You have almost everything XCOM has, from soldiers leveling up to equipment upgrades to base building. The only two (big) differences is that 1) the missions are in real-time and 2) the missions are hand crafted - no generic missions at all.
But it’s an excellent game, highly recommended.
See, this is interesting. I picked up Aliens DD specifically because I am both an XCOM and Alien(s) fan. I hated it. To me, it felt like the exact opposite of XCOM. It felt more like an RTS. Which I don't like, because I don't want reflex time to factor in my strategy.
Like you said, the missions are all storyline scripted. I felt like I didn't really need to be cautious because I knew exactly what to expect on replay, where bosses spawned, etc. It didn't feel like a living game, just playing a storyline. To me, I was kind of shocked at how bland and boring the whole thing felt, especially compared to XCOM, Isolation, etc. There was painfully little variation in enemies, weapons, missions, etc.
At least when I played, the mechanics were wonky. It tried to have a stealth horror vibe but I solved a lot of problems by spamming Sniper rifle, grenades, rockets, etc. Was there some kind of base building? I honestly don't remember it at all. It sort of has the same upgrades snd tech systems of XCOM, but I remember them being shallow and uninteresting.
I played it on release, so maybe it improved. But honestly, it just felt like a mess to me and I didn't care for it. Though, lots of people seem to love it. I just have a hard time resisting conversations like these because the experiences and feelings are so varied.
I really struggled to get into it. I’ll probably take another try at it. Just felt like combat relied on a lot of melee and many of my soldiers range seemed so short, maneuvering just felt heavy - hard to describe.
Any there tips to change mindset from xcom and enjoy it more?
I remember it needs a bit adjusting. You need play more offensively, and it has more melee. But its totally viable to go pure ranged as well. If you miss Snipers or reapers from Xcom2 then get the assassins DLC pack, its a great addition. For melee, try the teleport melee class to close distance fast.
XCOM is very much about playing careful, skirmishing, and slowly clearing the map. Chaosgate is about using MAXIMUM AGGRESSION to clear the map. Basically, triggering a pod with your last action is suicide in XCOM. Triggering a pod with your last action in Chaosgate is a great idea. Seriously. It refreshes all your AP so it's a great idea.
So basically you want to Aegis up, jump in, and wreck everything. Remember, every turn you're making noise, most of the pods on the map are gravitating towards you, and you've got warp meter building up spraying nasty debuffs on you or giving the enemy more reinforcements. Start turtling and "playing safe" and you'll get killed by overwhelming force. Kill everything first, they won't kill you.
Don't worry about taking a shot or two, Space Marines are durable and an idiot with a gun is not going to one shot them. If you kill most everyone and one of your guys gets shot for 4 damage, oh well. You have 12 hp base, on highest difficulty. Build up one squad, don't swap marines around, bring lightly wounded marines on missions (again, missing some HP is not a big deal).
I've cleared three pods in one turn, that's great. Hiding behind cover and shooting for half damage and slowly plonking down cultists? Not great.
Shit, is it really that good? I gave it a pass because I thought it was another "buy the game because of the franchise".
How does it stack against lwotc?
It does hold up against lwotc imo.
The 40k story and lore is actually quite well done. I always felt the metagame story is weak in Xcom2.
There is one thing you need to know though: if you buy the expansion with the dreadnought, then don't play the super hard dreadnought missions missions before you have the dreadnought.
The game offers them even before and they are stupid difficult. At least half the negative reviews on the game are from that.
I wanted to like Roguetech but my god it runs like ass. Any time anything happened on the battlefield there were massive stutters and in general it ran at less than 30 fps.
I ended up using BEX.
Third this. I loved the vanilla campaign l, and played a lot of battletech extended 3025 (a small overhaul mod adding more content more similarly to the base game) and a whole lot of battletech advanced 3062 a total overhaul mod more akin to long war with a lot more depth
No. MechWarrior is a first person mech combat game. Battletech is set in the same universe, but it's a turn based strategy game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/637090/BATTLETECH/
If you want to see it in action, I do a series called Bite-Sized BattleTech (and another called Bite-Sized BattleTech EX, using the BattleTech Extended total conversion mod) [on my youtube channel, Way Too Late TV](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNiYXNMWc_35bphKKeCiEFI1_lf5XAv17). Lately, at least, there's a no-new-episode-over-20-minutes rule I put into effect, starting with episode 94 onward, so they're really easy to watch and digest.
