The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Bob The Tomato]

New XCOM game? Excellent! I'm excited for the news! Even though I'm well into a late game Long War Of The Chosen, any news concerning a new XCOM game is something to look forward to.

The breaching mechanic looks excellent. Looking forward to playing around with that.

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Dedicated, unchangeable squad of soldiers: ... Ummm... Okay, that's a step in a different direction...

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Mission fails if soldiers die and mission must be restarted: A REALLY big step in a different direction. Look, I'm guilty of savescumming to protect my soldiers every now and then, but it's a bit integral to the gameplay that your soldiers are mortal, is it not?

I suppose it's acceptable if each of these soldiers has a subplot in addition to the big-picture narrative of the campaign, making the game not just about the conflict, but also about the soldiers who fight it.

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A team comprised of humans and aliens, working together, 5 years after the conclusion of XCOM 2. Become Chimera Squad and fight to keep order in a city of unified aliens and humans to fight xenophobia and encourage integration: .... WAT?

So let me get this straight... aliens invade Earth in 2015, humanity goes to war and XCOM is the first and best line of defense. The war is brutal; people are abducted, cities are terrorized, chryssalids zombify people and use their meatsack bodies to spawn more chryssalids in a campaign of terror to convince humanity to surrender. Despite its best efforts, XCOM fails to defend humanity and the aliens win, ushering in a two decade era of subjugation. Major urban centers are rendered uninhabitable and the people who lived there before slowly become feral zombies. Meanwhile, if you're a well behaved human and do as you're told, you won't be reminded of your place in this New World. If you resist the aliens, you'll be beaten until you submit or you die, whichever comes first. Some people may have terminal illnesses cured, but millions still end up going missing and disappearing. XCOM resurges in 2035 and starts a fledgling resistance against alien occupation, during the course of which they learn that the alien oppressors are harvesting humans for their genetic material in order to manufacture superhuman avatars which the Elders can then psionicly inhabit because they're dying.

People have lost loved ones and friends over the course of these last twenty years. They have seen what the aliens truly had in store for humanity, thanks to XCOM. They rose up en masse after XCOM's broadcast went out showing that the aliens thought of humanity as nothing more than cattle. It's strongly hinted that even the ADVENT burgers come from processed human meat. But somehow, they're supposed to let bygones-be-bygones 5 years later and live side-by-side, integrating with the same aliens that were literally farming them for 20 years?

If that is your premise, then as far as I'm concerned, Chimera Squad are not the good guys. No matter how hard you try to paint them as such. I'd go even further and suggest that Chimera Squad could not possibly be affiliated at all with XCOM itself (the military org, not the universe). I say, City 31 is an abomination and should be allowed to fall. Sounds like Chimera Squad more closely resemble EXALT than they do XCOM; they're traitors.

Even the skirmishers, despite breaking free from ADVENT's control, were hated by the Reapers, and their co-operation strongly resembled an alliance built upon the premise that The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend, as opposed to an alliance built upon trust and admiration for one another.

Unless I've missed something. And if I have, feel free to point it out.

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Chimera Squad's motto, "Diversus Viribus" -- Diversity is Strength:

RED FLAG. HUGE RED FLAG. And yet, it suddenly explains everything else I've written above. The plot device is a thinly-veiled activism campaign shoe-horned into a beloved gaming franchise, relying on the large fanbase the brand has cultivated to reach people who otherwise wouldn't look twice at a game with such a message. Just as was done with Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel and DC. Existing as a social justice mouthpiece explains the poorly conceived narrative concept as we've thus far been shown, for social justice does not need to respect context to preach from a pulpit of moral superiority.

A far cry from XCOM's motto, "Vigilo Confido," -- Trust In Our Vigilance

And yet even here I find myself confused. Social justice activists are utterly opposed to aligning with people they believe to be their oppressors, and the aliens absolutely were oppressors in any definition of the word.

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Will I buy it? Probably. Edit: I did.
Will I pay full price? Definitely not.
Will I consider it canon? Based on what I've seen so far, probably not.

[Trudge]

Good boy

[TheOrangeBox]

50% off the bat - the bait is real - will it score +++ reviews? - April 25 will tell

[Mr Moody]

When I saw a new xcom game coming out I was excited. 5 min later after the trailer and description I am not.

[Fanatic808]

at first i thought this was a agents of mayhem DLC

[Cpl.Facehugger]

Originally posted by Goth Skunk:

Chimera Squad's motto, "Diversus Viribus" -- Diversity is Strength:

RED FLAG. HUGE RED FLAG. And yet, it suddenly explains everything else I've written above. The plot device is a thinly-veiled activism campaign shoe-horned into a beloved gaming franchise, relying on the large fanbase the brand has cultivated to reach people who otherwise wouldn't look twice at a game with such a message. Just as was done with Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel and DC. Existing as a social justice mouthpiece explains the poorly conceived narrative concept as we've thus far been shown, for social justice does not need to respect context to preach from a pulpit of moral superiority.

