and a high aim soldier can waste one easily (in fact, they're always fodder for a Colonel Sniper with In The Zone unless you're rolling with Damage Roulette), but their innate defense and tendency to take flight and gain even more defense from it makes them irritatingly hard to hit for soldiers with middling aim and Assaults with a shotgun-type weapon. In Terror Site missions, they'll forget everything in favor of flying off in search of civilians to kill, and otherwise, they can repair robotic enemies without even needing to be close to them. It's even worse in Enemy Within if they're escorting a Sectopod, as Reinforced Armor doesn't matter for their repair potential.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The game was set in 2015. The sequel was originally set for a 2015 release.
- After researching Xenobiology, a cutscene would play in which Vahlen explains the mechanism of the Arc Thrower: going into close range and stunning the alien. Bradford reacts to this with a bewildered utterance of 'Close range?!'. Fast forward to XCOM 2, and the Ranger class not only uses shotguns, but also a blade that they can use in melee. And even more hilariously, in the 'Alien Hunters' DLC pack, Bradford is a Ranger himself while in the field.
- 2014's Scottish independence referendum ended with Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom. In the game's setting, in 2015 Scotland is an independent country.
- XCOM: The Unknown Menace, a novelization of the original made in 2002, had an Ancient Conspiracy allied with the aliens and trying to hinder XCOM. Ten years later, EXALT was here.
- Inferred Holocaust: On a comparatively small scale, but the mission to rescue Annette Durand from EXALT takes place on a massive hydroelectric dam in France that was heavily damaged before XCOM even got there. There's no uncertainty that the dam will break very soon (part of the mission involves opening emergency valves in order to gain enough time to save Annette before this happens), and given the dam's size and France's population density, countless people will die in a Giant Wall of Watery Doom within an hour of XCOM leaving the AO victoriously. This is never brought up in-game, although that can be justified by even a catastrophe on this scale being largely insignificant when compared to a worldwide alien invasion.
- Memetic Badass:
- While Annette is a powerful psionic, her power often get exaggerated to extreme degrees.
- Already popular for being a clear Four-Star Badass that wants to make the aliens pay for killing his men escorting him, Peter Van Doorn's addition in the Long War mod as a playable soldier led to many players attesting him to be a reliable star player on their team and quickly mutated him into being an unstoppable action hero that only doesn't kill all the aliens by himself because it's not fair if he has all the fun.
- Memetic Loser: XCOM rookie troopers actually have pretty good accuracy ratings if you compare them to real-life soldiers, but they're mainly remembered for all those times where they missed when firing a shotgun point blank at an alien the size of a bus. 'XCOM Rookies' is sort of a byword in many communities for 'supposedly elite trooper that can't hit the broad side of a barn.'
- Memetic Mutation:
- Jake Solomon's 'That's XCOM, baby!' whenever something goes horribly wrong or wonderfully right despite being very unlikely. Missing with three 95% shots in a row or succeeding with a 10% Mind Control attempt? That's XCOM, baby!
- Similarly, this has leaked into other video games that use RNG - such as Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics.
- SpaceBattles.com and others swiftly took to calling Total Party Kill missions 'Code Black', after the E3 2012 trailer ended with 'Status Black' for the same purpose.
- On the 2K forums, any reference to the Blaster Launcher always mentions that it's GLORIOUS.
- Bradford's bewildered 'Close range?' seems to have gotten this a bit too.
- The development of Enemy Unknown is attributed by some to an epic 'BETRAAAAAYAL! BETRAYAL! BETRAYED ME!! THIS GAME SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!' in response to The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, then a FPS simply named XCOM.
- After it was revealed that XCOM 2 follows an alternate timeline where XCOM gets overrun early on, any game that's going particularly badly is occasionally met with 'This campaign is now canon'.
- Jake Solomon's 'That's XCOM, baby!' whenever something goes horribly wrong or wonderfully right despite being very unlikely. Missing with three 95% shots in a row or succeeding with a 10% Mind Control attempt? That's XCOM, baby!
- Most Annoying Sound:
- Vahlen's requests to preserve the aliens' equipment can get rather annoying on harder difficulty modes, where fighting without extreme prejudice (read: explosives) is generally out of the question. It's gotten to the point where Firaxis included the option to turn it off in the Enemy Within expansion.
- If you capture an Outsider alive before completing your first alien interrogation, Vahlen will keep nagging you about killing any future Outsiders despite the fact you already have one in storage. At least this will go away after you research the crystal.
- The advisers' urging you to hurry things up during some Council missions can get pretty annoying.
- If you find yourself in a situation where you can see a group of Chryssalids and they can't see you, you'll come to regret it fast. They start roaring every 6 seconds, and since they don't start at the same time, you'll hear a never-ending stream of screams until you finally move.
- In escort missions, not only are the civilians you need to escort utterly helpless, they also tend to make a brief speech every single turn – irritatingly freezing the game interface until they're done talking.
