XCOM 2 War of the Chosen: New Details About Bonding, Heroes, Fatigue & More - YouTube

Hi, this is Tapcat and welcome to the second half of my coverage of the latest information

dropped by XCOM 2's creative lead, Jake Solomon.

Yesterday, we covered all of the changes to our enemies and today we'll focus on the changes

to the heroes of the game plus a few odds and ends that don't fit well in either category.

Let's start with something quick and simple.

The SPARK units are getting an upgrade.

They'll be tougher, get a MUCH needed accuracy boost, and you'll now be able to add weapon

upgrades to their guns.

So let's talk about the heroes.

Just in case you need a reminder, we're looking at the Skirmishers, Templars, and Reapers.

We'll get access to one early on but opening the door to the others promises be a lot tougher.

The Reaper is a new type of stealth unit.

Unlike rangers, he'll have a chance to stay concealed after attacking.

They also bring a new kind of attack where they'll throw a claymore mine and then shoot

it at which point it will presumably explode to damage the enemy.

Let's set aside the fact that real claymore mines can be triggered with a remote control

in the here and now without XCOM's advanced technology and that needing to shoot it is

like something out of a bad remake of Tombstone, I'm sure it will LOOK cool and somehow this

activity is guaranteed to keep you concealed from enemies even though you've attacked

Even better.

if you've picked the right ability then doing this can even put you back into concealment

if you're revealed to begin with.

That sounds bonkers to me, but hey I'll take it

Now, you may be saying to yourself, "Self, who cares about Stealth?

What did it ever do for me?"

Well listen my child and you shall hear of the midnight ride of the RePEER.

When the repear is concealed he'll move 50% faster and enemies have a detection radius

of exactly one tile.

Go anywhere on the map at warp speed, it's good for scouting, flanking enemies, or getting

to a pesky mission objective just before the timer runs out. (not that I know anything about that)

If that's not enough, one of his high level abilities is Banish which will fire every

bullet still in his gun at any one target.

That may not be quite as good as it sounds because most of the bullet sponges have enough

armor to significantly weaken the effect but think of Archons, Berserkers, Andromedons

in their 2nd phase and tell me that doesn't make you smile just a little.

Next up is the Skirmisher.

They have a wrist-mounted grapple that pull enemies to them so you can finally become

the viper that you've hated all this time.

Conversely, you can use the grapple to pull yourself toward them and finish them off with

a melee attack.

Their high level ability that was revealed is Battle Lord, which turns your skirmisher

into the equivalent of an alien ruler in some ways.

Any alien that take an action within his sight will allow you to take an action in turn.

There's too many specifics about how this will work that we don't know but if we can

actually move and fire throughout their turn, then this could be VERY interesting.

The Templars, sadly, are mostly a mystery to us to far.

They are psionic specialists and I think it's a safe bet that you won't need to build a

psionics lab to get one or level him up and that's a welcome change.

Maybe to make up for the fact that we weren't told much overall, two of their high level

abilities were revealed.

One, templars can create a clone of themselves although we don't know how long they'll last.

Two, they can call down lightning on every enemy in the area around them.

If any of those bolts prove lethal, the templar's focus will be fully restored.

I haven't seen an official explanation of focus, but it seems to be the Templar's version

of ammunition or at least mana.

It worth pointing out that each of the three hero classes also have specialized equipment.

Custom rifles for the Reapers and Skirmishers, we already talked about the Skirmisher's ripjack

that acts as a super-grappling hook, and the Templars have Shard gauntlets.

Not surprisingly, there's no other details on these but it's safe to assume some kind

of buffs to damage, crit chance, or SOMETHING that puts them a notch above ordinary weapons.

That's the extent of our intel on the hero classes so far but we haven't talked about

how to get them.

It turns out that we'll buy them from a pool of ability points that are earned during combat.

Each time you perform certain maneuvers like flanking or killing from a higher elevation

than the target you'll have a chance to earn a point.

I'm going to say right now that I love this idea because it literally builds in a reward

structure for players who employ tactics that are generally sound to begin with.

And IF this is spelled out in the game (and we don't know that yet) it could really help

newer players learn some fundamental tactics and get traction in the game.

But these ability points can also be used to purchase abilities for your existing soldiers.

The Advanced Warfare Center is out and a new Training Center Facility is in.