A far cry from XCOM's motto, "Vigilo Confido," -- Trust In Our Vigilance

And yet even here I find myself confused. Social justice activists are utterly opposed to aligning with people they believe to be their oppressors, and the aliens absolutely were oppressors in any definition of the word.

Perhaps that confusion should be a sign that you need to think more about this before bringing ideology into it. Because the situation the game presents is pretty logical once you look the immediate situation after X2.

X2 ends and advent is disintegrating. All great so far. Problem: There's still a huge number of armed aliens and advent soldiers out there. Those ayy soldiers are now free of ethereal mind control, but are still in possession of all their equipment and infrastructure that wasn't wrecked in the fighting. You can't just ignore them, because they have the guns and infrastructure. You can't tell them to get off Earth because they don't have anywhere to go and, again, they have the guns and infrastructure so they can tell you to piss off. You can't kill them easily either because they have the guns and infrastructure and will undoubtedly fight for their right to exist.

No matter what happens, there's millions of armed aliens out there that need to be reckoned with one way or another, and killing them is impractical.

Hence, attempting to live with them.

Now one could rightly say that not everyone would be happy with this state of affairs, and you'd be completely right - the gameplay trailer mentions that Chimera Squad has to manage civil unrest, and the obvious source of civil unrest is exactly the tensions involved with everyone having to live alongside one another despite the bad blood between them.

[Shas'O Swoll]

I was on the fence until I double checked the motto, jesus christ the agenda is real

[Bob The Tomato]

Originally posted by Cpl.Facehugger:

X2 ends and advent is disintegrating. All great so far. Problem: There's still a huge number of armed aliens and advent soldiers out there. Those ayy soldiers are now free of ethereal mind control, but are still in possession of all their equipment and infrastructure that wasn't wrecked in the fighting. You can't just ignore them, because they have the guns and infrastructure. You can't tell them to get off Earth because they don't have anywhere to go and, again, they have the guns and infrastructure so they can tell you to piss off. You can't kill them easily either because they have the guns and infrastructure and will undoubtedly fight for their right to exist.

The hell you can't.

The initial invasion was bloody and murderous. The subsequent years an oppressive tyranny. Humanity was reduced to cattle. Those who behaved themselves didn't get the rod. Those who didn't behave, did.

And, for reasons not specifically explained, millions of humans went missing in the twenty years that followed, their fates later realised on the Blacksite mission.

Twenty years is a long enough time to indoctrinate an entire generation of humans to see the alien oppressors as their saviors instead, significantly easier to do on humans born after 2015. Humans older than that will think differently, however. And if any of them have personally suffered, or lost loved ones as a result of the invasion war or alien oppression, you can bet they would be in favour of rounding up every remaining alien, psionic mind control or not, and lining them up against a wall for execution. I certainly would.

No matter what happens, there's millions of armed aliens out there that need to be reckoned with one way or another, and killing them is impractical. Hence, attempting to live with them.

I disagree.

Now one could rightly say that not everyone would be happy with this state of affairs, and you'd be completely right - the gameplay trailer mentions that Chimera Squad has to manage civil unrest, and the obvious source of civil unrest is exactly the tensions involved with everyone having to live alongside one another despite the bad blood between them.

In my opinion, the people causing the unrest are right. Chimera squad is wrong.

[DarkFenix]

You certainly do sound confused. You're so eager to see the SJW politics boogeyman in everything that you're determinedly creating it before you even know whether or not it's there. Paranoia is not a healthy thing, however justified recent history seems to make it.

Does the game carry a fairly obvious undertone relevant to today's world? Sure. But how is that message conveyed? We have no idea.

If it turns out to be yet another thinly veiled jab at white men, written by a bunch of female supremacists masquerading as writers, I'll be right alongside you with torch and pitchfork. That kind of filth doesn't belong in media of any kind, never mind gaming. But what if the political message is a rather more humanist one (y'know, kinda like Star Trek originally was before the SJWs got their hands on it)? What if the message is nothing more than one preaching tolerance and equality? We could certainly do with something a bit more moderate in the current sociopolitical climate.

As for the oppressor comment, think post-WW2. Would you hate Hitler and his organisation, or would you hate every single German? As it happens, West Germany was formed in 1949, only 4 years after the end of the war, and was a firm ally of countries its soldiers had only recently been the oppressors of.

