 I've spent over 165 hours playing XCOM 2 in its expansion over the last year and a half. I say this not in an attempt to impress anyone, but rather to indicate my familiarity with the game, which while extensive has nothing on some strategy gamers, who have put thousands of hours are a whole lot better than I am and are also a lot more familiar with both the successes and the problems the game may offer at the highest level of play in terms of challenge and overall insanity. For the sake of transparency, I've completed XCOM 2 twice, once in Iron Man mode before the expansion came out, in a second time, on Commando, but this time without Iron Mode on. For those of you unfamiliar with what Iron Mode is, no, it's not a mode in which you play as Tony Stark in a nail-enruled world, although that would be cool, it's a mode which doesn't allow you to go back to a save game, doesn't allow you to save at all, with the exception of your last turn, that is. I've started but not finished another half a dozen games, do you either lose too many soldiers, or too hard difficulty, or because of simple lack of time? With this out of the way, let me give you a run of the content. This video will first go through the story of XCOM 2 in its expansion, which while a lot more cohesive than the original XCOM is in a whole lot more than a framework giving you rhyme and reason for killing aliens in inventive and exciting, sometimes even explosive, ways. After we wrap up with the story, minus Polish, we'll dive into the live blood of XCOM 2. The base game's differences from the previous XCOM, the three chosen introduced in the expansion and everything else of interest in the two layers, strategic and tactical, that compose the challenging but rewarding gameplay of the series. Towards the end, I'll spend a few seconds roaring angrily about different bugs that occasionally helped murder favourite soldiers of mine, or offer general hindrances to the enjoyment of the game. And then I'll conclude this hopefully extensive and objective view of what makes XCOM 2 and War of the Chosen an excellent experience, with some minor flaws which occasionally subtract from the enjoyment offered. Without further ado, let's get into it. The Story 20 years have passed since the fall of Earth's national government. The XCOM initiative, as it was known back then, with its near and limited political backing and Tart's Curve safeguarding the world against the alien threat, is no more. In its place is a ruffled guerrilla fighting organisation barely managing to survive against extremely antagonistic public opinion, the Advent, alien collaborating organisation, and the elite alien forces gunning for resistance leader and your former right-hand man, Bradford, as well as his team of malcontents, things are looking bleak until Bradford's troops free you, the commander, who's apparently been missing and in stasis for much of the last 20 years. That's a good enough reason to get you behind the camera and deploying your elite guerrilla squads to clear aliens out, save refugees and work towards undermining the aliens nefarious rule, as well as the even more nefarious Avatar project, whose completion spells the doom of mankind. The story space is decided chiefly by how you make your own decisions. What you choose to research in the game's strategic overlay as you connect to different geographic zones all over the planet, as well as whether you take your time or rush in your pursuit of the many overlaying story objectives that have to do with harvesting different aliens, building specific structures and taking on a particular set of missions different from all those regular ones, the game throws your way month by month. I have to say, after what felt like a fairly lackluster wrapping to the gameplay in the previous game, 8com 2 and War of the Chosen are doubtlessly better. Certain elements make a whole lot of sense, minus spoilers, like for example, we find out that while in stasis the commander's mind was used to coordinate advent and the aliens' tactics, which gives a great explanation to humanity's defeat and subsequent subjugation. You really don't want this brain going against you. War of the Chosen adds an entire different layer to the story, introducing three other rebel factions, the Templars, Reapers and Skirmishers, each of which distrust and fear the other, all of which come with similar but not necessarily matching goals. So it is that the Templars are psionic zealots who, and I'm not 100% certain about this, might have gotten their first couple of university lectures in psionics from the aliens themselves. The Reapers hate the aliens with such a burning passion that they consume their flesh and that takes a lot of dedication. I mean, have you even seen these aliens? They're one, uglier sin and two, spikier lover. And the Skirmishers are former Advent soldiers who've decided to fight for a world that hates and fears them, kind of like the X-Men, but more alien. But the War of the Chosen's Cherry goes to none other