Instead of each soldier being randomly assigned one hidden ability, there will now be a pool

of 4 you can choose from and it will be up to you whether to buy abilities for each soldier,

you can even buy all 4 on one soldier if you want.

Just be aware that some abilities are more expensive than others so get out there and

flank the crap out of those aliens to fill your ability points piggy bank ASAP.

Final note on this topic, I'm thrilled with the change.

As a player, I'm far more interested in having to weigh costs versus benefits and make hard

choices than I am in taking whatever result random chance hands me.

and that's basically what the AWC was doing

Now, I mentioned that you have to buy heroes, but let's talk about who you buy them from.

The resistance factions will be visible in a variety of ways.

Well visible, and audible.

When we're on the world map, we'll hear "Resistance Radio" commenting on our actions and putting

their own spin on it and apparently the ADVENT speaker will also chime in at times.

But that's basically fluff and the resistance goes deeper than that.

Cultivating a relationship with the factions sounds like it will be well worth doing.

We'll be able to acquire perks along the lines of getting instant kills every time you hit

a Lost, reducing the progress on the avatar project by one bar each month, having Advent

units defect to your side, and more.

We'll only get to take so many of these but the ones we know about so far sound good to me

There will also be missions when Resistance Soldiers will fight on the map and be on your

side, but they'll have their own turn.

And going back to the idea of making tough choices, each faction will have different

perks so you have to figure out where to put the bulk of your time and resources

and whose favor you want to go after the most because

you probably won't get far trying to court all three at once.

The resistance factions will also play a major role in hunting down the Chosen.

If you want to track down a Chosen to it's citadel, you'll have to spend points with

its rival resistance faction to do it.

Wait?

Rival resistance faction?

That's right, it's not an accident that there are 3 chosen and 3 resistance factions.

Each faction will have a grudge match going with a particular Chosen that will be randomly

assigned at the start of the campaign and they'll be able to show you the location of

that citadel, but only if you perform Covert Actions for them first.

We'll talk more about the covert ops later, but if you do enough for them then you can

finally get the chance to take out that Chosen and my guess is that long before the game

is over, these guys will be more annoying that a caltrops in your shoe and killing one

will be sweeter than candy.

Interestingly, Jake Solomon predicted that it would probably be common for players to

NOT get around to killing all 3 prior to the final mission.

If that happens, you'll find the survivors waiting for you at some point before you start

the end-game missions at the Radio Tower.

Well, as of today, Mr. Solomon certainly knows a lot more about War of the Chosen than I

do but I'll tell you what.

If it's possible to put all of the Chosen 6 feet under before the final assault on the

alien base then old Tapcat is going to make it my mission to blow each of them away to

whatever alien hell they crawled out of in the first place and I'll be smiling when I

do it.

No brag, Jake, just fact. (laughter)

And killing Chosen won't just be emotionally satisfying, you'll get their weapons too.

The Hunter's sniper rifle has a number of upgrade slots and takes just one action to fire

And, yes, the Assassins swords and the Warlock's rifle are also ours for the taking and will

probably we well worth claiming.

I promised to talk more about Covert Actions, so let's do that.

They were a very cool idea in XCOM Enemy Within but the reality of sending a soldier into

combat armed with a BB gun and wearing armor roughly as protective as a hospital gown to

square off against aliens armed with plasma rifles and deadeye marksmanship that would

make a special forces sniper green with envy was a bit of a miss.

This time around, you'll send a pair of soldiers with an option to send a third or give up

the extra firepower for an engineer or scientist.

There's even options that include equipment or intel to help them get out of a jam if

something goes wrong but we don't know specifics yet.

If things DO go wrong and you didn't take the right precautions, you could be looking

at having your squad captured.

If you're lucky, though, it could trigger a mission where you control them on a map

and try to escape from ADVENT and Lost enemies.

These Covert Actions are how we'll blunt the progress of the Chosen in their attempts to

mess with the resistance and how we'll interact with the resistance ourselves for the most part

And it sounds like we'll want to do more of them than we can possibly get to so prioritizing

will again be key.

In fact, there's even another new facility called the Resistance Ring that helps run

the Covert Actions faster.

And, seriously, another new facility?

Either the Avenger is getting more slots to build in or we're definitely going to see

at least one other existing facility retired.

You heard it here first!