[Cpl.Facehugger]

Originally posted by Goth Skunk:

Originally posted by Cpl.Facehugger:

X2 ends and advent is disintegrating. All great so far. Problem: There's still a huge number of armed aliens and advent soldiers out there. Those ayy soldiers are now free of ethereal mind control, but are still in possession of all their equipment and infrastructure that wasn't wrecked in the fighting. You can't just ignore them, because they have the guns and infrastructure. You can't tell them to get off Earth because they don't have anywhere to go and, again, they have the guns and infrastructure so they can tell you to piss off. You can't kill them easily either because they have the guns and infrastructure and will undoubtedly fight for their right to exist.

The hell you can't.

The initial invasion was bloody and murderous. The subsequent years an oppressive tyranny. Humanity was reduced to cattle. Those who behaved themselves didn't get the rod. Those who didn't behave, did.

And, for reasons not specifically explained, millions of humans went missing in the twenty years that followed, their fates later realised on the Blacksite mission.

Twenty years is a long enough time to indoctrinate an entire generation of humans to see the alien oppressors as their saviors instead, significantly easier to do on humans born after 2015. Humans older than that will think differently, however. And if any of them have personally suffered, or lost loved ones as a result of the invasion war or alien oppression, you can bet they would be in favour of rounding up every remaining alien, psionic mind control or not, and lining them up against a wall for execution. I certainly would.

How does literally any of that change the fact that there are millions of ayys with guns and control over whatever infrastructure they were able to hold onto when advent fell? I'm talking pure practicality here - The resistance is clearly too small to kill every last ayy, and the ayys are too numerous and heavily armed to pretend they don't exist since if they go Immortan Muton you're gonna need a lot of troops and firepower to stop them.

They need to be dealt with in some fashion - either kill them, negotiate with them, or something. Killing them is basically impossible because there's too many of them, they're too heavily armed, and the resistance doesn't have the force it needs to do it. So what exactly is your solution to the alien question, right after X2? Keeping in mind that the advent remnants are heavily armed enough that the resistance can't kill them without gutting itself in return.

[Wraith]

Because they worked for Xcom which mean they had contact with the Skirmishers. I don't know about you but you would get kicked out of Xcom so hard if you try to kill my Skirmishers.

It the same situation with the Reapers and Skirmishers. The reaper put down their bias of the Aliens during that mission.

[ErikVeland]

Why would you tell on yourself like this?

[swordguy60]

Honestly, my problem is that they specifically say its only been five years after XCOM 2. The idea that it'd only take FIVE years for humans to accept those that literally killed off so many of their kin is just really naive. I agree with those saying that this might've been written by a new team who have no idea what they're writing or is just a test run of a new engine.

Edit: Although is should be said that there's the chance this is just a massive troll and that this game actually has more meat to it than meets the eye. Like, this whole game just could be propaganda made up to inspire unity, also could just be a badly written show.

[Ixal]

Originally posted by Swordguy60:

Honestly, my problem is that they specifically say its only been five years after XCOM 2. The idea that it'd only take FIVE years for humans to accept those that literally killed off so many of their kin is just really naive. I agree with those saying that this might've been written by a new team who have no idea what they're writing or is just a test run of a new engine.

Most humans have lived together with aliens (under Advent rule) for longer than 5 years.

Besides, how long did it took for Germany to have normal international relations again after WW2?
That not everyone forgives and forgets is the premise of the game. But the average Joe is not some "DIE XENO FILTH" lunatic. He most likely didn't work for the resistance and while there certainly is still racism on all levels he would rather have a normal live instead of a repeat of the XCOM1 war, which would be the alternative to coexsistence.

[swordguy60]

Originally posted by Ixal:

Originally posted by Swordguy60:

Honestly, my problem is that they specifically say its only been five years after XCOM 2. The idea that it'd only take FIVE years for humans to accept those that literally killed off so many of their kin is just really naive. I agree with those saying that this might've been written by a new team who have no idea what they're writing or is just a test run of a new engine.

Most humans have lived together with aliens (under Advent rule) for longer than 5 years.

Besides, how look did it took for Germany to have normal international relations again after WW2?

Germans weren't a soldier specifically designed to be used for war. These aliens were, not to mention not every German were soldiers. All the aliens were soldiers.

[Ixal]

Originally posted by Swordguy60:

Originally posted by Ixal:

Most humans have lived together with aliens (under Advent rule) for longer than 5 years.

Besides, how look did it took for Germany to have normal international relations again after WW2?

German weren't a soldier specifically designed to be used as living war machines, these aliens were. Not to mention not every German were soldiers, these aliens all were soldiers.

And yet not everyone from the Wehrmacht or even SS were executed.