New XCOM game: XCOM Chimera Squad coming April 24

[SupremacyKing2]

@sherbz Thought you might want to see this.

Firaxis announced a new XCOM game called XCOM: Chimera Squad for PC. It takes place 5 years after the events of XCOM2:War of the Chosen where Earth has been liberated and you now lead an elite interspecies peacekeeping squad of humans and aliens in the new City 31.

Here is the gameplay overview video:

You can pre-order now on Steam for 50% off, so only $10

 

[sherbz]

Wow! Ten days to get ready to save humanity. I guess with lockdown thats doable

Thanks for the heads up.

I was a bit unsure to begin with, i must admit. It looked like some cheap rip off. But having watched both vids now - the trailer and the gameplay footage, i can see where they are going with it. Its a spin off title. And its fairly priced at £10ish. Thats fine IMO. I would have been annoyed if they had charged full price for like £50 when deviating from what we could consider as the tried and tested formula. So trying something new at this price point is good. As its not unfairly milking the fanbase.

I have pre ordered it anyway. Nothing better to do with yourself at the minute. So a healthy dose of XCOM might be the tonic. Phoenix Point was a big disappointment IMO. Maybe this can scratch that XCOM itch instead.

 

[sherbz]

Im guessing that they might be going for an Invisible Inc kind of game with more of a focus on combat.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Wow! Ten days to get ready to save humanity. I guess with lockdown thats doable

Thanks for the heads up.

I was a bit unsure to begin with, i must admit. It looked like some cheap rip off. But having watched both vids now - the trailer and the gameplay footage, i can see where they are going with it. Its a spin off title. And its fairly priced at £10ish. Thats fine IMO. I would have been annoyed if they had charged full price for like £50 when deviating from what we could consider as the tried and tested formula. So trying something new at this price point is good. As its not unfairly milking the fanbase.

I have pre ordered it anyway. Nothing better to do with yourself at the minute. So a healthy dose of XCOM might be the tonic. Phoenix Point was a big disappointment IMO. Maybe this can scratch that XCOM itch instead.

You are welcome. I pre-ordered too. Yeah, it looks like a spin-off title, not a full blown sequel which is fine. It looks to have the same good turn based tactical combat that we all love about XCOM.

I do like that unit's turns are interleaved now. I think this might make combat better. Now, both your units and the enemy units will get a chance to take actions. You won't be able to pile on all your units actions and special abilitiess equentially to wipe out the enemy in a single turn like in XCOM2. Breach mode looks interesting too.

In any case, I am definitely up for some more XCOM action. Bring it on!

 

[sherbz]

Yes, i suspect that this is them trying out some new things to see what the player base makes of it all - with a possible view to including some of them in XCOM3. And you cant really argue with the asking price being what it is.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Yes, i suspect that this is them trying out some new things to see what the player base makes of it all - with a possible view to including some of them in XCOM3. And you cant really argue with the asking price being what it is.

Yeah, if it turns out to be a nice little standalone XCOM game with new XCOM content and good combat mechanics, $10 is an absolute steal IMO.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Phoenix Point was a big disappointment IMO. Maybe this can scratch that XCOM itch instead.

I guess capturing that "just one more turn" feeling is harder than it looks because I tried to get into Phoenix Point but dropped it pretty quickly. It had some neat concepts but it did not hook me like XCOM did. There is just something addictive about XCOM. Part of it might be that PP tried to be more realistic, with line of sight ballistics for example, but lacked the charm of XCOM. XCOM's combat mechanics might be more simplistic but they are easy to get into and the game makes sure to reward the player. It is very gratifying to get that little instant replay when you one shot kill an alien unit. Also, XCOM does a better job of pulling the player into the world-building with little things like the radio show announcer making quips about the aliens or the alien propaganda guy spinning the aliens defeat. There is something stale about the world of PP. You just travel around a lifeless map and choose missions. The base screen is just options you select instead of XCOM2 that shows you soldiers hanging around the base etc...