In the real world, we like some of our co-workers a whole lot more than others and XCOM 2 is

headed down that same path.

Every soldier will be randomly assigned a compatibility score with every other soldier

ranging from low to very high.

When we send soldiers on either tactical or covert missions together their relationship

will have the chance to deepen.

At the end of a mission, there could be a level-up between the two and the camera will

zoom in on the two having a beer together or something similar and Bradford will declare

that the two can form a bond.

At that point, you can level them up with no further effort.

But after the first level, it will take time in the Training Center to move it forward.

And what, you may ask will these levels get you?

Well, at the first level it could involve one soldier giving up one action on a turn

so that the other can take an extra.

At the third level, you can do that twice as well as employ a new ability called Dual Strike.

This is setup so that when one of the soldiers fires at an enemy, the other will too and

it won't cost them an action.

It wasn't clear whether this is an activated ability with a cooldown or if that's an always-on

passive so we'll have to see just how good that really is.

Another benefit that can come from bonding is that if one runs to the other, it cleanses

them of all negative mental effects and that should include the Daze effect that the Chosen

will be using.

And, finally, Bondmates will complete Covert Actions faster.

And then we come to Will.

Up until now, Will has played a small role in XCOM 2 and represented your resistance to

panic and psionic attempts to manipulate or control you.

Now, it will be integrated with a new fatigue system.

From now on, we'll need to rotate soldiers out of combat missions to rest or be punished

fairly severely.

For starters, a tired soldier's Will is going to drop and if they're hurt or exposed to

enough enemies then it will drop even faster.

Low Will is going to make them vulnerable to stuns, panic, and Mind Control.

If that's not enough, tired soldiers that go on combat missions can acquire negative

traits like refusing to go on Overwatch when you tell them to and simply firing instead.

A second example is that they might become obsessed with keeping their rifle loaded so

after moving for his 1st action, he might then immediately reload for his 2nd

So you could literally lose control over your own soldier if you overwork him.

At least some of the negative traits are simpler to deal with.

They might be afraid of a particular enemy type and hunker down when they see them

or maybe go berzerk.

Traits like this only trigger once a mission and can be cured in the infirmary but I assume

that means even more downtime in addition to the rest that they already needed.

If you're still with me then hang in there, because we're in the home stretch!

Research has been tweaked to include Breakthroughs and Inspirations

Breakthroughs are random events.

We'll occasionally be offered a chance at a new technology that offers a random perk

like bonus damage to a certain weapon type or halving the cost of a particular facility.

But like an unrepentant car dealer, this will be a one-time offer and no longer available

once you walk away.

Inspirations are offered in a similar way but we'll be offered a standard tech at some

kind of discount so that it will take less time to research.

My first impression on this is simple, pick your spots for accepting these and stay focused

when pursuing truly critical research.

There are techs like magnetic weapons and Plated Armor that you need to get to ASAP

and if you spend all your time chasing rainbows instead simply because they're on sale, then

you'll lose more and more soldiers on the battlefield in a version of XCOM 2 that demands

more able bodies than ever before.

New equipment is coming in the form of a Lost Lure that can direct the Lost to attack a

given area.

And, again, I'm wondering if it will be a viable strategy to purposely use explosives

to bring the Lost in and then use them against ADVENT.

Or at least take advantage of their presence when they show up on their own.

If so, it will inspire the same kind of joy usually reserved for enraging berserkers until

they attack the ADVENT troops escorting them.

Another new toy is the Sustaining Sphere.

This will prevent a soldier from dying and bring them back with one health the following turn

With everything we've talked about, would it surprise you to know that campaigns will

now be longer?

The estimate is that they'll run 10-15 missions more than they currently do so get ready for

the game to become even more of a marathon, especially on Legend.

There's also a completely new Challenge Mode.

Apparently, your forces would be pre-selected and could include both humans and aliens.

It's completely separate from the campaign and these would be one-off mission that are

somehow scored competitively and will give us a chance to compete against others to appear

on a leaderboard.

I really don't know what to make of this, but we'll see how it looks once we know more.

All right, if you've made it this far then hopefully you found the video interesting.

If so, please give it a like to help other people find it.

I'll continue to cover War of the Chosen up through the release so if you want to see

more then by all means subscribe to the channel.

That's all for now.

Thanks for watching, I hope we see you next time.