Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/08/21/xcom-enemy-within/2680237/

Expansion 'XCOM: Enemy Within' launching in November
Brett Molina, USA TODAY 7:23 a.m. EDT August 21, 2013
xcom-ew

(Photo: 2K/Firaxis)

SHARE 15 CONNECT 23 TWEETCOMMENTEMAILMORE

Brace for a whole new set of tactics when the expansion to hit strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown arrives.

Video game studio Firaxis announced it will launch XCOM: Enemy Within on November 12. The game features new maps, weapons and combat upgrades as players follow a story told during the events of the 2012 game.

"This is the same alien invasion that you confronted in XCOM: EU, but you have a whole bunch of new stuff," says Ananda Gupta, executive producer of Enemy Within.

The expansion introduces a new class, the MEC trooper, that boasts a Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit with enhancements from grenade launchers to flamethrowers. "It's a very dominating, powerful unit on the battlefield," says Gupta.

Traditional classes such as snipers or heavy troopers won't be left flat-footed. Players can create Genetics labs to physically augment their capabilities to make them faster or more accurate.

However, enemies will have similar access to MECs, highlighted by the Mechtoid, a Sectoid alien foe that "comes back with huge firepower and survivability increase," Gupta says. "He's very dangerous."
xcom-mechtoid

The Mechtoid, back, appears in a scene from 'XCOM: Enemy Within.'(Photo: 2K/Firaxis)

Players can also acquire a new alien resource called Meld, which appears on the battlefield in canisters with self-destruct timers. The Meld will detonate if players don't pick up the canister before time expires.

Multiplayer receives an upgrade, with new tactical challenges and 47 additional maps.

Enemy Within will be available for PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Its predecessor, Enemy Unknown, has been a surprise hit for publisher 2K Games. The series features the undercover XCOM unit that protects Earth from an alien invasion. Portrayed from a top-down view, players guide their squad of soldiers in a series of turn-based battles to collect resources and weaken the aliens' presence.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/21/xcom-enemy-within-announced-tons-of-details


XCOM: Enemy Within Announced - Tons of Details!
Loads of new stuff coming to the One True XCOM this November.
by Dan Stapleton
August 21, 2013

Time for more real XCOM! Firaxis, developer of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, has announced XCOM: Enemy Within, which will be a $30 expansion for PC gamers and a $40 stand-alone game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players, all on November 12, 2013. Like a Civilization expansion, the basic structure of saving the Earth will remain unchanged: we'll still capture an enemy, attack the alien base, and take the fight to them, but we're getting more options for how to get there.

XCOM_EW_Screen_HandsOn_05

First and foremost, Firaxis is addressing a couple of XCOM fans' most vocal complaints: you'll now be able to have French soldiers speaking French (among others, courtesy of allowing us to access localized voice files), and we'll see around 40 additional maps combined with Enemy Unknown's 80. That number will include UFO crash maps in urban and rural environments, instead of just forest. Will there be an XCOM base-defense mission? Firaxis didn't say no... which means almost certainly yes.

We're also getting a fifth class of soldier: the Mech trooper. But this isn't a class you're born into like the existing Assault, Support, Heavy, and Sniper - this is one that, after the proper facility is built, you can move any soldier into. He or she will lose all of their current class abilities, but gets to choose from a whole new ability tree up to their existing rank.

XCOM_EW_Screen_HandsOn_03

We don't yet know the full extent of the Mech Trooper's skill tree, but we do know that the first skill they unlock will be Collateral Damage, whcih will allow us to more easily target terrain (which Gupta says is designed to get us closer to the free-fire weapons of X-COM: UFO Defense). There will also be an upgrade that heals every XCOM soldier in a radius. They'll also have an ability that allows them to serve as mobile cover for XCOM troops, making it easier to cross no-man's-land stretches without being gunned down, a jumpjet system, and Damage Control, which reduces the damage taken for one turn.

Mechs won't be able to equip standard guns and items, but they'll have their own weapon upgrade tree that goes from mingun to rail gun to an energy weapon, and they'll be the first XCOM units to feature a flamethrower.

Presumably, these upgrades will come from researching the one new enemy (of several promised) that Firaxis is prepared to reveal: the Mechtoid. These armored sectoids remind me a lot of the mechs from the TV show Falling Skies, and have the ability to fire twice in a turn (much like the Heavy's Bulletstorm ability). If another sectoid mind-merges with him, he gains a damage-absorbing shield, but he doesn't gain the vulnerability of dying if the caster is taken out. Killing that guy just disables the shield.

XCOM_EW_Screen_012

Mechs sound impressive, but there's a reason to keep your best and brightest out of a set of metal pants: upgrading a soldier to Mech status disqualifies him or her from receiving genetic enhancements. Every trooper have five slots for upgrades: brain, eyes, skin, chest, and legs. Each will have two options to choose from (which can be swapped if you're willing to pay) and we've gotten the details on two of those sets.