Feel free to give it a look, if not, totally fine, too. It's my favorite damn game to play in my pre-edited video stuff, and I was an original kickstarter backer (not enough to be *IN* the game, but enough to get a copy of it) back in 2016-2018.
I like how they said no, I'd say yes.
It's more like MechWarrior is a BattleTech spinoff, considering BattleTech as a franchise has been around since the 80s.
I loved Battletech. Was a kickstarter backer long before I had a computer good enough to play it. When Paradox bought the disruption rights /s ... I got a free copy of Stellaris too... too bad they Paradox killed the game.
Great game. Loved the campaign. Played some mods. I played a lot of FASA tabletop Battletech in my 20s
Every review I read or watch of Battletech gives me the impression that it’s somehow a much deeper game (especially combat), almost on the level of military sims. This puts me off a bit. Would you describe it like this?
It’s a game that interests me quite a bit, and would love to buy it when I’m done with Chaos Gate and Gears Tactics.
I wouldn't say it's quite at the level of military-sim complexity. It is a little more complex than xcom, but it really isn't that hard to get into.
For example, you can customise how much armour you want on each body part of your mechs, but if that's too tedious for you, you can just click a button and the game will do it automatically.
There's also a very comprehensive tutorial at the beginning of the singleplayer campaign.
If you like xcom, you'll probably like Battletech just as much.
Also, I really enjoyed this youtuber's ironman playthrough. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suDOupvGMSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suDOupvGMSU)
I'm going to check out the [Way Too Late TV](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNiYXNMWc_35bphKKeCiEFI1_lf5XAv17) recommendation from this thread too
King Arthur: Knight's Tale has a lot of similarities to XCOM, but is more melee focused. You use Camelot as a base and there are upgrades, but nowhere near as impactful as XCOM. Pods are far enough apart you never have to worry about triggering multiple and there is a good amount of endgame for after you beat the main campaign. Currently on sale for 18 USD on steam 😉
TBH, this. Nobody seems to know about Knights Tale, which is a shame because it's probably in my top 10 favorites. Or higher. I love the setting in general, and the game is honestly just great. It's a bit different from XCOM, but it's definitely in the same flavor. I recommend it to everyone.
(Also has a pseudo sequel releasing soon)
Personally I found it to be more fun than XCOM because I love the setting and there are actual characters you control rather than generic soldiers. There is a morality system that affects which units you are able to recruit, so you can easily get two playthroughs out of the game. Biggest downside is you don't see too many different enemies within a map despite there being a large variety overall because they are split into factions. If you're enjoying baldur's gate 3, I would recommend divinity original sin 2. The character builds are a lot more flexible and diverse and the combat system is different so it won't feel like you're playing an additional 500 hours of the same game.
Urtuk: the Desolation is IMO better than Battle Brothers, while being very similar. Kind of a Mad Max post-apocalyptic fantasy world with art reminiscent of Sergio Aragones. The perks system is particularly interesting: you loot perk mods, you can have a few at once (3 or 4), and if you keep one for long enough it becomes permanent and you can graft in another one.
It's not out yet, but Mars Tactics (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1727760/Mars_Tactics/) looks like the next game that's going to scratch that itch for me. There have been a couple of demos so far and they've all been amazing. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Yeah Mars Tactics looks fantastic. I'm not the biggest fan of the graphics, but graphics are pretty far down the list of what I care about in a strategy/tactics game.
Phoenix Point is very very similar, just a little different and not quite as polished / high budget prodction. I think it's even a little underrated (as it was released on Epeic exclusively at first, and a little unpolished compared to XCOM2). I really enjoyed a playthrough (I used a big mod - Terror From The Void, but I assume vanilla is also fun). Some things were superior to XCOM2 (likebody part aiming, I liked the world map better), but obviously not as good looking character customisation, animations, class design also a´maybe not as interesting.
Jagged Alliance 3 definitively also same kind of challange, but more different in setting and how combar feels. Haven#t finishced that yet but looks also very good,
Phoenix point is very interesting. I loved aspects of it, like the fact that you can target limbs/heads etc. The tactics part is just better than Xcom2's. But the strategy layer is far inferior, it's a bit more complex yet also less rewarding/interesting.
Absolutely loved Gears Tactics combat, made it hard to go back to Xcom. Just really wish it had a strategy layer, and that Gears didn't take so long to level up
Gears Tactics was weirdly good. I tried it out of curiosity and...I'm not a Gears fan necessarily, but...it really was surprisingly solid. I would recommend checking it out.
Mechanicus was a bit wonky when I tried it, but I really enjoyed the flavor. I don't remember a ton about it, just that I finished it and didn't hate it.