- In the very beginning of the game, and some instances later on, the game will constantly remind you to visit the research labs, engineering, the situation room, or mission control.This seems to be most prevalent for players who spend a lot of time meticulously constructing personalized soldiers at the start of the game. While the game is still playable like this, it can get rather frustrating as there is no way to turn it off. Nobody wants to be barraged by the PA reminding you every few seconds that you should be somewhere else.
- Vahlen's requests to preserve the aliens' equipment can get rather annoying on harder difficulty modes, where fighting without extreme prejudice (read: explosives) is generally out of the question. It's gotten to the point where Firaxis included the option to turn it off in the Enemy Within expansion.
- Most Wonderful Sound:
- Alien death cries, especially Chryssalids when they let out a loud painful shriek when you shoot the last life out of them. Each one you hear means you have successfully taken out something that was trying to kill your men and anything that looks like your men.
- Your advisers' compliments when you complete a mission without any XCOM soldier even getting injured. Feel proud, you deserve to.
- Even better than this is the Council telling you what a good job you did if you get an A grade at the end of the month.
- The Run and Gun sound effect (optionally followed by 'Moving at the speed of death' or 'Gun 'em down'). Well, except for the times when your Assault charges in to give one hapless alien a faceful of shotgun only to aggro six nearby Mutons (unless you have explosives to blow them up with).
- Any time you mind control something. The Mutons (any type) in particular make this deafening roar as you do. Given how much of a pain Mutons are, this makes seeing one do some of the work amazing.
- The Alloy Cannon sound when you fire it. A deep resonating 'boom' that is usually followed by the cries of agony of your target.
- Also, the sound of a Blaster Launcher firing, and the warbling noise its projectile makes. Followed by the sound of something (possibly several somethings) violently leaving this plane of existence.
- Narm: There are times when the randomly generated operation names can be rather silly. Word Salad Title is the most common form of this, but you'll occasionally see Department of Redundancy Department as well.
- Paranoia Fuel: Seekers. Once they show up in a mission, you've pretty much got to drop everything and put your entire squad into Overwatch, because they're out there, hunting you, and if you drop your guard for even a heartbeat, one of your soldiers is getting strangled.
- Porting Disaster: Enemy Unknown Plus on the Vita suffers from a massive amount of issues. Loading can take up to three minutes from startup to actually playing the game, and load times are still pretty long once you actually start playing. There are plenty of graphical glitches, which occasionally include not showing where a character's movement becomes dashing and the smoke from smoke grenades becoming invisible. The framerate also stutters every now and again. Using any item in a soldier's inventory when they're in cover has a chance of them clipping into it and being stuck and unable to move, even with explosives destroying the thing they were stuck on. And lastly, even if you do manage to get through everything, it has a tendency to crash later on in the game!
- It should be noted that this is after the rather unpopular mobile phone port (despite having Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within released separately) for the same reasons, although the loading time is slightly quicker due to lots of reductions and a far smaller level template is used for the mobile phone port.
- The Scrappy: Central Officer Bradford is not popular with some fans, probably because the first thing he does in game (at least, if the tutorial is activated) is command the very first XCOM squad to their death leaving only one survivor, and from then on seems to make it a point to act in complete Genre Blindness. He's also a rather generic crew-cut military man, with little characterisation, making him hard to like even disregarding his bad decisions.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The 'Security Breach' trailer from Enemy Within has changed this, though, simply because Bradford is shown beating the crap out of a mind controlled base technician.
- If you fail the mission where the aliens attack XCOM HQ, a cutscene plays showing Bradford's dead body propped up against the wall and with a pistol at his side. Lying in front of him is a dead Sectoid. The implications are profound.
- Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The 'Security Breach' trailer from Enemy Within has changed this, though, simply because Bradford is shown beating the crap out of a mind controlled base technician.
- Scrappy Mechanic:
- The Reinforced Armor trait on Sectopods in Enemy Within. This trait halves all incoming damage, meaning that it essentially has sixty hitpoints. The only exception to this is the MEC's Electro Pulse attack, which does a full five damage and stuns. If none of your squad has Shredder Rockets or Heat Ammo, your best strategy is to stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. After the first encounter, it's never a bad idea to go on a non-abduction mission expecting a miniboss.
- Overwatch is normally a useful ability, but one alien is capable of triggering multiple overwatches at the same time. This means that your soldiers can fire a disproportionate amount of ammo into a single alien, possibly resulting in other aliens being able to move unhindered. This was fixed for the sequel, where overwatch moves are now sequential, and a Game Mod that retrofits sequential overwatch into EU/EW is among the most popular mods out there.
- Control is completely locked out when it's the aliens' turn. Upon realizing a mistake save-scumming players hate having to wait to load from a more desirable point.
- That One Level:
- 'Portent' is the first real difficulty spike in Enemy Within. It happens within only two months after the start of the game and if the game didn't introduce the Thin Men before, they will now. Everything about this map seems tailored to the Thin Men's advantage. High ground to boost their accuracy to insane levels, close groups which means you will more likely trigger two or more groups at a time, and your troopers measly health will more likely wiped out in a single shot on Classic or Impossible. This mission is responsible for most early rage quits on Classic or Impossible.