but the Chosen themselves, and in particular to the Assassin. The Assassin is the only female Chosen between the three, but she makes up for that by being twice as intimidating and five times as difficult to face as the two lards, Hunter and Warlock. The Assassin is the first Chosen you'll meet, and her taunting and deadly presence are difficult to go up against. She's a skilled warrior working on behalf of the Elders, the commander's alien counterparts with loads of psionic energy, basically. Beyond her deadly prowess with the blade and the shotgun, the Assassin is possessed with a twisted sense of honor, which makes me think of her as a sort of samurai, or maybe a ninja. The other two Chosen leave less of an impression in my game at least, the Hunter came off as boastful, but not too skilled, and the Warlock, as megalmoniacal as he was utterly non-competent. This is why story and gameplay sort of interact in making my opinion different than what it would be if I judged these two Chosen solely by their cutscenes and voice lines. On the whole, the game's script is a compelling story of a ractic group of humans freeing themselves of the oppressive ilk of aliens and taking back control, so sort of like how the Empire got started off in Star Wars, right? Ha ha! Get it? Because the Empire is all about oppressing aliens, and here we get... yeah. What with both the original ending and the Templar ending from War of the Chosen hinting at, all but promising in fact a different and more dangerous enemy come the next installment, I'm excited to see what that's going to be about. The Elders proved to be tenacious opponents, and to find something they feared, a whole interesting lot of things can happen. Before we go any more in depth, I'll explain how I'm going to go about this section of the video. I'll first tackle the overall King's strategy which is all about resource management, and allocation, recruitment, research, clandestine operations, base and item building, and finally soldier progression. I will then look at the other enormous part of gameplay, the one you will be spending most of your time in, the actual skirmishers against the bloody aliens. It's all fun and games, and you get blasted by alien rays. Your time in the overlay will be spent waiting for different research and experimental items to finish, while you scan different points of interest which will offer you a variety of resources, supplies, intel, alien alloys, allerium crystals and stuff. The latter of which is divided into engineers and scientists. The scientists aid in research, while the engineers can excavate the many broken and useless rooms within your mobile base, the Avenger, as well as offering reduced build time on both items and buildings. The first few months of the game offer you some difficult choices in terms of facilities inside the Avenger, while by the late stage odds are that you'll have had enough power and contacts scanned, that you'll have whatever buildings you want, choices at the beginning offer you a lot of small trade-offs. For example, do you rush the next step in your main quest by building a proving ground, as soon as it's available, or do you build a relay tower in order to increase your resistance contacts? That's getting a higher monthly supply income. The more contacts you make, after all, the easier it is to pay for all those expensive weapon and armor upgrades later on, as well as the buildings, and not to mention how great money is when half of your soldiers are dead and the other are injured or tired. Supplies at times like these are, quite honestly, a lifesaver. Research unlocks a rich assortment of situational devices in addition to the lifesaving and mandatory armor and weapon tiers, which are both time-consuming and very expensive to actually build once the science is out. Research unlocks a rich assortment of situational devices in addition to the lifesaving and mandatory armor and weapon tiers, which are both time-consuming and very expensive to actually build once the science bit is over. As before, three tiers of weapons will be available, your run of the mill standard human ability guns, followed by a magnetic and finally by plasma weapons, which are as high-tech as you can go. Body armors also come in three sets, the second and third, each offering distinctly more health points, which translate into better odds of survival at all levels of play. The best weapons in the game are doubtless the ones you unlock after defeating the chosen. The Assassin's Blade, for example, does a fantastic amount of damage and also it never ever ever misses. Imagine what the Ranger can do without poppy and with the Reaper ability, which allows the class to cut through any number of enemies as long as they die one after the other. Are you imagining? Are you? Good! The most useful armor pieces are available after you defeat the introduced via DLC alien rulers, which really do feel like a prototype of the chosen, but even somehow more annoying than ever. Since they'll often appear