 

[sherbz]

I agree 100% with you on PP. I played it for a few hours and got bored very quickly. Gollop may have created the grand daddy of the franchise. But the world has moved on since then. And messing around with clips and guns that dont even reload themselves after missions is lame. And the UI was just plain ugly. A better game in a similar vein is Xenonauts. Its still not as good as XCOM. But i thought it was pretty solid over all.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

One decent game you might want to look at if you like XCOM style games is UFO Alien Invasion. It captures a very similar feel to the original 90's XCOM and Xeonauts but is in my view a bit more refined than the later.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

One decent game you might want to look at if you like XCOM style games is UFO Alien Invasion. It captures a very similar feel to the original 90's XCOM and Xeonauts but is in my view a bit more refined than the later.

Thanks

 

[coanda]

Is it just me, or did this announcement come out of nowhere?

I swear I hadn't heard a word or a whisper of this being in development, then suddenly "hey guys, by the way, we've got a game we're releasing in a week."

 

[sherbz]

Is it just me, or did this announcement come out of nowhere?

I swear I hadn't heard a word or a whisper of this being in development, then suddenly "hey guys, by the way, we've got a game we're releasing in a week."

Tbf they have always operated on that model to some degree. Usually though they give you a months notice and then release. Pretty sure enemy unknown was about a month lead in time and it was only 2 or 3 for xcom 2 (i seem to remember the trailer saying "This fall").

 

[coanda]

Nine months between announcement and release for Enemy Unknown. Eight months for XCOM 2, although they planned it to be four (the release was pushed back).

This is ten days. Not even a half-month. Even for a game that looks like it'll be more limited in scope than the others, that's a little weird. The expansion packs got more advance notice.

 

[sherbz]

eh? How did you find that out? I can only remember waiting for about a month for each. But then im old and forgetful now so might have forgotten

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Nice little bios on the agents you start with:

Agent codename: "Terminal"
Medic - Human
Healing
Support

Agent codename: "Godmother"
Ranger - Human
Offense
Stealth
Ambush

Agent codename: "Blueblood"
Gunslinger - Human
Precision shooting
Multiple shots

Agent codename: "Verge"
Envoy - Sectoid
Psionics
Enemy manipulation

 

[SupremacyKing2]

First Let's Play!

Game looks awesome! And the new Breach Mode mechanic is great!

 

[sherbz]

Im studiously avoiding lets plays

 

[coanda]

Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 both got some criticism for the pacing of the tactical lulls between firefights. In Enemy Unknown, there was this big pressure on the player to play super-super-super-safe and cautious unless the mission was a cakewalk - because triggering one pod at a time was very doable, but triggering an extra pod when your hands were already full was the most likely reason you'd end up with deaths, mission failures, and squad wipes. Some players liked that slow creeping forward with Overwatch; others hated it.

XCOM 2 tried to address it by adding in stealth mode and turn limits - making aggressive movement less risky, and also punishing cautious movement. But that was also a divisive move; while some people welcomed the changes, others thought the turn limits in particular felt arbitrary and broke them out of the game, and from a tactical standpoint constrained the player's options to maneuver around for better terrain and made maps feel more linear.

What's been described as basically a sequence of set-piece fights with breach mode to initiate, in Chimera, sounds like a third attempt at handling the pacing of those tactical lulls. I wonder if it is something just for this game, or if they are trialing it here with an eye to potentially adopting it into XCOM 3 if the fan reception is positive.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

First Impressions Review

Got a chance to play the game for about 1 hour. Got through the tutorial and a couple missions and familiarized myself with the key mechanics. So here's my quick "first impressions" review.

Story
The game does a great job of introducing the player to the world and story of the game. I won't go into the story to avoid spoilers for those who want to discover it first hand. But the game uses a graphic novel style narrative mingled with the tutorial and character voice-overs to put the player directly into the story quickly. After the tutorial, you immediately get a sense of the urgency.

The characters also have great personalities. The banter you hear between the characters in the game is fun and it really gives each agent a sense that they are a unique person.

