The Long War 2 is out now, and it's free. The result is a neat Earth-B take on the concept that unlocks hundreds of hours of extra playtime. Speaking of Firaxis, it's great to see studios work with modders, particularly in instances where the mod team wants to substantially rework the studio's original vision. The Long War 2 is a thoughtful and effective reworking of the XCOM 2 formula, and the new weapon, class and mission additions are slick and well-integrated-they could have come from Firaxis. However I've found it fascinating to see how XCOM's core mechanics work in this new context. The way the core game gives you a narrow stream of high-stakes decisions is one of the reasons I loved it so much when I reviewed it last year. This dilutes the impact and drama of an XCOM 2 campaign to an extent. This slows the pace considerably-this is the Long War, after all. The changes bring a dose of 4X strategy to XCOM 2. Resistance members can also fend off alien influence in an area, and Advent moves troops around on the map in an effort to install new alien bases and move the Avatar project forward. You can assign engineers and scientists to regions to supply additional boosts. Change the squad loadout theme soundtrack to the original XCOM 2 one, that is way more. Once you've made contact with the resistance in an area you can assign resistance members based there to different jobs that generate supply and intel. r/LWotC: The official sub for the Long War of the Chosen mod. You still fly the Avenger around the globe to camp on spots and suck up resources or activate missions, but The Long War 2 introduces an additional layer of territory management. The rewards for these missions have been redesigned to affect the heavily reworked map layer.

There are plenty of new mission types for these new soldiers to tackle, including prison break-outs and enemy base assaults. If they achieve a high degree of infiltration (represented by a percentage marker that ticks upwards with each day), they face weaker forces in that mission. Ordinary missions are preceded by an infiltration period that asks you to devote a squad to a location for a variable number of days. In The Long War 2 missions are more like leads that you can choose to spend time and resources to follow up. Your whole stance as resistance commander feels different to ordinary XCOM 2, which forces you into a reactive position with must-fight emergency missions. Consequently, losing agents isn't the body blow it can be in trad XCOM, and you have more room to experiment with ability and weapon combinations across your force. You can field up to ten in a mission, and you start with a large roster. The mod forces you to break out of your habits and re-engage with the game again at the most basic level. For players that have mastered XCOM 2's story and power arcs, or now find them predictable, Long War 2 is an essential download.

Long war 2