- The second special Council mission, 'Confounding Light', from the SlingshotDLC. You have only ten turns to find and activate four beacons, all of which are heavily guarded by poisonous Thin Men, who start receiving hard hitting Muton reinforcements (who pack full-sized Plasma Rifles instead of the Light ones they normally have early on) after a while. Putting it off until your soldiers have some better equipment is advisable.
- Enemy Within gives us 'Site Recon', which tasks you with exploring an abandoned fishing village that has gone silent after an alleged alien attack. It turns out that the entire town was overrun by Chryssalids and is now infested by Chryssalid zombies. But wait, it gets better. The source of the infestation is a fishing ship with a whale carcass that the Chryssalids are using as a hive. Understandably, Central decides that this entire town can fuck right off and calls for an airstrike to purge the area. From there, you have eight turns to make it back to the opposite corner of the map for extraction while fleeing from an endless wave of Chryssalids spawning from the hive. Unless you can cleverly strategize and get a few lucky rolls, you'll probably lose people, either from the Chryssalids or from simply being left behind. Though if you get this mission late enough, it can turn into cakewalk instead, since no enemy unit can shoot you, Archangel armor can make you practically invincible here. Having a squadsight sniper with Archangel Armor means that they can easily kill any enemies that dare move into his/her line of fire. Power-armored assault troops and well-upgraded MEC troopers can also slaughter the Chryssalids by the dozen in the late game.
- The XCOM Base Defense mission for those unprepared in 'Enemy Within'. Players may have heavily-wounded soldiers from the preceding Alien Base Assault mission, if not fatalities, and may be overall lacking in resources to field a proper defense. The justifiable but still very cruel lack of a pre-mission loadout option may also ruin any defenses if the top 4-6 members of the barracks aren't properly outfitted.
- This mission got added at the same time as the new button to remove all non-default gear from all soldiers not in the current team you're outfitting. This otherwise welcome addition (it saves a lot of tedious searching for who has your good gear before every mission) makes it extremly likely, especially for first time players, that any soldiers that weren't in the last mission you fought have had their gear stripped when this mission unexpectedly pops up.
- The player's first Terror mission, bonus points if it's their first play through too. It comes early enough in the game where you might not have a lot of upgrades, and is the first time you encounter Chryssalids. That's bad enough, but there's tons of civilians scattered across the map, who are being killed by said Chryssalids, if the player doesn't kill the Chyrssalids and any Zombies fast enough, they'll get swamped as the number of enemies multiply.
- The level 'Street Hurricane' is referred to as 'Murder Street' by some players because good cover is sparse, its linear design means there are few flanking opportunities, and the size of the map means activating multiple groups of enemies at once is quite likely. At least until you get Squadsight snipers on the roof of the bus stop, in which case the long distance and poor cover can work in your favor. Made even worse in Enemy Within where it can be a Terror Mission.
- Street Hurricane is also home to a bug which can cause one of the 'pods' to be activated before getting vision on the aliens, likely causing your units to take damage from overwatches that shouldn't be possible.
- The level 'Demolition' was infamous for its design immensely favoring the defending aliens. With the few good covers lumping your squad together as grenade bait and often breaking line of sight, the approach giving the aliens the high ground, and the only flanking route long and tedious with zero cover if you're spotted, players winced whenever they saw the map on the briefing. The map holds the (dis)honor of being the only level so unbalanced that it was overhauled in Enemy Within.
Advertisement:
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified | |
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Developer(s) | 2K Marin |
Publisher(s) | 2K Games |
Director(s) | Morgan Gray |
Producer(s) | Alyssa Finley |
Designer(s) | Zak McClendon |
Artist(s) | Jeff Weir |
Writer(s) | Erik Caponi |
Composer(s) | Garry Schyman |
Series | X-COM |
Engine | Unreal Engine 3 |
Platform(s) | |
Release |
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Genre(s) | Tactical shooter |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a tactical shooter video game played in third person. It was developed by 2K Marin and published by 2K Games. As the eighth title in the turn-based strategy series X-COM and a narrative prequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in August 2013. Set in late 1962 at the height of the Cold War, the game's premise mainly revolves around The Bureau, the predecessor of the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit (XCOM), as they attempt to repel an alien invasion. As a tactical shooter, players can use the battle focus mode to issue commands to two other agents accompanying the protagonist, William Carter. Players can permanently lose their squad members so they must make good tactical decisions.
The game's development was protracted and troubled. Development began in 2006 after Irrational Games was acquired by Take-Two Interactive. The title then became a collaboration between 2K Marin and 2K Australia, which was later removed from the project due to communication issues between the two studios. The team initially wanted to create a mysterious first-person shooter with fearful alien life forms. The player would be tasked to take photographs of them and research them in a secret government organization. Ultimately, the team decided to focus more on teamwork and tactical elements, which are staples of the X-COM series, and rebranded the game as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. The Day The Earth Stood Still and X-Files inspired the game's artistic style while The Right Stuff inspired the game's narrative.