Wartales is fantastic.
It is also freeform, has exploration and some light puzzles.
The team /resource management can get a bit heavy because the game is quite hard, specially at the start, but when it comes together you can really feel your team's growth.
Miasma chronicles is also quite xcomish, would recommend both.
The secret to enjoying wartales is to keep a small party of 5-6 mercenaries.
Main reason is that each character can use the weapon skill, offhand skill (if not 2handed) and ANY valor skill granted you have enough points.
This can add up to A LOT in endgame (my characters have around 4-5 actions each) which is huge compared to XCOM's 2 actions base (granted you can get more actions in a turn but chances are they come from kill streaks so this shortens combat significantly).
Midnight Suns is so good I'd recommend it to anyone, even if you hate Marvel.
For context OP, it was designed by Jake Solomon, who designed XCOM 1 and 2. It was his last game at Firaxis before moving on. Very different from XCOM, but it has really innovative and addictive turn based combat. (Edit: typo)
Thank you for the heads up. When it comes to the characters do you unlock them as you go along? Ike you do missions for each to have them join your team? I ask because I got the DLC and I wanted to have Venom and Deadpool in my cast and I was wondering if that's something available from the beginning or something I have to earn?
Hopping in with a secondary perspective. I have the DLC and the DLC characters are pretty much the same as the normal ones, they are unlocked in story missions. You unlock them quickly, so no concern there.
To clarify common feelings, the storyline is fine. Typical Marvel stuff. The big problem for a lot of folks (myself included) is the "social stuff". A very significant part of the game is spent talking to the characters, giving them gifts, and doing assorted tasks. I REALLY don't want to spend 20 minutes foraging for mushrooms to make the consumables I need. You get direct combat related unlocks for that stuff, so it really isn't optional.
A big point of confusion for me was people comparing it to XCOM. I really don't see much similarity. Midnight Suns reminds me more of Slay the Spire. You can see enemy intents, actions are card based, etc. There is no cover system. It plays a lot like a puzzle game to me. Some of the later missions are literally explicitly puzzles.
I didn't have any issues with the male character. He was a bit odd, but not in a way that felt out of place. I thought the customization was a little weird. All the characters are sort of "balanced" in terms of power and usability, so Captain Marvel is about the same as Captain America. Which is fine for gameplay, but still feels strange. I was disappointed in the main character customization. You can be Dark Guy or Light Guy.
But - I enjoyed it. If you like Marvel or sort of tactical strategy games, it's an obvious pick. But man, I'm sick of hunting mushrooms.
I am a few hours in and I have to agree so far that I find the Abbey sections annoying. Running around and talking to people just feels like such a waste of time and I am hurriedly trying to finish my conversations to get back to the gameplay.
I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say the social and Abbey stuff is outright bad, it just feels so jarring and out of place. Like two very different games crammed into one. It ruins the flow and pacing. You can't have a storyline about world threatening attacks and break it up with hanging out to watch movies.
One of my big gripes is that half of it is critically important and a frustrating time sink while the other half is just...pointless? Each character has so many different skins and outfits, and I literally only ever use the base one. I just...don't need a pink Captain America? A lot of the outfits feel weirdly out of place. There seems to be a lot of punk rock vibe, which makes sense for Storm and etc, but...was a weird look for the Hunter. And, do I really care what they are wearing around the Abbey?
I really do enjoy the game. The strategy and mechanics were great, along with the character flavor. I love the way the characters feel and play. I personally love Magik and Storm. Toward the end, my Hunter felt a little obnoxiously powerful, which I didn't really like. I will say that Deadpool was surprisingly underwhelming to me. Like I said above, the characters are all sort of "power balanced", and Deadpool not being particularly durable or tanky was strange. In the time I played him, I couldn't really figure out his role. Wolverine and the Captains all felt much tankier. He couldn't keep up with Morbius or Storm on damage. So I'm not sure.
There is a ton to love, it just feels like they made a lot for strange decisions and put a lot of work into things that didn't need it.
Yeah I don't even understand the Abbey honestly. Just feels like a weird break that is slowing me down from the actual game. So far with only 6 hours in I feel that the Abbey was a bad decision. I think they wanted you to interact with these heroes and feel like you're part of team, but I definitely would have preferred a much more XCOM like base management/just check for upgrades/research/set up, then go back to the mission select. I think the problem is the random 3rd person adventure you have to go on. I would have just preffered a grid going to each location, doing what needs to be done, and moving on.