On the brain, you'll be able to choose from Neural Feedback, which inflicts damage on any enemy attempting psi attacks (though doesn't reduce the chance of success) or Neural Dampening, which renders a soldier immune to panic and, should an enemy succeed in mind-controlling him or her, will simply knock them unconscious instead of turning him.

XCOM_EW_Screen_009

On the legs, you can either upgrade to Muscle Fiber, which lets a soldier climb walls without a skeleton suit, or Adaptive Bone Marrow, which provides limited health regeneration if they're wounded. But remember: you can't have both at once.

So there will be a lot more to spend your money, eleriuim, and alien alloys on in Enemy Within. Instead of increasing our cash flow, Firaxis has added a whole new resource, called Meld. Meld canisters will be randomly scattered throughout maps (in the same way that enemies are randomly distributed), but collecting them will require haste, because they have self-destruct timers. It's a system designed to get us moving quickly and recklessly instead of the slow, safe pace XCOM veterans have developed to keep our best and brightest alive. This is the one thing that sounds like it could be a bit artificially gamey to me, but I'm keeping an open mind.

XCOM_EW_Screen_007

Here' some more definitely good news: we're getting new grenade types, including a Needle grenade (unlocked after researching a Cryssalid corpse) with a large blast radius, but won't affect enemies in cover. Also, there will be stealth grenades that effectively splash allies with invisibility paint. That sounds overpowered, but Enemy Unknown reduces the critical bonus of stealth attacks from 100 to 30.

Speaking of rebalances, as someone who's played more than 250 hours of Enemy Unknown, I've established patterns in the abilities I choose for my soldiers. I always take Lightning Reflexes for my Assault troops in order to nullify the enemy's overwatch, I always take Sprinter for my Support troops to increase their mobility, and I almost always take Squad Sight for my Snipers. The alternatives to those choices - Up Close and Personal, Covering Fire, and Snap Shot - weren't even contenders.

XCOM_EW_Screen_HandsOn_17

In Enemy Within, the balance changes make that an extremely difficult choice. Instead of simply increasing your critical chance, Up Close and Personal will now give your Assault class a completely free shot when within four tiles of an enemy, allowing him or her to run in, take a shot, and run out. And rather than waiting for the enemy to take a shot before returning fire, Covering Fire will now take a shot before an attacking enemy, giving you a chance to kill them before they can even inflict damage! For the Sniper, Snap Shot has had its aim penalty reduced from 20 to 10, and Squad Sight (incredibly powerful in Enemy Unknown) will now only do critical damage if you use the Headshot ability, reducing its effectiveness a bit. All of the sudden those two decisions have gone up there to the toughest of any ability choices, meaning I'll want to maintain at least one of each type of each class.

Other upgrades? There are tons. Reaper rounds are an item that will give a ballistic weapon a bonus to critical hit chance, but a reduction to accuracy. Sounds like a good item for the Assault class before laser weapons are unlocked.

XCOM_EW_Screen_HandsOn_07

The Support class's Deep Pockets is redesigned. It will now give a Support trooper twice as many charges for grenades, medkits, arc throwers, or any other item with limited uses. But don't worry - there's now a Foundry upgrade that allows us to unlock the two-item capacity upgrade for every class!

What's happening on the strategic level? Well, we don't know yet. Firaxis isn't yet declassifying its plans, other than to say that there will be significant changes. This might well suck me in for another 250 hours.

...And then some, because there are new Second Wave options coming as well. There's one that will bring back some of the old-school XCOM terror by giving non-cover-using enemies (like Mechtoids and Sectopods) a 50% chance to fire on your soldiers on sight, and, far more exciting for me, one that randomizes the upgrade trees for soldiers beyond their initial class-specific ability. Imagine a Heavy with Lightning Reflexes and Battle Scanner? You might have that, if you're lucky. The possibilities are endless. Oh, and there's now a Reduced Beginner VO option that will shut up Drs. Vahlen and Shen, allowing us to do our walk of failed Iron Man Shame without being talked down to.

On the multiplayer end, we're getting eight new maps - a couple of which, admittedly, are recycled from the campaign. There's also a much-needed option to pre-configure your squads offline, before jumping into a match and awkwardly fiddling with your points for 20 minutes before starting a game.

Edit: Bonus info! There is a button in the pre-mission UI that strips all soldiers not currently assigned to the Skyranger team of all equipment. So no more digging through your entire roster looking for the off-duty guy who has the arc thrower equipped, or that extra set of Ghost armor!



Automatically Appended Next Post:

I got the base game when it was on reduced price, and though I'll not withdraw my criticism regarding some design decisions, I will say that it was a fun couple hours and I particularly enjoyed the "cinematic" combat. Though the campaign felt very linear, pretty much the only thing that really keeps me from regarding the remake from a more benevolent perspective is the expectations carried by the franchise name.

I'll likely get the expansion to have another go. Shame they didn't add co-op to multiplayer; that would have been supercool.

pretre wrote:Edit: Bonus info! There is a button in the pre-mission UI that strips all soldiers not currently assigned to the Skyranger team of all equipment. So no more digging through your entire roster looking for the off-duty guy who has the arc thrower equipped, or that extra set of Ghost armor!