Revealed as XCOM in April 2010, the game was meant to be a reboot of the series; the idea was met with mixed reactions from critics and players. It missed several target release windows before release. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified received mixed reviews upon release, with critics praising the game's tactical elements and art style but criticizing the game's artificial intelligence, permadeath system, narrative, and gameplay. Most critics considered the game a disappointing entry into the series. The game debuted as the tenth best-selling retail game in its first week of release in the UK.
- 2Synopsis
- 3Development
- 5Reception
Gameplay[edit]
The player can enter the battle focus mode to issue commands to the squad members.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a tactical shooter played from a third-person perspective. In the game, the player assumes control of Agent William Carter, a field agent who has to defend the US from a hostile extraterrestrial force known as the Outsiders.[1] The Bureau's headquarters serves as the game's hub space where Carter can interact with other people of interest.[2] Using a dialogue tree, players can select different conversation options to talk to other non-playable characters.[3] Players also recruit agents in the headquarters and choose one of four different classes for them—commando, engineer, recon, and support. Each class has different abilities and weapons. For instance, the commando class specializes in direct offensive abilities and rifles, while the engineer class relies on landmines and automatic turrets. Players also choose the recruit's background from six possible options; each provides a minor perk that enhances the recruit's combat efficiency.[4] Recruits can be further customized with different faces and uniforms.[5] In mission areas, players are accompanied by only two recruited agents; other agents stay at the base or are dispatched to secondary tasks.[6]
To combat the alien enemies, the player accesses a variety of both human and aliens firearms, ranging from pistols and grenades to scatter laser and laser rifle.[7] In order to flank enemies and avoid being shot by them, players can hide behind and switch between cover. Since ammunition is limited, players look for resupply in different ammo stashes or pick up new weapons by exploring each mission area.[8] Players can assign commands to two companions who are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI). By entering the battle focus mode, in which time slows down nearly to a halt, players can instruct the companions to move to different positions, hide behind cover, target an enemy, or use a skill.[9] If a cover is effective, a blue holographic shield is shown, otherwise a red shield is shown.[10] In the console versions, commands are issued via a radial wheel, whereas in the PC version, commands are shown as a flat row of options for players to select.[11] In the battle focus mode, the area of effects and the percentage of success of each attack, and the health status of the squad members, are displayed.[12][13] Actions can be chained together to create combo attacks[5] though special abilities usually have a cooldown time (abilities cannot be activated for a certain period of time after being used).[8] An agent will become permanently unconscious or die if Carter is unable to revive the agent.[14] Players explore each mission area to find documents and audio recordings that provide insight about the game's world.[15]
Carter and his squad members gain experience points by completing missions and secondary tasks. The experience points allow the player character and their squad members to level up and gain new abilities. New options in the game's branching skill tree would also become available for players to unlock. The upgrade choices are binary—unselected choices are locked forever.[16] Some of these upgrades include alien powers such as cloaking, levitation (which ascends enemies hiding between cover), and pulse wave (which knocks down enemies).[17] Backpacks can be collected to boost the passive perks.[18]
Synopsis[edit]
Setting[edit]
The game is set in late 1962 at the height of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union. Prior to the events of the game, US President John F. Kennedy authorized the creation of the Bureau of Strategic Emergency Command, which was intended to coordinate US military forces in the event of a Soviet invasion of the US. A top-secret underground command bunker was constructed to house the bureau and military and civilian personnel were secretly contacted and told to report there in the event of an invasion. The bureau's director, Myron Faulke, had another vision for his organization: a bulwark against attacks from the Outsiders, hostile extraterrestrial forces whom he believed had been operating on Earth for the past six months and had some connection to the recently discovered super-element elerium. As the game begins, CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) special agent William Carter is tasked with delivering an important package to Faulke at the Bureau's research labs at Groom Range.
![The Bureau Xcom Face Glitch The Bureau Xcom Face Glitch](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125752885/939653504.jpg)
Plot[edit]
Responding to Director Faulke's summons, William Carter waits in a room at the Groom Range facility where he meets a military officer who informs him that she is to escort him to Faulke to deliver his briefcase. Carter is wary and refuses to go. A black fluid discharges from the officer's eyes, revealing her to be infected; she shoots Carter and opens the case. The case emits a blinding light which incinerates the officer and stuns Carter. Moments later, Carter awakens to find his gunshot wound inexplicably healed and the case destroyed. The base comes under attack. Carter attempts to rescue Faulke as the attackers, identified as the Outsiders by bureau agents whom Carter encounters, easily slaughter the base's garrison. He eventually finds Faulke, but is too late to save the J. Edgar Hoover, CIA director Frost, and General Deems (who became infected and killed the others). Carter escapes the Groom Range facility by tram just as Outsider devices cause the mountain to implode. He stalls the Outsider pursuit with a powerful Elerium bomb and he and Faulke flee on a Skyranger helicopter.
