XCOM Story

[Emzi C]

Warning: there might be mild spoilers to the story below.

I have completed XCOM vanilla twice and playing Long War now and what is slightly bothering me is the whole story behind.

It starts with aliens attacking earthlings and kidnapping them. Then we learn that they harvest our resources as well. Especially in Long War, they need them for their upgrades - what kind of resources? All resources I'm getting are not available on Earth (Ellerium, Alloys, Meld), but probably they have some technology to refine our oil into Ellerium, that's not a biggie.

What bothers me is the ending. When you go through the Temple ship, the story unfolds and we learn that these evil aliens actually looking for some "Chosen" and that they other aliens are just failures, including Etherials, who failed as well, but not clear how, what or who.

But then when we meet the Supreme Leader and he greats us, everything ends very anti-climatically, I just sniped him in the head and the game is over. I tried not to snipe (which involves a lot of fighting), but then checked online and there is no alternative ending.

So my questions are what is the actual purpose of the aliens on Earth and who is behind Etherials (whomever Etherials failed).

Cheers,

[Steve (Dawn's Hubby)]

More details emerge in the next game with the DLC, War of the Chosen, etc. It should explain everything, so I don't want to spoil it if you haven't played it yet.

[Just me n my pc...]

XCom2 drove me to Phoenix Point.

[Rico]

The Aliens purpose on Earth is revealed in XCOM 2

[Sabaithal]

Its implied that the Ethereals are essentially looking for new "hosts" for themselves, since their own bodies are decaying. Though this is more of what XCOM 2 specifically is implying.

However I would treat the events of XCOM EW and XCOM 2 as separate continuities. There are a number of inconsistencies and plotholes if you treat them as the same story. Namely, the only clear time link between the game is a throwaway entry in XCOM 2 that states that the original XCOM project only lasted a few months, and... well just think about why that doesn't make sense, especially with how XCOM 2 starts.

And let's not even bring up WOTC, which is its own mess...

[Emzi C]

Thank you, guys.

I have a feeling that initially, they didn't have this "chosen" story line and it was added later. I mean, why do they need to kidnap and do whatever they were doing with all these people they kidnapped? Surely they were not looking for chosen this way and if they were practicing how to host in people, it kind of counters this mind controlling that doesn't require any hosting at all.

I accidently discovered how XCOM 2 starts, so, it's kind of upsetting that all this effort and at the end (or better say at the new beginning) they just disregarded it all and saying that the project failed. I mean, frankly, I'm in the second year of my Long War run and can survive (maybe not easily, but surely) without any council support.

Eh-he-he, well, maybe story will be better in XCOM 3 :D

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by mkerogazov:

I have a feeling that initially, they didn't have this "chosen" story line and it was added later.

Actually that's exactly it, yes. WOTC came after XCOM 2, like way after, and the changes it made were... extensive enough to raise eyebrows.

Still trying to figure out what the "canon" ending for EW is supposed to be (if this even applies). It can't be the XCOM base assault because Central ends up dead if that occurs. It can't be losing via countries either because the spokeman is mind controlled in that ending.

[Syntax Error]

The ethereals are an advanced race of geneticists, who were, in theory, looking for a race with ideal DNA to craft into their penultimate soldiers, (among other things). Their previous creations were "failures", despite the fact that these are their foot soldiers doing all the heavy lifting (ie. all the enemies of the game).

XCOM 2 basically retcons the entire XCOM 1 story into "most of that didn't happen". Earth (and thus XCOM) was defeated before anyone could come even close to assaulting the temple ship. Like, as if the player of XCOM 1 got a vanilla "game over" screen before getting to the end of the game. Cheesy, but, whatever. They wanted to do dystopia, so that's one way to get there.

[Emzi C]

It's quite sad :( They could have come easily with a better plot of something like 20 temple ships arriving and overwhelming XCOM and everything else, but "the Earth will remember her heroes" and maybe some cut-scene of the last stand of XCOM veterans versus waves of aliens storming XCOM HQ. Then they could easily go into dystopian reality.

[Clancy McFancy]

Originally posted by mkerogazov:

It's quite sad :( They could have come easily with a better plot of something like 20 temple ships arriving and overwhelming XCOM and everything else, but "the Earth will remember her heroes" and maybe some cut-scene of the last stand of XCOM veterans versus waves of aliens storming XCOM HQ. Then they could easily go into dystopian reality.

That would be awful lmao.

[man_without_eyes]

Don't try to find any sense in the story because there wasn't any in the whole XCOM series. The main focus for developers is the gameplay and story serves only to provide some context to your actions.

[Emzi C]

But it wouldn't hurt to have a nice story, right? :D And it's not that hard to follow from one installment to another.

[man_without_eyes]

Originally posted by mkerogazov:

But it wouldn't hurt to have a nice story, right?

And this game HAS a nice story. At least, the devs tried to make it nice. Successful or not - it is another topic.

Originally posted by mkerogazov:

And it's not that hard to follow from one installment to another.

What makes you say that?

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by man_without_eyes:

And this game HAS a nice story. At least, the devs tried to make it nice.

Its a little antiquated but kinda classy because of that. Much like the Fallout games have that 1930s era style going on (despite it being 2080 by the time the bombs dropped).