During the game's development, Firaxis had difficulty determining how to handle core systems such as weapon range, displaying information to the player, and how to handle actions. As a means to quickly fix the game's unfun state, Firaxis imposed a "Mutator Mondays" event where staff could add a single change to the game that lasts a week. It is thanks to these events that grenades instantly explode, set weapon ranges were removed, and the game's UI is much cleaner. Eurogamer goes into more detail on how this system saved the game's troubled developm

Few companies have mastered the art of making turn-based strategy games quite like Firaxis . The studio's work with Sid Meier's Civilization and XCOM have resulted in some incredible experiences in both franchises. What's interesting is how Firaxis were able to reboot MicroProse's XCOM franchise without sacrificing much of the depth the older titles

While not a major development fact, the XCOM franchise was the first IP Firaxis worked on that did not have Sid Meier associated with it. Sid Meier is the Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games and responsible for many of the games developed by Firaxis, such as Civilization and titles from MicroPro

Regardless of how victorious players were in XCOM: Enemy Unknown , Firaxis Games continued down a canon storyline with XCOM 2 that assumed players had ultimately lost the fight against the technologically superior alien invaders. This more or less sets the tone for the new War of the Chosen expansion: there are some fights you just can't win, and the impressively deep expansion pack for XCOM 2 piles on the signature pain that strategy fans have come to embrace in almost masochistic fash

However, Firaxis planned for the SLG game reviews to be much easier during most of XCOM 2's development. The game's implementation of stealth and a wide range of group-clearing skills had made the game too easy. This resulted in Firaxis rebalancing the game rather late in development to give it the same sense of challenge as the original. Even with the mixed reception of mission timers, most agree that this change was for the bet

With the War of the Chosen add-on came the inclusion of XCOM’s version of zombies. The Lost, as they are called here, are pathetic little nothings, easily dispatched in high numbers. Players consider them more of a nuisance than a threat, due to the repeated need to confirm an att

However, just like in Enemy Unknown, Sharpshooters in XCOM 2 are built with a singular purpose: kill everything on your screen. Snipers get this done with high-damage sniper rifles that are deadly accurate, and their inherent Squadsight ability means you can often do this without putting them in danger. Not only are they deadly, but you can put them in places where they're almost always unable to be kil

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is the black sheep of the series , being a third-person shooter instead of a strategy game. Even though the game's overall setting and systems reflect a typical third-person shooter, The Bureau was originally a horror-themed FPS title under the name XC

Unlike most other classes, Skirmishers thrive off of mobility thanks to their close weapons and grappling hook. The problem, though, is that very few levels let you utilize this skill early in the game, and with the constant restarts that come with an XCOM 2 run, this means it'll be mostly useless for a lot of your ga

In any event, it looks like XCOM 2 fans should expect some terrors to rise from the murky depths within the next few years, as the cliffhanger ending shows that Firaxis evidently has no intention of slowing things down with the ser

Needless to say, the game's development was a nightmare . The main issue was a development split between MicroProse wanting to create the visuals of the game while Mythos Games developed the other systems. Since MicroProse didn't understand the isometric view the title was going for, however, the two teams ended up harming each other's progress towards finishing the g

Grenades are some of the best items to use early on in XCOM 2. They cover a reasonable radius, destroy cover, armor, and deal guaranteed damage, and Grenadiers maximize on these skills by having tons of additional range and ammo for these vital pieces of weapo

While XCOM 2: War of the Chosen does a great job shaking up the game from top to bottom, it isn't without cost: the Shen's Gift DLC mission is sacrificed by default to rebalance the game, being replaced with a simple research task. While player's can re-enable this in the options menu, we wish there was a way Firaxis could have kept the original content in balanced fashion. We also ran into a few minor glitches as late-game content progressed, so we recommend those trying ironman playthroughs perhaps consider a regular playthrough for now to avoid any potential post-launch err

Lots of turn-based games feature loads of weapons. A new one, RAM Pressure, features over 100 different weapons to fight aliens with. After a few add-ons or other mods, managing new weapons in the XCOM loadout screens got to be maddening at a certain point, particularly if using Musashi’s RPG Overhaul. So, the man himself took to the keyboard once again to bring players the Tactical Armory UI m