At the Bureau's command bunker, Faulke announces that communications worldwide are jammed and other US military bases have been destroyed in similar attacks. With no way to contact the White House and other American military leaders, Faulke formally activates the bureau which is renamed as XCOM. To counter the Outsider threat, Faulke assumes control of the country's remaining military forces while XCOM operatives planted in major cities keep the civilian populace from panicking by downplaying the attacks as safety drills.
Over the following weeks, Carter leads teams of agents across the country to retrieve important personnel, defend strategic sites, and recover what alien technology they can for research. Gradually, the bureau pieces together the Outsiders' motives: to conquer the Earth and terraform it into a new home world while simultaneously enslaving humanity. The interrogation of an Outsider infiltrator reveals that their species is commanded by an entity known as Origin through a psionic network called Mosaic. Carter's team travels through a Venn portal to the Outsider home world using the Avenger, a flying saucer XCOM has developed. There, Carter discovers that Mosaic is powered by an enslaved Ethereal, a being of pure energy with immense psionic power. The Outsiders have been searching for a dormant Ethereal on Earth (which is what was inside Carter's briefcase) that now inhabits his body. He manages to capture Origin's Ethereal, detonates a bomb at Mosaic's entry point, and returns to Earth.
At XCOM's base, the captured Ethereal named Shamash psionically contacts the Ethereal inside of Carter, Asaru. It becomes apparent that the player has actually been playing as Asaru. In its recently awakened state, Asaru believed itself to be human and psionically controlling William Carter. Shamash claims that because both the Outsiders and humans have learned how to capture Ethereals, the Ethereals must be destroyed so that a force like Mosaic is never rebuilt. Upon hearing this, Carter manages to temporarily break free of Asaru and kills Shamash. XCOM's base is discovered by the Outsiders and Carter attempts to defend it while attempting to break free from Asaru's control. Carter plants an explosive device with a thirty-second timer because he believes that the Ethereal will never allow him to be free.
Conclusion[edit]
Four endings are possible depending on the choices made at this point. If Asaru refuses to relinquish control of Carter, the bomb goes off and kills both of them.
Alternatively, Asaru can release Carter but only to willingly merge with either Dr. Weir, Agent Weaver, or Director Faulke. The new host knocks Carter unconscious and the remaining agents abandon the base. They discover that Origin still exists within the remains of the Mosaic network and has transported itself to Earth's orbit in order to command the Outsiders stranded on the planet. The crew of the Avenger mounts their final attack against Origin's ship, with Asaru providing the new host with the powers it had given Carter. During the mission, one of the other two host options is sacrificed and the other is rescued and Carter, who believes that Asaru is no different from the Outsiders, is either executed or incarcerated. Asaru's host discovers a secondary entry point for Mosaic and psionically integrates with the network and destroys Origin and its influence over the Outsiders.
The aftermath of the Outsider invasion is revealed in the form of a debriefing of Asaru's host. If Asaru merges with:
- Weir, he persuades the Outsiders to cease their attack and help rebuild before departing amicably to continue their search for a homeworld; Outsider technology is carefully disassembled and stored away, sites of Outsider attacks are quietly erased from the national register or explained away as natural disasters, and surviving Sleepwalkers are cured.
- Weaver, she forces the Outsiders to kill each other; all Outsider technology and evidence of their attacks is destroyed, in some cases with nuclear weapons, and the Sleepwalkers are euthanized.
- Faulke, he commands the Outsiders to stand down and rebuild before being exterminated; some Outsider technology is preserved and provides considerable scientific and military advances, sites of Outsider attacks are erased, and the Sleepwalkers are treated but not cured.
In any case, the Outsider invasion is successfully covered up with only the members of XCOM and a handful of top US and other world leaders aware of how close the human race came to extinction.
The debriefing concludes with a description of how Asaru severs contact with its host and departs after the Outsiders are dealt with. Asaru's intentions remain unknown. The musical score segues into a theme from XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
Development[edit]
As XCOM (2005–2011)[edit]
XCOM was set in the 1960s. In this version of the game, the alien enemies were designed to be mysterious and fearful.
