Before the review formally begins, I just want to start out and say that I love XCOM 2. I love the idea, I love the gameplay, and most of all I think it’s a solid sequel. It’s going to sound like I hate it, but rest assured my criticism comes from love.

You probably haven’t heard much from XCOM 2 because of how specific its audience is. Its a PC exclusive strategy game from Firaxis based around hunting Aliens using a tactical team of soldiers that you control in turn based gameplay. Obviously most of the gameplay comes from this turn based gameplay as you strategically place these soldiers in areas where they can attack or support other soldiers. You would expect that after hearing the criticism from the last game that they would have gotten this system locked down. But what actually ends up happening is a series of random events. When you take a shot in XCOM you have a percentage chance of the shot not hitting. That part makes sense, however the way this percentage is calculated does not unfortunately. You would expect that from 2 feet away your sniper class soldier could hit your target easily. But what ends up happening is you get a 66% chance of hitting him, which doesn’t really make any sense. This erodes at the authenticity of the strategy because every match seems like a roll of the dice. You could make every move perfectly and still have the enemy ambush you because you failed on every ability. This problem is amplified when you lose valuable soldiers when you set them up for the greatest success.

The reason that this is a major issue now and not the last game is because of the alterations to the missions in XCOM 2. Now there is a turn counter counting down to when you need to complete your mission or else you fail. This forces you attack swiftly and with a strategy. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in fact it would be a welcome change if the combat actually worked like it should. These combat problems become hugely obvious on the missions with a timer, you set something up and it gives you a ridiculous percent of hitting your target and then your plan is in pieces.

Beyond that, the combat progression for soldiers is actually pretty fun and rewarding. Each soldier levels up based on their performance in the last match, these levels yield cool new abilities that make you want to keep them alive for more specialized missions. You can even customize the faces of your soldier to make them your own. You can even customize them to your hearts content in a weird Barbie doll way. Not only can you customize their appearance, but you can also adjust their weapons to further specify their job in the field making more specific strategy possible. These specifications can even be upgraded more with your mobile command center. Along with looking cool, the command center is also were you will be spending 90% of your time in XCOM. You will launch missions, research weapons, build new armor all within the confines of your floating fortress (think shield carrier) and that’s what really makes XCOM special, that you can adjust your soldiers to suit your needs and your strategy and performance in the field is directly affected. Want to make a team of snipers stealthily picking off enemies in the shadows? You can do that. Want to make a team entire composed of mind abilities? You can do that too. The possibilities are endless!

Which is why it pains me to report that the optimization in this game is in need of improvement. Most PC players would naturally expect optimization to have better performance based off of their build. But my graphics card (NVIDIA GTX780) is only going at a steady 30 – 45 fps during the most relaxed points in the game. This along with long loading times, even on an SSD is infuriating

XCOM 2 is a worthy successor to XCOM and really does have its great moments. But being plagued by poor optimization and a broken combat system lead me to recommend to wait until the game’s developer, Firaxis, patches the game.