YES!

Seriously, the time I wasted dragging stuff back and forth ...

FINALLY!!! You germans got a sneak peek. D*mn you ;P!

Did you see some of that new stuff though?! Cybernetic augmented arms?

H*LL YES!!!

New Soldier Abilities

Research a new alien technology to advance the capabilities of your operatives:

Gene Mods: Construct the Genetics Lab to physically enhance your operatives' abilities including augmentations to the chest, brain, eyes, skin, and legs.

MECs: Build the Cybernetics Lab to enable the construction of the new Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit, or MEC. The new MEC Trooper class has specialized abilities and each suit can be upgraded with new weapons including the flamethrower and grenade launcher.

Then there are sectoids in mechs?! That's crazy and awesome but hopefully more mech enemies. We've also got more maps and just everything. This is shaping up to be what slingshot was not.

30$? That's more like a new game price than DLC.

 Macok wrote:
30$? That's more like a new game price than DLC.

Yeah, it is a bit steep. It's nearly the cost of the full game :/

I was expecting it to be $15-20

Well it's an expansion so it's not completely DLC but i see how it does cost quite a bit. Still i'd prefer this over what slingshot offered. Just wish i didn't have to wait so long.

Looks like the rumor i started was true ;P.

If its even going to be released as a stand-alone on consoles Im willing to pay for it as an expansion. Pretty great news, I enjoyed the base game enormously, even though it felt like a pretty abrupt end.

The new features are really cool so far, except the robo-arms. We got the warning that we were turning ourselves into the aliens willingly and now the all new feature to seemingly start chopping off arms and legs? Hopefully they will play the moral part a bit.

Bit sceptic about the ''47'' new maps, but overall Im pretty stoked.

GIVE IT TO ME NOW!

although I guess I should finally finish that temple ship run then...

TAEK MY MONEY! But dose this mean I have to complet the origial game?

Nope. It seems it just adds extra stuff to the main game.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Nope. It seems it just adds extra stuff to the main game.

Thats what I was afraid of.

If it was an expansion pack that added like a new campaign on top of the game ya I would be interested but otherwise this isnt even worth looking at

Oh dear....Well i think I need to put in much, much more practice then. Because I have more than enough with the current version of the game.

 Galdos wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Nope. It seems it just adds extra stuff to the main game.

Thats what I was afraid of.

If it was an expansion pack that added like a new campaign on top of the game ya I would be interested but otherwise this isnt even worth looking at

Well, to be fair, it also adds a bunch of much requested features and bug fixes. Such as a "strip all equipment" button, 40+ hand crafted maps (including a farm map), and the option to gak Valen up, apparently.

We got footage and an interview:




So, who here wants to donkey punch a Berserker?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Well, to be fair, it also adds a bunch of much requested features and bug fixes. Such as a "strip all equipment" button, 40+ hand crafted maps (including a farm map)

I hope the "features and bug fixes" are added as a patch, and the new options in the pack. Most other games do it like this, especially if multi-player (DoW, Starcraft).

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Nope. It seems it just adds extra stuff to the main game.

My understanding was that

as players follow a story told during the events of the 2012 game

meant that the story is new, but simultaneous to the story from XCom:EU rather than following after. It's an expansion, not a sequel, as it were.

 streamdragon wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Nope. It seems it just adds extra stuff to the main game.

My understanding was that

as players follow a story told during the events of the 2012 game

meant that the story is new, but simultaneous to the story from XCom:EU rather than following after. It's an expansion, not a sequel, as it were.

Oooh I missed that. I wonder how they will go about that?

My money. . .here take it!

Just finished my second run-through last night. REALLY looking forward to this expansion as I need to shake things up!!!

Holy Crap! It's going to b a completely new game!? Didn't see that coming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I hope it continues the storyline instead of just heavily altering it. I didn't save the world 5 times for nothing!

Update: Expansion will be harder than the main game.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/2052890/xcom_enemy_within_will_be_even_harder.html

Normal and Easy mode will be slightly easier to compensate, however.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Update: Expansion will be harder than the main game.

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/2052890/xcom_enemy_within_will_be_even_harder.html

Normal and Easy mode will be slightly easier to compensate, however.

That is bad news actually. Normal difficulty was in fact too easy in the end and there was no challenge so it became kinda boring. The difficulty leap between Normal and Classic was good IMHO. Plus I've never seen anybody complain about how hard "Easy" mode is.
Now I fear there will be too big gap between Normal and Classic.
All that factoring Ironman

Maybe I was wrong about easy being nerfed, but they definitely mention Normal being nerfed in the article.

It is a bit of an odd decision, I admit.

Ya, I think Normal mode was just slightly too easy. So making it easier is not a good thing IMO.

Looking forward to this. I liked Enemy Unknown....

Sounds awesome!, mech suits and bio-troopers, hell yah, but this fall has a lot of awesome games coming out, Rome 2, Arma 3, now Xcom enemy within..I like it when it pours!