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of the game's publisher 2K Games, purchased the intellectual property rights of X-COM from Atari in 2005.[19]X-COM was a turn-based strategy video game series that had become dormant since the cancellation of X-COM: Alliance in 2002. In 2006, 2K Games acquired Irrational Games, which had an office in Boston and another in Australia. Irrational Games, led by Ken Levine, was primarily focused on the development of BioShock but the team wanted to develop two projects simultaneously. Both offices created different pitches for a new X-COM game. Initially, the team attempted to return to the strategy root of the franchise using the engine that powered Freedom Force but because of the popularity of and the team's expertise in first-person shooters (having worked on SWAT 4 and System Shock 2), they changed genres. However, the team found it difficult to translate the strategy elements into a shooter and many pitches were abandoned. One of the pitches is set in a world conquered by extraterrestrial forces where the hero, inspired by Dave Grohl, leads a revolution against the aliens. Another pitch had the player character escape an alien vessel and mount the back of a colossal alien. The Australian branch experimented with asymmetrical multiplayer, in which a group of players played as human soldiers while another group controlled the aliens. Levine's Boston office withdrew from the game's development to focus on BioShock's prodouction. Irrational Games Australia later split to become 2K Australia.[20]
When 2K Australia assumed full creative control, they decided to use the setting pitched by the Boston office. The game was set in the 1950s and humanity was technologically incapable of fighting against advanced alien enemies. As Take-Two Interactive assigned the Australia studio to assist the development of BioShock and its sequel, the game's development progress was slow. The team's skeleton crew had neither sufficient time nor resources to complete the project.[20] The game entered full production after the studio finished the development of BioShock 2 in 2010.[21] The team hoped that the release of XCOM could establish the studio as a lead game developer. The initial goal of the project was to create a first-person shooter that could 'elicited fear and confusion.' The pitch was named X-COM: Enemy Unknown, a word play on UFO: Enemy Unknown, the first X-COM title, while also reflecting the mysterious and unknowable nature of the aliens. This pitch was also inspired by X-Files: the game's protagonist was a government official who would investigate alien sightings across North America, collect information, and return to a secret military laboratory for research and strategy planning. The version had limited procedural generation. The art team envisioned the aliens as globs of goo. The first alien created by the team was the titan, which was heavily featured in the game's marketing materials.[20]
2K Games saw the game's potential and assigned 2K Marin a supporting role in the game's development. They began conceptualizing multiplayer modes for the game and modifying the game engine. Initially, the team drafted a cooperative multiplayer mode similar to Left 4 Dead. It would also have an AI director to determine when and where enemies would spawn. Although the two studios were working on two separate components, their distant geographical locations and different time zones hindered communication and made collaboration difficult. On April 14, 2010, 2K Games merged 2K Australia into 2K Marin and officially revealed the project as XCOM.[22] However, despite the merge, communication problems persisted and the game failed to meet several development milestones. 2K Games then removed the multiplayer portion completely and reassigned the Marin studio to work with the Australian team on the single-player portion.[20]
Led by the design team of 2K Australia, the Marin studio worked on the first-person portion, also known as Field Ops. The Australian team contributed to the strategy elements of the game. 2K Marin found it difficult to animate and program an enemy that was unknowable. A prime component in gameplay design was to photograph aliens, but the unknowable enemies had no face and players could not determine if the enemy was looking at the protagonist. To improve communication and solve the problem, the teams swapped employees between the two studios, though this failed to stop some employees from leaving the project. The collaboration enabled 2K Marin to take more creative control of the project and they fundamentally changed the game's focus by downplaying the mysterious component.[20]
A gameplay demonstration was shown to the press at E3 2010. Players could complete rescue tasks, anomaly missions, and unknown missions.[23] The weapons were futuristic: there was a lightning gun and players could throw glass grenades. Players were tasked to take photographs of aliens and could withdraw from a mission once sufficient information about the mysterious enemies was collected.[24] Players could also explore the XCOM base in first-person; the base would gradually expand as the player completed more missions. The game also featured a branching path where completing one mission could mean that other missions became inaccessible.[25] Jonathan Pelling, the creative director, said that the team tried to uphold the 'core X-COM tenets'. He described the game as a 'systematic' first-person shooter in which the story would unlock gradually depending on how much the player had achieved.[21] Pelling said the game's design of 1950s America was inspired by how Norman Rockwell advertisement depicted that period of time (not how it actually was)—one 'where people feel comfortable and everything is optimistic.'[26]
Transitioned to The Bureau (2011–2012)[edit]
After creative leads from 2K Australia left the company in 2011, 2K Marin used the opportunity to fill leadership roles. 2K Marin experimented with some conventional game features, including stealth gameplay and a suspicion system, in which enemies would be alerted if the players acted abnormally. Jordan Thomas became the game's narrative director and he pushed the setting to 1962—the height of Cold War. The new storyline also included issues centered in the civil rights movement more significantly than the initial setting. 2K Marin streamlined the game's features, turning open-ended levels into more linear ones, and making humanoid enemies the main enemy types. 2K Marin was unhappy with the state of the game and asked 2K Games permission to create a new demo for E3 2011.[20] They wanted to increase squad tactics and switch the game to a third-person perspective so that it would resemble classic XCOM games.[27] The changes were time-consuming and the team failed to complete the demo on time. The radial wheel was introduced in 2011 as well as Time Units (using skills and battle focus would drain time).[28][29]
