XCOM 2 Collection

Since its release on February 4, 2016, XCOM 2 has cast a monolithic shadow over the strategy genre. Developed by the veterans at Firaxis Games and published by 2K, this is not a story of valiant defenders repelling an alien invasion. This is the story of what comes after they lose. The game picks up 20 years after the events of its predecessor, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, in a world where humanity has surrendered and lives under the seemingly benevolent but ultimately sinister rule of the ADVENT administration. You are the Commander of a reborn XCOM, now a ragtag guerilla force operating from a stolen alien supply barge, the Avenger.

From this premise, XCOM 2 builds a breathtakingly coherent experience. Every design choice feeds the fantasy of being an underdog resistance leader. You are no longer a state-funded global defense force; you are under-equipped, out-manned, and perpetually hunted. The game is fundamentally split into two equally demanding parts: the tactical layer, where you command a squad of four-to-six soldiers in intense, turn-based combat missions; and the strategic layer, where you manage your mobile base, direct research, build new gear, and choose which fires to put out on a global map.

This dual-layer system creates a feedback loop of profound consequence. The plasma rifle you spend weeks researching in the lab is the same one your sharpshooter uses to land a critical shot halfway across the map. The soldier you lose on a “routine” mission is a sister, a friend, a decorated veteran whose absence is felt not just emotionally, but mechanically—a tangible loss of skill and power. The game’s reputation for difficulty is earned, but it’s a demanding fairness that respects player intelligence. It doesn’t just ask you to win; it asks you to accept the high cost of victory.

• Guerilla-Style Turn-Based Tactics: The core combat loop is a puzzle of positioning, probability, and calculated aggression. Most missions begin in Concealment, allowing you to set up ambushes and alpha-strike enemy pods before the fight begins in earnest. Timed objectives and dynamic enemy patrols force constant forward momentum, dismantling the “overwatch creep” that defined its predecessor.
• The Avenger & Strategic Management: Between missions, you manage a cross-section of your flying headquarters. You excavate rooms, build facilities like the Guerrilla Tactics School and Proving Ground, and direct scientists and engineers. On the world map, you fly the Avenger to make contact with resistance cells, gather resources, and undertake missions, all while a sinister “Avatar Project” clock ticks towards doomsday.
• Unforgiving & Emergent Storytelling: Soldiers have names, backstories, and develop unique skills and bonds. They can also be killed—permanently. This permadeath system is the engine of XCOM 2’s narrative power. There are no scripted heroics. The stories emerge naturally from the chaos of the battlefield: the rookie who panics and saves the squad with a wild shot, the veteran who sacrifices themselves to ensure the team can evac, the gut-wrenching decision to leave a soldier behind.

XCOM 2 is an exercise in controlled chaos. It understands that the most memorable stories in strategy games aren’t about flawless execution, but about pulling victory from the jaws of catastrophic failure. Its systems are designed not just to challenge you, but to break you, forcing you to adapt and improvise when your perfectly laid plans inevitably combust.

A Symphony of Failure

The game’s relationship with probability is infamous. The “95% chance to hit” that somehow misses is a meme for a reason, but it speaks to a core design truth: there is no such thing as a sure thing. Success is not about finding the one perfect move, but about mitigating risk. You learn to never count on a single shot. You learn that flanking an enemy to guarantee a hit is always better than relying on a dice roll, no matter how favorable. You learn that low-percentage shots are acts of desperation, not pillars of a strategy.

This philosophy extends beyond individual shots. A single bad activation—revealing a new pod of aliens while you’re already engaged—can doom a mission. The genius of the design is that these failures are almost always your fault. The game provides all the information needed to make informed decisions. When it all goes wrong, you can trace the chain of causality back to your own hubris or lack of foresight. This brutal but fair feedback loop is what makes finally succeeding so intensely rewarding.

The Strategic Overlayer: A Race Against Time

While the tactical combat gets the spotlight, the strategic management layer aboard the Avenger is where the war is truly won or lost. It is a masterpiece of tension. Do you excavate a new room to build a workshop, or do you build the Proving Ground to get access to experimental ammo? Do you spend your meager supplies on squad-wide armor upgrades or a new weapon for your specialist?

These decisions are never made in a vacuum. Looming over everything is the Avatar Project, a progress bar that represents the aliens’ ultimate win condition. If it fills, you lose. Game over. This creates a constant, oppressive pressure that forces you to take risks. You can’t just sit back and build up your forces. You must actively sabotage alien facilities to reduce the Avatar Project’s progress, often undertaking dangerous missions before the squad is truly ready. This structure masterfully weaves narrative and mechanics, providing a clear and compelling motivation for every action you take.

Aesthetically, XCOM 2 nails the “near-future guerilla resistance” vibe. Armor is patched together, environments are a mix of sterile ADVENT city centers and crumbling old-world slums, and the alien designs are genuinely menacing. It’s not a graphical powerhouse by modern standards, but its visual language is exceptionally clear. The UI does a heroic job of conveying an immense amount of tactical data—line of sight, cover status, enemy abilities—without feeling cluttered.

As a turn-based game of this scope, XCOM 2 is inherently light on hardware demands, and the design leans into that: the pacing leaves room for slower devices, and the Switch port’s compromises are the expected trade-offs of squeezing a full-scale PC strategy title onto a handheld rather than flaws in the underlying design.

How you should engage with XCOM 2 depends heavily on your platform of choice.

• Steam (PC): This is the best way to experience it. Mouse and keyboard offer unmatched precision for squad control and camera work. More importantly, the Steam Workshop provides access to a near-limitless supply of mods, from simple cosmetic packs to full-scale conversions like “Long War 2” that transform it into an even deeper, more complex game.
• Nintendo Switch: The portability-for-performance trade-off is stark. It’s the full, uncompromised game on a handheld, which is an incredible feat of engineering. The trade-off is longer loads and reduced visual fidelity compared to PC. It’s best suited to seasoned players who prioritize playing anywhere over technical polish.
• iOS & Android: The mobile port is a remarkably faithful adaptation. The touch controls are intelligently adapted, and the full strategic depth is intact. This is not a “mobile game”; it’s a full-blooded premium PC title designed for the smaller screen. It’s one of the deepest, most rewarding experiences available on the App Store or Google Play, provided the device meets the game’s requirements.

• Strategy purists, tabletop enthusiasts, and tactical RPG fans who crave deep systems and meaningful consequences. It’s for anyone who believes victory is sweetest when snatched from the jaws of certain defeat.

XCOM 2 is a pillar of modern game design. It is a demanding, often heartbreaking, but endlessly rewarding machine for creating unforgettable stories. It respects its audience’s intelligence by presenting them with complex challenges and the tools to overcome them, but it never holds their hand. The War of the Chosen expansion, included in this collection, makes the entire package an all-time classic, layering on even more systems and content. At $19.99, with a Metacritic score of 88 backing up its reputation, the XCOM 2 Collection remains the undisputed king of turn-based tactics — an outstanding package we recommend without hesitation to anyone with the patience to learn its unforgiving language.