Which version of XCOM is the best starting point?
Which version of XCOM is the best starting point?
My Recommendations on where to start this awesome series, and what order to play them in.
There are so many flavors of XCOM. You have the old school titles, still beloved by many. You have the modern remake, and its popular mod, Long War. Then XCOM 2, its DLC, WOTC, and thousands of player created mods… Its almost too much. Where to begin? Unfortunately, this is not an ice cream shop where you can quickly sample and decide. Every version of XCOM require a significant amount of time and effort. And these games are hard. Newcomers may worry that they are making it more challenging by starting in the wrong place. And this is a real concern, as some of the DLC and mods can make the game harder on newcomers than it should be. While I have not played the old school 1994 version of XCOM, I am confident that it is not as accessible and friendly to new players as the modern titles.
I would suggest starting your XCOM career with either:
Vanilla XCOM 2 - WITHOUT Alien Hunters DLC
WOTC (XCOM 2, but with so much more, it is basically a different game)
XCOM Enemy Unknown - Enemy Within DLC
Starting with Vanilla XCOM 2
The case for starting with Vanilla XCOM 2 is that it is a more refined version of the game, and gives you more information than its predecessor; most notably which enemies you can target from a given tile. This crucial information was absent in XCOM EU/EW. There are some disadvantages to starting with Vanilla XCOM 2. It is longer, and more complicated. Also, it is harder to set up correctly for a newcomer, due to the Alien Hunters DLC. If you buy XCOM 2 from Steam you will probably get it bundled with all the DLC. If so, it is crucial that you uninstall Alien Hunters. Go to your Steam Library, left click on XCOM 2 and select properties. In the properties window select the DLC tab and uncheck Alien Hunters, as shown below.
Alien Hunters is a brutal addition to the campaign, only meant for advanced players. You do not want to fight the Alien Rulers in your first campaign.
The other relevant DLCs are fine. Anarchy’s Children adds a bunch of weird and wild outfits. Shen’s Last Gift adds a mission and the SPARK unit.
You will probably want to add a few mods as well; fixing some bugs and improving the UI. Here is a bare bones list of mods that will help you enjoy the game: Vanilla XCOM 2 Modlist for Newbies. The most significant mod is Gotcha Again, which displays tactical information in a cleaner way.
As an alternative to Vanilla XCOM 2, some players may want to jump right in with WOTC. It is better in many ways than Vanilla, but it is also harder and more complex. It is also a completely different game. If you start with WOTC, then you should enable the Alien Rulers DLC because your squads are stronger in the WOTC version of the game, and you will be fighting the Chosen anyway, and they are about as tough as the Alien Rulers.
Starting with WOTC is fine, but if you end up loving XCOM, the best experience of the game would be Vanilla first, then WOTC with all the DLC.
There is one other option to consider with WOTC. You can choose to have the DLC missions or “Integrated Content”. If you enable the missions then the “Viper Nest” and “Lost Tower” will pop up at some point in the campaign. Both are pretty cool the first couple times you play them, but they get old fast because they are scripted. They are definitely worth playing, just know that once you complete the Viper Nest, Alien Rulers will start appearing on random missions and they can absolutely wreck your campaign. It is best to delay running the Viper Nest until you are pretty strong (Predator Armor and Mag Weapons). If you select Integrated Content this will not be an issue as the Alien Rulers will not show up on missions until you raid their facility, at which point you are no doubt ready to fight them.
Starting with XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Enemy Within DLC
This is the first XCOM game that I played. Many players believe this is the right place to start the series. It has a darker and scarier feel than its sequel, and a far superior art style. It is also a simpler game to pick up and play and shorter in length. On the down side, XCOM: EU/EW gives you less information, making it more frustrating at times.
You have 3 optional add-ons: the Enemy Within DLC, and two other mission packs: Operation Progeny, and Operation Slingshot. I would suggest playing with the Enemy Within DLC, as this mostly adds new content, such as the MEC units which are great fun. Both mission packs add 3 sequential council missions, with a big payout at the end. I would suggest starting without them.
