The best strategy game in the catalog
XCOM 2, losing a soldier you had named yourself
- Critic score
- 88
- Player rating
- 4.2/5
- Main story
- 33.2 h
- Genre
- RPG, Strategy
A turn-based tactics game where failure is permanent and the characters have no story of their own — only the name you gave them. That is where all its power sits.
Earth has fallen under alien control. The imposed order presents itself as an age of prosperity and security; on the fringes of the big cities, some see a dictatorship. XCOM is reborn as a resistance movement, operating from a captured alien ship, the Avenger.
That reversal changes the nature of the game compared with its predecessor. You are no longer the army defending the planet but a guerrilla force: most missions begin in concealment, on a timer, and waiting passively is now a way to lose. The game pushes you forward, which makes it considerably tenser.
The core remains turn-based tactics: two actions per soldier, partial or full cover, displayed hit chances. And 85% shots that miss, which built the game's reputation as much as its difficulty did.
But what XCOM does better than anyone rests on a simple idea: your soldiers are anonymous, renameable, and die permanently. You give one a friend's first name, he survives six missions, earns promotions, becomes your best shot — then falls to a placement error. The game did not script that: you wrote the story, and that is why it matters.
Expect around thirty hours for a campaign, and know that a first run is often lost. Base management — research, recruitment, trade-offs between regions — takes up as much attention as the fighting.