XCOM: Enemy Within Review - Amplius XCOM
Last year’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown was met with almost universal acclaim from critics (including our Editor-in-Chief) and series fans alike. Firaxis, known for the Civilization franchise, did an amazing job adapting the classic turn-based strategy series for today’s players and brought a fresh awareness to a franchise that people had assumed dead for almost a decade. After the fallout following the announcement of the FPS reboot that would eventually become The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (my review), Enemy Unknown was a pleasant surprise - it stuck to the formula of the original games while still feeling new. After some tame DLC offerings, Firaxis serves up Enemy Within – a $30 DLC expansion that adds new elements to Enemy Unknown’s campaign. Is this expansion a worthy addition? Our XCOM: Enemy Within review will tell you shortly.
Right off the bat, it’s not easy to tell exactly what’s new here. Being a layered expansion, Enemy Within starts from the same spot in your Steam library, but now you’re given the option to load either the Enemy Unknown or Enemy Within executable. The first thing commanders will notice is a new collectible in combat: Meld. Meld is the resource used to apply cybernetic upgrades and gene mods to soldiers. It can be found on the battlefield in big glowing containers, but you have to be quick – once you’ve sighted a Meld node, a countdown starts. When the timer hits zero, the Meld is no longer recoverable. As if XCOM commanders needed any added pressure to combat, the time sensitive nature of Meld nodes will have you dashing troops into harm’s way to recover that sweet, sweet Meld.
MEC Troopers can be created in the Cybernetics Lab. MEC Troopers get a full body makeover that removes all previous skills and gene mods, but keep prior rank and experience. A host of upgrades give your mech warriors features like Body Shield for added protection and an AOE attack called Collateral Damage that blows away enemy cover. Oh, and you can punch enemies too, which is the best part of these specialized killing machines. Cover isn’t really a thing with MEC Troopers, but the added armor means they don’t go down without a fight.
Another new facility, the Genetics Lab, gives you access to an extra tier of upgrades for soldiers. Gene mods can be applied to various body parts, and much like soldier abilities, you have to choose one upgrade per body part over another. Upgrades include Neural Dampening, which helps soldiers defend against Psi attacks, and Secondary Heart, which increases the amount of time it takes for your gene modded soldier to bleed out. A leg mod, Muscle Fiber Density, gives soldiers the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound without the use of ladders or pipes.
All of these fancy upgrades would be useless without some new enemies to tackle. Thankfully, Enemy Within has you covered. The Commander isn’t the only one with new toys – Sectoids have discovered mech suits as well, and a Mind Merged Mechtoid is pretty powerful. Seekers are squids that can activate stealth mode and appear just in time to wrap up your soldiers in their tentacle-y embraces, damaging friendlies and taking them out of the fight until someone else rescues them. Quickly, you learn to keep soldiers in view of each other once you’ve spotted a group of Seekers.
Rival enemy faction EXALT is also new to the expansion, offering a more human enemy for XCOM to combat. A paramilitary group clad in business-casual clothing, EXALT troopers more or less mirror XCOM’s own soldiers, with medics, heavies, and snipers. These traitorous bastards will steal money from the XCOM bank account and conduct other types of guerilla operations, such as reversing progress on research projects and increasing panic. EXALT is a fun addition, and while your tactics might not vary too much, it’s nice to have a visual changeup from the typical alien fodder.
Enemy Within provides a host of upgrades and new features to the campaign, but don’t be fooled – it’s still XCOM. Not like that’s a bad thing! More XCOM is good, but if you’ve already had your fill of the main campaign and conquered it on Iron Man Impossible, then maybe wait for a price drop. I see Enemy Within much in the same way that I view other Firaxis expansion packs, like Gods & Kings or Brave New World for Civilization V: not absolutely necessary, but if you’re interested in playing the newest version of the game with all the bells and whistles, then go for it.
New mission types, including the strongly requested Base Defense mission, are interspersed with your regularly scheduled alien hunting. A host of new toys, new Foundry projects, Second Wave options, and maps make the game seem fresh, especially if it’s been awhile since you last assumed the role of Commander. Some neat references to the squad-based shooter The Bureau: XCOM Declassified pop up and I appreciate the effort to unify the XCOM games.
Some additional features were added to multiplayer, but nothing that will make XCOM multiplayer take off. Responding to criticisms of the original game, a ton of new voice acting has been added to your soldiers, including a multitude of accents. There’s still some Enemy Unknown wonkiness that wasn’t addressed, like weird camera angles on the dramatic close ups and crazy physics. The token Unreal engine texture pop in is still present and accounted for, and juggling your soldiers on various levels is still kind of a pain. Still, there’s more stuff for one of last year’s best games, and it’s a significant amount of stuff. If you’re craving more XCOM, dive in, bellator in machina!