Operation Progeny Missions:
Portent (April)
Deluge (After Alien Base Assault, XCOM Base Defense)
Furies (One Month after Deluge)
On Impossible difficulty Portent has 15 thin men and a sectoid, in April. Even on lower difficulties this mission is very challenging. Once you learn where the thin men pods are likely to be and where all the drop-ins land, it is only just hard; for beginners it is usually ugly. The final 2 missions in the Progeny campaign are tough but come very late in the game when you should be able to handle them.
Operation Slingshot Missions (month):
Friends in Low Places (April)
Confounding Light (May)
Gangplank (May - 2 days after Confounding Light)
Operation Slingshot starts off with a very nice mission with a cool soldier reward (Zhang). Confounding Light is tough; Gangplank is extremely tough. But the bigger problem with this mission pack is that the reward for beating Gangplank is too good. You get an absurd amount of alloy, elerium, and ufo parts. And you get it in May, allowing you to build everything you could want. Unfortunately, this breaks the careful economic balance of the game.
Where to go next?
Once you have completed any version of XCOM, every other version of XCOM will feel familiar. You can’t go completely wrong here. I’ve loved every flavor of XCOM that I have played, and I’ve played every modern version of the game. I would however suggest starting with the “base” version of the game before playing a modded version; so XCOM:EU/EW before Long War; Long War before Long War Rebalance.
Here is a rough map of modern XCOM. The base game is at the top of each section, followed by mods, and then mods of mods. Starting from a base game at the top, any of the base games, and then digging your way down is probably the best way to approach this franchise.
XCOM:EU/EW (base game)
Long War (mod)
Long War Rebalance (mod of a mod)
Vanilla XCOM 2 (base game)
Long War 2 (mod)
XCOM 2: WOTC (expansion)
Heavily modded WOTC: ABA, ABC, RPG Overhaul, etc. (mods of the expansion)
Long War of the Chosen (mod of a mod)
XCOM: Chimera Squad (base game)
I have played all of the versions listed above and they are all great. Really.
Good luck, commanders!
I adore Microprose's 1994 UFO: Enemy Unknown. For me, the cosmic theme of the original X-Com was like absolute magic: A fragile planet, illuminated on only one side, surrounded by menacing darkness. Attempts to defend the night side of the Earth quickly taught you that half of the world already belongs to the invader. Even with the limited sound quality, the opening theme brilliantly set the stage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXqZD71jyI&t=13s
(This was the same song that played when you lost the game)
The entire music score was minimal, but extremely memorable, and it's inspired more than one of the songs I've composed.
Granted, the original X-Com had problems. A bug would always revert the game difficulty to beginner, so there was only really one difficulty setting. Late in the game, mind control and blaster bombs were far too effective, and used together allowed the player to win the final mission in only a couple of turns. And after hours of gameplay, it became hard not to realize that the motives of the aliens were unrealistic; why send such a variety of species against humanity when a single disease, or a stream of meteors launched from the Asteroid Belt, would have crippled the Earth without the need for a costly invasion.
The 2012 remake, Enemy Unknown, did a good job of at least *trying* to address this, by saying that "The aliens have something else in mind." Still, the remake lost something from the original. In the remake, squads of four men and women with strong customization and personality created a cinematic experience, while sacrificing some of the grim plausibility of the original. It has its own personality, and its own magic.
But the original game achieved a cold realism by encouraging indifference to your troops. Every mission, fourteen soldiers flew into a battle where death could strike in a heartbeat, where the best armor and most extensive experience weren't a guarantee of survival. Fear was a close companion to soldiers at the front lines, and as the commander you soon learned to accept their lives as a necessary sacrifice in an otherwise unwinnable war for survival, and sent them out of the Skyranger with grenades already primed to explode.
The 2012 remake never captured this. And by the time the franchise progressed to XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, it had essentially reached the point of becoming XCOM - Marvel Comics Edition. Some people love superheroes; I'm just not one of them. I wouldn't recommend WOTC to anyone for whom time is a constraint, or who likes gritty realism in their science fiction.