I hardly ever buy DLC,
but I really liked XCOM 2 and happened to see there was quite the
sale on (the original three pieces of DLC reduced by 50% and War of
the Chosen, the later, larger, expansion reduced by 62%). For the
record, I played on an old, fat PS4.
The bundle of three
include some new cosmetic options for customising your cannon fodder,
ahem, beloved soldiers, the Shen DLC that adds the Spark class, and
the Bradford DLC that adds some swanky one-off weapons and three
tough bosses (I did a playthrough of the original XCOM 2 base game
plus these DLC, and almost my only losses [I played on normal
difficulty] were due to these bosses).
DLC Bundle of Three
The cosmetic options
offer a nice range, but, despite how splendid midriffs are, this
isn’t something I’d buy by itself. The Shen/Bradford DLC each
includes an extra mission with some story background I won’t spoil
(both refer back to characters from XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the previous
entry in the series.
The
Shen DLC adds the Spark class (think Johnny-5 meets Terminator). I
quite like the class, as it comes preloaded with the very useful
shred ability, and overdrive, allowing multiple moves/shots in one
turn.
The
Bradford DLC has some unique weapons you acquire through scanning,
and three bosses that have multiple turns, (the normal one and
reactions to everything your soldiers do, even reloading). The
multiple turns appear toned down a bit in War of the Chosen. These
bosses are variants of the usual enemies, and come with a bucketload
of hp and a penchant for running away (which is handy, to be honest,
as they’re pretty damned tough).
These
are good additions to the base game, which blend in seamlessly and
add a little more variety. They’re nice to have without being
fantastic.
War
of the Chosen
There are a huge number
of additions, some large, some small, with the War of the Chosen DLC.
A quick summary of my view is that I like it a lot.
The Chosen are three
high-powered individuals that you may randomly encounter when you
perform missions in their territory. There’s an Assassin, a Hunter,
and a Warlock, each with specific strengths and weaknesses. Taking
them down is challenging (they’re easier than the bosses from
Bradford’s DLC but effectively immortal and thus come back unless
you complete the story missions to kill them permanently) and if they
show up during a tricky mission they can make it a lot harder.
There are also three
semi-independent new resistance factions who co-operate with XCOM:
Skirmishers, who are ex-Advent, Reapers, who are sneaky scouts, and
Templars, who are slightly nutty psionic enthusiasts. Each one
provides a soldier for XCOM with unique skills (personally, I like
Mox, the Skirmisher who can fire twice in a turn, and has a voice a
bit like Todd from Stargate Atlantis). The factions also offer
missions via the Ring facility, which involves sending off soldiers
to act outside your control (although if they’re ambushed you’ll
get an extraction mission). Each faction can also fulfil orders which
offer you bonuses for a month (like recruits who go through training
becoming sergeants rather than squaddies).
Pairs of soldiers can
now form bonds that offer bonuses when they’re on the same mission,
with this can be levelled up to increase the advantages. Propaganda
posters are automatically generated and can also be manually created
to celebrate promotions, victorious missions, or midriffs.
Some facilities are
new, and with the right one you can select extra abilities outside
the usual class options for soldiers (from options randomised for
each soldier). This is very useful, perhaps to the point of being a
little excessive.
There’s also the
Lost. The Lost are effectively a horde of zombies (independent of
alien control so they’ll attack the aliens almost as much as you).
They’re very weak but there are tons of them. Killing them with
ranged weaponry refunds your actions and their attacks are weak. I’m
less fond of the Lost than other new aspects of the game as their
whole shtick is high numbers, which can make missions something of a
lengthy meatgrinder. (One time I had almost my whole squad in a
great, elevated position, but it still took me forty odd minutes to
effortlessly slay the shambling fools).
Research has two
additions: breakthroughs and inspirations. One means research takes
far less time for a particular subject, the other offers a rare (some
can be acquired through faction missions as well/instead) new bonus
like cut-price facility construction or extra damage to a specific
weapon type but only if the research is conducted immediately.
A word on the older DLC
Bundle: that’s included here. As mentioned above, the bosses are
mildly nerfed, but that’s fair enough as they were perhaps
overpowered in the original version. Neither Shen nor Bradford get
their story mission, though, as the bosses have been repurposed as
facility guards rather than appearing randomly, as that would
coincide with the Chosen and open up the possibility of encountering
both in a single mission, which might be too much (although it does
sound quite cool).
I like the War of the
Chosen expansion a lot. But there is at least one downside. I had two
crashes, both around the end (one just before, one just after) a long
mission involving the Lost. It was quite frustrating, especially as
the first one cost me a soldier’s promotion which I needed to
complete a certain action.
I don’t buy DLC
often, but I’ve got to say I enjoyed this extra content. Would I
recommend it at full price? Only if you’re Captain Moneybags. At a
discount, give it a look, particularly War of the Chosen.
Thaddeus