At the start of each game, you have a choice of 3 factions to investigate. Each faction will affect what kinds of enemies you will face. One faction is psionic humans, one faction is alien/hybrid enemies and one faction is robotic enemies. Each investigation is essentially a unique campaign story. So you basically have 3 campaign stories to pick from.

Tactical Layer
The game is very much XCOM meets SWAT. You control Chimera Squad which is an elite police SWAT team composed of human and alien agents. Each mission is structured like a SWAT mission. You have a breach mode phase where you set up how you want your team to breach into the room. Rooms can have multiple entry points with their own advantages and disadvantages. You get to pick which entry point you want to use or how you want to divide up your team among the entry points. When you breach, your team gets to take one shot with higher accuracy against the enemies of your choice or you can take cover. After the breach mode, the mission is more like a traditional XCOM mission where you move your units, take actions, etc.. The big difference is the interleave mechanic where your units and the enemy units alternate taking turns. So you can't just tab to another unit. And you can't just use all your units to try to take out the alien pod in one turn like in XCOM2. You have to play with the unit for that turn. The interleave mechanics needs that you are really focused on whose turn comes next. Is one of my units next in the order or is an enemy unit? You want to focus on the next unit in the queue if it is an enemy to prevent the enemy from getting a chance to take action against you. Once you clear the enemies in a room, you get another breach mode for the next room. So each mission is a succession of breach mode, tactical combat, breach mode, tactical combat until you get to the final room of that mission. A lot of the combat abilities are familiar although some of them have been tweaked. But the tactical combat will be very familiar to anyone who has played XCOM before.

Strategic Layer
The strategic map is a city with boroughs, each borough has an unrest level. When the unrest level of the city reaches a certain level, you lose. So the strategic gameplay is picking missions, doing research, buying new items, equipping your agents, recruiting a new agent, or choosing spec ops missions for one of your agents which work just like the covert actions in War of the Chosen. You assign one of your agents to a special ops mission which takes a few turns and then grants you some extra resources or some type of bonus. Missions are things like going undercover to gather intel or getting additional training with the police or doing community peacekeeping.

There are 3 mission types that you can send your team on that lead to the tactical combat. There are investigation missions which directly advance the campaign story. There are side missions which will grant you extra resources. And then there are missions to reduce unrest.

There are 3 resources: elerium, intel and money.

Conclusion
I really like it a lot. The tactical combat is pure XCOM. The breach mode is a very cool new mechanic. Each tactical mission feels intense like a SWAT mission. And the story pulls you in. And of course, it takes place in the XCOM2 war of the chosen universe so it is great seeing familiar units, familiar aliens etc...

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 both got some criticism for the pacing of the tactical lulls between firefights. In Enemy Unknown, there was this big pressure on the player to play super-super-super-safe and cautious unless the mission was a cakewalk - because triggering one pod at a time was very doable, but triggering an extra pod when your hands were already full was the most likely reason you'd end up with deaths, mission failures, and squad wipes. Some players liked that slow creeping forward with Overwatch; others hated it.

XCOM 2 tried to address it by adding in stealth mode and turn limits - making aggressive movement less risky, and also punishing cautious movement. But that was also a divisive move; while some people welcomed the changes, others thought the turn limits in particular felt arbitrary and broke them out of the game, and from a tactical standpoint constrained the player's options to maneuver around for better terrain and made maps feel more linear.

What's been described as basically a sequence of set-piece fights with breach mode to initiate, in Chimera, sounds like a third attempt at handling the pacing of those tactical lulls. I wonder if it is something just for this game, or if they are trialing it here with an eye to potentially adopting it into XCOM 3 if the fan reception is positive.

Honestly what I would have done is just made it so that if you wipe a pod without alerting any others you go back to stealth mode. That would have solved all the issues. Also rely more on humanoid and semi humanoid (sectoid etc) opponents rather than massive arbitrary bullet sponges with OP squad wipe abilities. So more like the original XCOM from the 90's.