The Epic Games Store is giving away XCOM 2 today. A present that you should not underestimate, because this strategy game is one of the best of all time.
Every week the Epic Games Store gives away PC games, but not always real masterpieces. How could there be, there simply aren’t very many of them. At least not enough to give away a different one every week. On some days, however, the Epic Store manages to come up with a wonderful surprise.
This is the case now, because from 14 to 21 April the store is giving away XCOM 2. And here the word masterpiece is truly no exaggeration. That’s what I stand for with my name. You don’t believe me? Well, then believe the cumulative strategy expertise of the entire GlobalESportNews editorial team. Because XCOM 2 has made it to a respectable fourth place in our big ranking of the 100 best strategy games:
And if that’s not enough for you, don’t despair. I’ll explain in detail here why you should play XCOM 2. Especially if it doesn’t cost you anything other than lots and lots of time.
This is what XCOM 2 is all about
The starting point of XCOM 2 alone is wonderfully curious. It turns the typical alien invasion story on its head. Neither is the Earth attacked by aliens, nor do humans storm an alien planet. Instead, the Earth has long since been lost.
In XCOM 2, the game assumes that the predecessor did not have a happy ending at all. Instead, humanity failed and lost the war against the alien coalition called ADVENT without a sound. As a result, a hostile government has been installed, society has been infiltrated and the planet is completely in the hands of the galactic conquerors.
Completely? No! A spaceship populated by indomitable XCOM agents will not stop resisting the invader. We are in charge of this human resistance cell, leading rebels by the droves in turn-based guerrilla missions against the enemy. Only whether the rebels will come out of these missions alive is another question altogether.
That’s why a round tactics milestone
If we write about a new round tactics game today, you’re pretty sure you’ll be able to read the word XCOM in it at least once. Why are we doing this? On the one hand, because many people already know XCOM and the comparative value makes it immediately clear what it’s about. But also because XCOM 2 is the current benchmark. And that has several reasons.
It revived turn-based tactics: If we look at the current situation, it’s hard to imagine that turn-based tactics was once dying. The genre lost more and more popularity in the 00s and had to subordinate itself to real-time. At most, turn-based tactics were still popular in global strategy like Civilization or Total War. And then came XCOM. The reboot of the time-honoured series hit like a bomb.
Now the genre is doing really well again. Almost every year, new, promising titles come out that send us into turn-based battles with a group of specialists. In 2022 alone, Warhammer 40K: Daemonhunters, King Arthur: Knight’s Tale and Marvel’s Midnight Suns (from the makers of XCOM) will be released, three thoroughly elaborate games. Even gaming legend Super Mario now has his own XCOM-like called Mario + Rabbids. Turn-based tactics have arrived in the middle of gaming society.
It’s amped up round tactics: Before XCOM made its return, round tactics was considered an extremely staid genre. No dynamics, lots of statistics and hardly any game scenes that could create atmosphere in a trailer. This no longer suited Firaxis and they did something about it. Since then, game developers know how turn-based battles should be staged!
In XCOM, the moves are not simply unspectacular. Instead, the game works with camera movements and lets the game characters react dynamically to what is happening. When an ADVENT soldier takes a shot at my XCOM agent with his laser rifle and the concentrated light bounces off the cover, the agent’s head twitches down briefly. XCOM understood what the genre was missing and today it’s not the same.
It gold-plated a good concept: Basically, XCOM: Enemy Unknown should almost be praised more than the second part, because much of what I have said so far was introduced by the first part. Nevertheless, people often talk about XCOM 2 because this part was able to push the approaches of its predecessor even further.
This starts with the premise, in which we as rebels rebel against a superior force, continues with the deeper base management and finally ends up with detail improvements such as the randomly generated maps or a sneaking mechanic.
That’s why it might be suitable for you
I actually think that every fan of PC games should give XCOM 2 a chance. Especially if it’s free. But of course not all types of players will like it. So here’s a compact summary of what you can expect.
XCOM 2 is hard: Be prepared to fail. Also, don’t be fooled by the focus on an exciting setting – XCOM 2 is a complicated strategy game in which you need an alert mind and cannot steer through the campaign on autopilot. The difficulty level can even frustrate, especially at the beginning, but by all means keep at it. The longer it takes, the better you’ll get at it.
Also, losing characters is part of the game concept! You are supposed to be angry! You should grieve for your heroes! And when the time comes, you’ll be even happier when you finally push back the alien brood.
XCOM 2 is big: Take your time with this strategy game. To complete the entire campaign, you will easily need over 50 hours. But this is time well spent, especially since the game never gets boring during this time. You are constantly confronted with new types of enemies that require new approaches.
You also have a hell of a lot of options for customising your agents or your spaceship, so the tinkering alone should take a few hours. This will even excite role-playing game fans who love to spend a lot of time tickling the perfect build out of a class.
XCOM 2 has time limits: Finally, a word of warning. Because one of the biggest criticisms of XCOM 2 concerns the time limits. Some missions give you a fixed number of rounds in which you have to complete them. This may annoy some turn fans, but it never completely spoils the game experience. In addition, XCOM 2 can be extensively modified and many of these mods saw off the turn limit.
Have I been able to convince you? If you want to give XCOM 2 a chance, just one click will take you to the Epic Store to get the game permanently free:
(Click here to get XCOM 2 free on the Epic Store)
Editor’s verdict
If you like to participate in shop talk about PC games and want an opinion on the genre of turn-based tactics, then please you must play XCOM 2! This title has done so incredibly well and what I have described to you here only scratches the surface. I’m probably not the first person you’ve heard rave reviews about XCOM. But I was once sceptical as well. After all, I have a very, very hard time being fascinated by sci-fi and found alien invasions kind of lame even before Independence Day.
But I love turn-based games and after starting XCOM 2 out of sheer boredom, I couldn’t stop. I never expected how many emotions this game makes me feel. Tension, sadness, joy, hate. All of that boils up again and again. But not because the story goes for the emotions. On the contrary. XCOM draws its fascination almost entirely from the gameplay construct. There are not many games where emotion and tactics are so close. As if the left and right hemispheres of the brain were celebrating a wedding.