when you are attacking alien facilities, the buildings which will aid the avatar project's progression have left unchecked for long. Back to the armors. You make of the alien rulers skins. There's also offer a series of very useful abilities, activated once or twice per battle. Another interesting pair of additions war of the chosen offers are the new tech research mechanics, breakthrough and inspiration, which you might gain after finishing your run of the mill research. Breakthroughs reduce the time to research tech you don't have yet. Inspiration allows you to gain tiny but permanent bonuses, to HP, to the damage of a certain type of weapon and so on. It's a great addition, especially as you research opportunities, window in the late game. Another excellent addition added in the expansion are the ability points, which allow our hardworking veterans to gain additional abilities, from both her private and common ability point pool. This gives way to a great deal more variety than before, allowing you to buy the skills you didn't pick from one of the two class trees, as well as a few randomly chosen abilities. APs are earned in combat and they reward clever play, for example when you make flanking shots, as well as staking down the chosen. Soldiers gain ability points depending on their combat intelligence. Want a specialist who's both a hacker and a healer? Or perhaps a ranger who sticks to the shadows while also being a skilled blade master? You can do both now. The three special classes of soldiers, Templars, Reapers and Skirmishers only level with combat intelligence, but of course their skills differ from those of normal recruits. Another war of the chosen feature is the ability to send soldiers and covert actions, special missions in which you send some of your soldiers. They might bring you resources, wild cards, weapons, even a bond or promotion. Most importantly, each of the three resistance groups will have specific covert actions, which will help hunt down the three chosen. These are in three stages and take a good while, but are compulsory in my opinion, as killing the chosen is always on the top of my objective list. To pivot back to buildings for a moment, the most useful of those in the late game are doubtlessly the med bay, staffed with an engineer or two, lowering injury and fatigue, as well as removing quirk's negative afflictions, which can panic your soldiers when facing a certain enemy type or crisis in the field. The Sylab is another important building permitting the training of psionic abilities of your science. I myself spend an enormous time training one single super versatile soldier into every skill I find useful, but there's plenty to do depending on your playstyle. So much for the strategy layer. Now for the tactical layer. The cream, the la cream, the cherry on top. I'm one of those people who can spend hours patiently calculating the risks and rewards of one action after another. One of the chosen offers a great deal of new challenges, many of them so intuitive that I don't ever want to play another XCOM game without him. I've mentioned the chosen quite a few times and it's only right that I open up with a discussion of how an appearance by these fierce adversaries changes the battlefield. The chosen are heavily inspired by the shadow of Mordor originating nemesis system. That is to say, each of them will learn, adapt and come back time and time again, regardless of how hard their arse is not kicked. Each of the chosen can daze and if you don't act quickly enough, kidnap a soldier and so raise his or her knowledge of the resistance while also forcing you to go on a mission to save the kidnapped lads or lads. The warlock can mind control soldier and summon size zombies, which go boom in a volatile explosion. The hunter summons inventory enforcement or beasts or any number of other creatures depending on his traits and the assassin, well the assassin is immune to overwatch and does horrible things with her sword, rifle and grenades. She even dazes with this wave which on one occasion disabled five of my six plokes talk about dreadful positioning. As time passes the chosen strengths only grow. There are 17 strengths in total, some of which are mutually exclusive. Those can ground the chosen shields when shots against the miss. Those can ground the chosen shields when shots against the miss, teleportation when shots hit and many other nasty tricks. I've only seen half of those play out but they all forced me to change tactics to make up for the increased risk the chosen represented. The missions where you kick the door against the chosen strongholds are longer than natural filled with tough enemies and involving teleportation and the destruction of a single monument over three four turns. Those chosen in question responds. Even when destroyed the monument will allow the chosen to respawn one last time, wounded, angry and for the first time fearful. I'll once again go on record saying the assassin was the most difficult of the three