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Verge meanwhile is a psychic alien with disruptive mind-bending skills that can stun, or even control, enemy soldiers.

Godmother, for example, is a badass shotgun-wielding shock trooper, with aggressive attack focused skills. Unlike past XCOM games, every agent you command has a name, back story and specific custom class, complete with unique skills and equipment. This is largely down to one of the game’s other big changes: you control hero characters. The breach element is one of the more positive tweaks to the XCOM formula, as it adds a further layer of tension and strategy to each phase of a mission, forcing you to go into each encounter with limited intel. These include things like using a shielded character to set up a wall, protecting the agents behind him or using a psychic alien’s telekinesis to pull a hunkered down enemy out of cover. But later on, as your agents level up, you get a chance to use more specific skills during the breach. At the start, this is limited to taking a potshot at an enemy or going to cover.

Chimera squad free#

As an added perk, each agent gets a free action when going in. Once set up, you then start the encounter and see your agents rush the area in slow motion. These include things like ventilation shafts or locked doors. Later in the game, you can also invest in custom tools, like breach charges, key cards and specialist armour that let you take advantage of otherwise inaccessible entry points. You can assign squad members to multiple breach points. For example, going into a warehouse through the side window may give you a better vantage point, but if it’s being heavily watched there’s a bigger risk the enemy will see you and return fire when you enter it than if you go through the back door.

It lets you place squad members next to specific entry points, each of which comes with a set of advantages or disadvantages.

For starters, missions are now much, much shorter and divided into self-contained sections, each of which is divided by a new “breach” mechanic.īreaches are a new way for your agents to start encounters with enemy units. Jumping into the opening tutorial you’ll immediately see that, though it comes from the same lineage, Chimera Squad is a very different beast compared to XCOM. In layman’s terms, this means rather than commanding a global resistance force, in Chimera Squad you control a specialist SWAT team that’s tasked to protect the new peace between humans, aliens and hybrids in the fictional City 31. Instead, you take command of Chimera Squad – a new unit built up of specialists from XCOM, old resistance cells and the now unbrainwashed Advent soldiers and invading aliens from the previous games. But unlike other entries into the series, you don’t control XCOM itself. The narrative picks up directly after the events of War of the Chosen. It’s being pitched as a sequel to XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, and at first glance looks relatively similar, offering turn-based, tactical gameplay mixed with base building strategy elements.īut, despite its namesake, Chimera Squad takes a few significant detours away from the franchise’s traditional formula that makes it feel like the hybrid of Rainbow Six Siege and XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. The last few weeks have been great for strategy fans, with big names like Gears Tactics and now XCOM: Chimera Squad offering vastly different takes on the formula.įor those out of the know, XCOM: Chimera Squad is the latest turn-based strategy experience from Firaxis Games.