After seeing the positive press reaction, 2K Games agreed to let the team reboot the project. Thomas envisioned the rebooted project as a link between Firaxis Games' XCOM: Enemy Unknown and the older X-COM titles. Most of the stealth and horror elements were discarded and the game was redesigned to become a tactical shooter. The changes were a lot of work and with continued communication problems between 2K Australia and 2K Marin, development was behind schedule. 2K Games intervened and removed 2K Australia from the project, though some Australian staff members were offered to relocate to the Marin office and continue their work. 2K Marin's studio head John Chowanec forced the team to work nine hours a day to speed up development. Thomas left the project to work on BioShock Infinite.[20]
As The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (2012–2013)[edit]
After the departure of Thomas, Zak McClendon, the narrative designer of BioShock 2, led the game's gameplay design. Under his guidance, 2K Marin began including classic X-COM enemies like Sectoids into the game. Having missed multiple milestones, the game entered its alpha stage in mid-2012; the game was playable from beginning to end. The game entered the beta stage in March 2013 and the publishing arm of 2K Games began promoting the game more heavily. During this period, 2K Marin also exchanged ideas with Firaxis Games.[6] The game has multiple references to XCOM: Enemy Unknown and other X-COM games,[30] though the enemies are less advanced than those in XCOM: Enemy Unknown since the story takes place over 60 years earlier.[31] The team's design of the Outsiders was inspired by Dune.[16]
In late 2012, the studio experimented with real-time strategy gameplay, in which players controlled agents from a top-down perspective. The radial wheel was reintroduced, though the team realized that players did not give commands to other characters during the testing phase. Early playtesters also complained that switching between agents was too slow and cumbersome. To solve the problem, the team streamlined gameplay by removing Time Units and the ability to assume control of different agents. Playtesters found the radial wheel confusing to use because there were too many skills to choose from when all agents reached their maximum levels. The team, in response, created a radial menu in which the selected option would expand and the rest of the menu would shrink in size.[28]
With the game's setting shifted to the 1960s, the art style became more realistic. It was inspired by The Day The Earth Stood Still, X-Files, and Mad Man, which the team thought was highly authentic to the setting.[32] The 1960s architecture featured in the game was inspired by the Googie style.[30] Erik Caponi, who had previously worked on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and The Matrix Online served as the game's narrative lead. His main task was to fill the gaps in the overarching story previously written by Thomas. He was inspired by The Right Stuff and The Conversation. In the game, each mission is a self-contained narrative, similar to an episode of a television show.[33] He compared it to a role-playing game (RPG) in which the story is more personalized. Players action would bring consequences to the game's world that would result in several alternate endings. To increase player agency, different side objectives were introduced to the game.[34]
According to Gray, the XCOM base was an important part of the game. Grey described the base as 'a character in itself' and one that would slowly change as the story unfolds. He compared it to the Normandy ship in the Mass Effect trilogy. Unlike XCOM: Enemy Unknown, players could not conduct any research because there was no procedural generated content and time did not pass between missions. Research would disrupt the game's narrative and remove the game's tension. Players can pick up alien weaponry in the field, an approach which was seen as more immediate by the team.[35] The base is also the place in which players recruit new agents. The team felt that it was impractical to create hundreds of agents with unique personalities and voices and hoped that players could instead relate to them through gameplay.[16] Players could not recruit female agents because Caponi wanted the misogyny of the period to be represented in the game.[16]
Seeing the popularity of difficult games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dark Souls and Fire Emblem, the team designed the game to be unforgiving. Players are easily outnumbered by enemies and agents can die permanently. This prompts players to utilize different tactics in order to survive. According to Finley, run and gun would result in the death of the protagonist.[9] The AI was programmed to ensure that the accompanying agents could survive on their own, though they require player input to function effectively.[36] The game was designed to cater to a wide audience, including both strategy fans and action game players. Inspired by Fallout 3, the design team aimed to create a fluid gameplay experience with deep strategy gameplay.[35] In addition, the team slowed down the movement speed of the playable character to encourage players to think tactically before they entered the warzone.[30]
Release[edit]
XCOM was announced on April 13, 2010, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360.[37] The first gameplay demonstration was shown at E3 2010.[38] The game did not have any public promotion until a year later at E3 2011.[39] 2K Games announced that the game would be released March 6, 2012, the same day as competitor Electronic Arts released Mass Effect 3.[40] In early 2012, the release was delayed until 2013 and then until 2K Game's fiscal year 2014, which meant that the franchise would be relaunched with Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown instead.[41][42] After another year of silence, 2K Games registered several new domains that hinted the game might return with a new title, possibly as The Bureau or What Happened in 62.[43] In April 2013, the official website and all promotional videos and trailers for XCOM on YouTube were removed by the publisher,[44] and 2K Games teased that the game had undergone a major evolution.[45]The Bureau: XCOM Declassified was officially announced on April 26, 2013, for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.[46] The game was released in North America and Europe on August 20 and 23, respectively.[46]TransGaming handled the game's release for the OS X platform in December 2013.[47]