chosen and the final battle with her was no different. She fought tooth and nail and was to kill three of my most senior soldiers and decimated my personal morale a few times too many. Killing her might have been the most gratifying moment I had with my completed war of the chosen playthrough. Hunter and Warlock weren't quite as memorable in that particular playthrough of mine but I'm sure they'll make up for it eventually as I replay the game in the future. How about the rest of war's new features? We've got a few new advent soldiers, the advent flame boy or purifier if you want to be politically correct about it and the second soldier being the advent priest, a psionic soldier that does plenty to support his fellow men in combat. Both physically and one supposes emotionally. Another introduction is the fun at first but later slightly annoying horde of the lost zombified humans from the alien materials at those early towns and cities invaded by the aforementioned aliens packed during the first phase of the invasion. They're easy to kill at first but gain more and more HP as the game progresses into its later stages. They spawn in large numbers, explosions draw swarms of them out and killing one of these charming zombies with a single shot allows your soldier to take aim again rather than end the turn which can continue indefinitely until you miss or run out of ammo or target a different sort of body. Facing all dangers is your squad of four to six soldiers expertly trained and deadly and excessively entertaining ways. Templars with psionic blades get close and cut through the enemies as if they were made from paper. A soul's woman with the assassin's blade which doesn't miss will decimate the enemy ranks, medics will dabble as hackers and skirmishers with trapling hooks and people row playing snakes in snake suits will decimate even more of your enemies. Backline with their agile and powerful abilities. I even have about five different soldiers clothed in green fabric with red smiley faces and guns on them. They're all cold smiles and all of them are grinning. It's mildly disturbing. Soldiers' classes are no longer constricting what with the ability points system I mentioned earlier. Many of my most experienced soldiers had their access to another class's skills to great effect. Once you realize just how big a difference these ability points can offer you'll want to do a lot of trickery, flanking, fatalities, ambushes, bosses, getting murdered and the like. I could dig into any of those dozens of battles I fought through and probably come up with a dozen pages worth of tactical choices. I made them and all that good stuff but this video is getting quite long already so I better wrap up. War of the Chosen is an excellent expansion adding a whole new layer to the massive proactive slash reactive war against advent and their alien overlords. Where the original XCOM 2 was more about guerrilla warfare. War of the Chosen embraces more superhero gimmicks both with its new factions and with the dynamic between you and the Chosen. Did I want anything I didn't get from War of the Chosen? Sure, the only place in fact where the game disappoints is with its lack of graphical improvements as well as bugs. Several times the camera just bugged out for about 30 seconds between each of my turns glitching while out of the map boundaries. I was very happy with my choice of not playing on Iron Man mode. Since a few of those bugs actually affected me cost me precious soldiers and I don't really enjoy losing soldiers to fault that is not my own. Perhaps the only thing that tied me out was the end of the game other than the bugs was the constant need to choose and pick different drops and to have to leave everything you're doing once a month in order to pick up all those supply drops. But that's one little quorum which doesn't take away from what this package offers. This expansion is so rich in content that it easily could have been a standalone third game. Especially if another few months of development were added in. The Chosen are an excellent game changer and I hope to see something like them in whatever Fire Axis does next with the franchise. I am also incredibly happy with all the new options at the start of each playthrough which allow you to customize the game's difficulty a whole lot more. What else is there to say? Ah the modding community. Mods are really really great. Steam Workshop is filled with both customization options and a variety of game altering content all for free as per usual. My score? Whooping 15 out of 16 consecutive headshots. The 16th unfortunately bugged out. Oh well. Oh well. Oh well. Oh well. Oh well. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. It's been my absolute pleasure to bring you this extended look at XCOM 2 and War of the Chosen and I can only say sorry for being so late with it. It's been months since XCOM 2 War of the Chosen released. I should take my sweet sweet time playing to it. That's entirely on me. Anyway, I will see you next time.