The Future of XCOM | A Retrospective and Wishlist

This took me far too long, but I hope you all enjoy it. It's easily my most ambitious video to date.

The modern XCOM series has had me hooked ever since Enemy Unknown/Within back in 2012, and after nearly 2000 hours of XCOM 2 I have gotten plenty of time to think on what I'd really like to see done to the series in the future. This is my first, true long form video essay with a ton of effort behind it, and I hope it turned out well.

This is the kind of content I'm going to try my hand at for a while, with hopefully far less gaps in between them, now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing. Thank you all for watching over the years, from the bottom of my heart.





Also check out Bestatnothing, he's also far funnier than me:

Sound and Music Assets Courtesy of:
Various Video Games

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[Sethorven]

I wonder whatever happened to that Sethorven guy.

[wimpybanana]

It'd be cool if the next Xcom game had a end of level replay mechanic where you can watch a replay of the entire mission but with all troops moving at the same time for each turn so you could see all the combat and stealth play out in real time without all the pauses between turns and individual character movements, It'd make for some really cool carnage montages.

[takashikamiyama]

*90% hit chance* MISS
*50% hit chance* HIT AND CRIT

That's my first Xcom experience.

[Nine-Oh-Five]

my request: when estabolishing contact with a new region, it's one of YOUR OWN soldiers in the cutscene, not just some random nobody

[acetrigger]

i love how "Mission Accomplished" goes through all necessary emotions:

"we won!
...but it ain't over...
but! let's celebrate our victory now, and prepare to win the war!"

[HuemanBean]

I'd personally love increased cutscenes with our custom soldiers interacting with the world, as well as additional customization options. XCOM 2 did a fantastic job with customization, and the mods just made it better.

[epiczombiedoctor]

I do hope they bring a bit of the horror element from enemy unknown. Like when the berzerker killed a squad mate and you just see the blood splash agianst the screen showing the utter power it has and the chrysalis ripping into your soldiers and seeing their body jerk as the eggs are implanted is still brutal

[Izbiski_]

That self jab at “taking 3 months to animate a gun” made me laugh more than it should

[leonardonhidalgo]

My favorite moment with the Hunter is when you storm his base and are 1/4th of the way through and he tells you with a hint of embarassment and desperation something like "You are probably waiting some sort of trap ahead waiting for you. Well, there is not. I wasn't expecting you to make it this far."
He's not scared, he's not angry, he's not being deceptive. He's just baffled it came to this and he didn't consider the posibility.

[Mrbird]

On the concept of Co-op Xcom, me and a buddy did a playthrough once where we each commanded half the squad and took turns commanding our units and making field decisions. It was insanely fun

[TARMHeLL]

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the menu squid" HP Lovecraft after his first play through of X-COM 2.

[net_imp]

"Every character Nolan North voices must be a smartass."
Cpt. Walker - Am I a joke to you?

[Jacobstx]

It's here! It's finally here!
*♫Resistance Rad-i-o~♫*
Alright people. It's time to reminisce, and to look forward. I know the war against ADVENT has entered a lul, but just because there's nothing grand to tell you about doesn't mean the war has somehow been lost. Think about it, when was the last time you heard of ADVENT making a move either? No. This cold war is simmering right underneath the surface, and like two grandmasters playing chess, sometimes simply moving pieces into place is the most important move you can make.

It is the metaphorical calm before the storm.

With that said, how about we catch up on some history together, shall we?
First of all, we always knew the aliens weren't all powerful. I mean, come on, they show up with UFOs and a mothership, and yet they're content to go the infiltration route, dismantling our power structures from within. They were running scared back then, and why wouldn't they? In the brief skirmishes we had, our Earth-developed fighters actually shot down UFOs on the regular. For all their advanced tech, we could beat them head on.

But they didn't come at us head on, and it's telling that they've only become the power they have because of willing collaboration with the aid of our homebrew weasels. Now I'm not about to say the world's governments were saints before the invasion, but I'd side with the devil I know over the devil I don't any day of the week.
And speaking of the devil we know.. the Skirmishers. ADVENT puppets breaking free of their puppeteers, We need to consider the angle that they aren't unique. That all the aliens we have faced so far are nothing more than thralls to their masters. I'm not saying you should show them mercy out on the battlefields, because they don't have the option to show you any either, but there's a distinct possibility that if we win this war, we won't go back to the normal before it - because doing so would be to stab the skirmishers in the back.

And call it wishful thinking if you must, but I hope we're better than that. We're fighting a war for our survival, yes, and you won't find me ever saying that we should rein in our efforts to do so, but once our very survival stops being on the line.. I hope there's enough humanity left in ourselves to consider options beyond extermination. The Elders are bastards not just because of what they've done, but because of what they've quite literally forced others to do. Let's not, once this is over, become even more tyrannical than they were.

This broadcast goes out to the skirmishers in particular - who fight at our side despite the uncertainty they face in the world should we win.

[charlescedrictanedo]

They can probably fix the feelings of people on this with animation. If they for example made the animation where the alien dodges out of the way on a miss, it actually makes us realize that it is really possible for a point blank range shot to miss just like when someone comes at us with a knife we try to sidestep it. Makes it more realistic.

[Critical_Pixel]

Fun fact: The Chosen are actually in Xcom Enemy Unknown during a DLC mission pack known as The Furies. In that mission series you save 3 superior Psionic soldiers each named after the Furies in Greek Mythology. It was confirmed that in Xcom: War of the Chosen the Furies were never saved and upon completion of the Alien psionic s project they became the Chosen as we now know them.

[EndoScorpion]

I've always wanted to be able to assign squads/teams - so having an A team, B team, etc. Like how in Stargate they have SG-1, SG-2, and so on. Combined with the bonding system it would be easier to keep certain groups of characters together and would make it easier to swap out teams for missions.
Would also love to be able to have more than one active squad in the field. So I can send multiple squads out gathering intel or en route to another location across the globe.

[ninjaeris]

Mission Accomplished is ABSOLUTELY the music that plays when cool dudes in leather jackets and aviators walk away from giant explosions

[pap]

Honestly expanding the sitrep system would solve a lot of problems. Having tons of different modifiers that you could manipulate with geoscape upgrade things and an expanded alien sitrep system could seriously improve the games randomness without numerical frustrations.

[alduintheanti-dragonborn]

That "Squid" or "graphical bug that only appears on the main menu" does not in fact only appear on the main menu. I've had one of my soldiers do that in the middle of a mission.

[raygc]

I like what 2K and Firaxis did with getting recruitable aliens, and being able to see what they could do in Cholera Squad. The individual turn based combat is a neat idea for close encounters, but for bigger scale the 2 turns works best imo.

Two things I do wish they add:

1. Multiclassing: Cause I play DnD and multiclassing can add some crazy stuff, and it would be even cooler if each multiclass even got unique abilities, kind of like how the. MEC's could in enemy within.

2. Body type advantages: Smaller people being harder to hit and getting into smaller spaces, bigger people Mr Xing through walls, ect. Seeing heoght differences and weigjt differences would be nice for customization as well.