When the game was announced, 2K Games released a live-action trailer for the game titled The Burn Room. The Burn Room was later expanded to become a short mini-series. Henry Hobson, who had previously directed the opening sequence of The Last of Us and the live-action trailer for Resistance 3, directed the series of trailers.[48] The mini-series stars Dominic Monaghan as Agent Ennis Cole.[49] To promote the game, 2K Games also launched an interactive browser game called the Hungover X as a spoof.[50]Downloadable content were released for the game: 'Hangar 6 R&D' was released exclusively for Xbox 360 and served as a prequel,[51] and players who preordered the game gained access to 'Codebreakers'.[52] Those who preordered the game using GAME unlocked the Light Plasma Pistol.[53] Both 'Codebreakers' and the Light Plasma Pistol were released on October 15, 2013.[54]
Reception[edit]
Pre-release[edit]
XCOM received a mixed critical reception. Some critics and players criticized the game for not returning to the franchise's root of turn-based strategy as well as the lack of tactics involved in gameplay, especially since the game was meant to serve as a reboot to the series.[27][55][56]Julian Gollop, the creator of the X-COM series, was disappointed by the game's first-person perspective and he criticized the game for abandoning the turn-based gameplay.[57] Christoph Hartmann, the president of 2K Games, responded by saying that turn-based strategy games are not contemporary and that the series needed to be revitalized with new gameplay ideas so that the game could be 'in line with what this generation of gamers want'.[58]
Post-release[edit]
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The gameplay received a mixed response from players. The game's incompetent artificial intelligence (AI) was a common point of criticism because it needed player input to function properly and made squad management cumbersome.[65][67][71] The permadeath feature was criticized as incapable as it was not as engaging as that of XCOM: Enemy Unknown because players can always restart from checkpoint,[65] and that agent deaths lacked impact and turned gameplay into a 'monotonous slog' according to GameSpot's reviewer Kevin VanOrd.[67] Ludwig Kietzmann from Joystiq noted that without these companions, combat could become very difficult but their loss was 'felt in utility more than emotion.'[69] The basic third-person gameplay received praise from critics. VanOrd found it entertaining while Dan Stapleton from IGN found it serviceable. Stapleton also praised the variety of enemies which kept the combat from becoming stale after several hours.[68]Jim Sterling from Destructoid was disappointed by the Battle Focus mode because it was inconvenient to use.[62] Critics noted the game's challenging nature and believed that using tactics was largely the only way to succeed in the game.[63][65] Whitehead enjoyed the combat perks and skills that helped open up new combat possibilities.[64]Justin McElroy from Polygon also liked the skills since they could be chained seamlessly together.[70] Hollander Cooper from GamesRadar also reacted positively to the combat skills, saying that unlocking these skills and utilizing them in combat was rewarding and engaging.[66]
Critics were mixed about the game's story. Matt Miller from Game Informer felt that most of the agent recruits were lifeless and boring and compared them unfavorably to the companions from Mass Effect; however, he felt the final act story twist reinvigorated the story.[65] VanOrd agreed, saying that the twist was a welcome change of pace, though he did not think the story made much sense. He also believed that navigating the XCOM base helped players immerse themselves in the 1960s atmosphere, but found it uninteresting with redundant story beats and repeating themes.[67] Stapleton thought the twist was non-sensical. Cooper agreed, saying that while the story started strong, it collapsed in the final act. He also criticized the characters, especially Carter, for being uninteresting.[66] This was echoed by Sterling, who described Carter as an 'outdated archetype' who was unlikeable. Both Stapleton and Birnbaum criticized the XCOM base for being empty and they lamented the lack of research options.[68] Birnbaum further noted that there was a disconnect between exploration of the base and the main missions.[71] Whitehead felt that many of the interactions between Carter and other non-playable characters were pointless and served no narrative purpose.[64] Josh Harmon from Electronic Gaming Monthly liked the game's narrative, which he compared to the work of Arthur C. Clarke. He also liked the environmental storytelling and compared it to the team's previous work on BioShock.[63] McElroy noted that recruiting companions was poorly executed because it was pointless to put untested agents on the field,[70] and Whitehead criticized the secondary tasks for being undercooked missions which lacked strategy depth.[64]
VanOrd noted the heavy use of yellow in the game's environment and he applauded the team for creating a period-accurate retro-futuristic atmosphere.[67] Stapleton also liked the visuals, though he noted several gameplay components undermined the consistency, especially how XCOM agents acquired alien weaponry for their own use without proper in-game explanation.[68] Harmon also enjoyed the game's art style but found it unpolished as he noticed different texture issues and cutscene animation hiccups.[63] Kietzmann called the art 'a major point of pride for the developers', praising its rich details and the depiction of different rural locales.[69] Birnbaum wrote that the 1960s suburban areas featured in the game were 'painstakingly recreated' and admired the team's efforts in building the game's world.[71]
Sales[edit]
According to analyst Doug Creutz from Cowen and Company, the game was unlikely to be a financial success for 2K Games and he predicted that fewer than 250,000 units would be sold by the end of 2013 in North America.[72] The game was launched in a highly competitive week against Saints Row IV, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Disney Infinity. It became the tenth best-selling retail game in the UK in its week of release, according to Chart-Track.[73]
References[edit]
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External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified&oldid=902919038'