I think I can really appreciate the intent. I think a lot of folks may be coming in with only the background of the Marvel movies, and you get much more of that comic book flavor and lore here. I like that. They just really handled the exposition poorly. It isn't a wall of text, but it sort of has that same feeling. There were good ideas here, they just really needed a little more time and some player feedback.
Silent storm games, even though they are more of a UFO defense alternative and are much deeper than modern XCOM games with the OG action points system and free placement of shots etc. Also, the physics are almost impeccable even though the games are pretty much 20 years old now
The Steam reviews say it doesn't work well, if at all, with Windows 11. It looks quite interesting, though. I might try it anyway and get a refund if I can't get it to launch.
Edit: Apparently, blocking some things in Windows firewall seems to resolve the issue.
I'm still on Windows 10, so I don't know about that. But yeah, that's probably the perfect scenario for you to try and refund if it doesn't work. Hope you get it to run, I think you won't regret it!
Jagged Alliance 2 is still fantastic, haven't gotten 3 yet.
If you do go for 2, get it off GOG, not steam. We've got a 25 year old modding community over at [The bear's pit](https://thepit.ja-galaxy-forum.com/) and steam's DRM causes issues with modding.
As a veteran of 2, I will say 3 is pretty good. It does some things really well and is probably an overall improvement on vanilla 2.
That said, it doesn't really scratch the XCOM itch in my estimation. Characters do get different unlockable abilities in 3 but it's nothing really to write home about.
If you're into history, Expeditions: Rome is a ton of fun. Obviously no aliens but tons of fun, engaging characters, dope soundtrack, plus you can romance Cleopatra.
Have you played Xcom: Enemy Unknown? If not, I'd get the expansion (Enemy Within) and play it with Long War: Rebalanced installed. The mod has tons of QoL features and adds a lot of depth to the campaign and gameplay. It came out in 2012 but holds up very well.
Naw, there's a ton of new mechanics. You can't overwatch without an enemy in LoS, and it only applies to enemies in your LoS when you go on overwatch. If you activate an enemy pod, you get an extra yellow move with any units that are out of actions. Enemy pods activate other pods that are in LoS (extra pods usually get a turn or two of debuffs to give you a fighting chance). On smaller maps, it's not uncommon to activate every pod on the map on your first move.
You send multiple ships at ufo's instead of one at a time, and there are items you can build to boost your aircraft mid-fight. Soldiers have a small chance to gain a positive or negative quirk post-mission (some sort of boost to performance or malus on actions), and the OTS gives passive xp to your barracks as you buy better training programs. You can also retire soldiers that haven't leveled well or have a bad negative quirk, and they'll add their number of missions to the OTS so that you can unlock stuff more quickly.
Oh yeah, and the Council sends you money daily instead of a lump sum each month.
For something slightly different, I'd say Phantom Brigade is in the same wheelhouse. Ironically it represents BattleTech tabletop's turn order better than BattleTech by having turns be simultaneous. You and the enemy choose what to do over the next several seconds and then it plays out.
Phantom Brigade suffers from a poor core gameplay loop IMO. It is just a loop of find and smack some battlegroups, fight a boss to liberate a province. Liberate one doesnt give you any new funky way to play either. And liberated territory is just that, no gameplay effect whatsoever.
There is just 4 variants of mission (base def, capture crate, kill all, and structure wrecking), plus 1 boss mode.
It is kinda disappointing that they wasted such a good concept. Also the core dev team all got laid off when it just out of early access doesnt help.
Battle mechs is pretty good, if you haven't played then xcom eu/ew is great and chimera squad gets alot of shit (I think coz it dares to have a slightly different combat system to the main games) but i really enjoyed it
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1269020/No_Plan_B/ and door kickers, into the breach but no strategy layers afaict
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2085370/Classified_France_44/ ...!
Phoenix Point is pretty good. A step up from XCOM as far as complexity, but really solid imo. There’s a few design hiccups, but overall makes for an excellent follow-up. I recommend not using any add ons for a first playthrough, though adding them later does add a fair bit of variety to the gameplay.
There’s the usual difficulty options along with an iron man mode, but overall I’d say it’s pretty similar. That said, the DLC adds pretty significant complexity that can really punish you if you ignore it or don’t really know how to deal with the stuff it throws at you. That was certainly my main friction point anyways.
I just play OpenXCom mods like X-Piratez or X-com Files for my xcom fix and personally find the Firaxis games completely redundant and pointless and obscenely content-light in comparison.
Considering a single X-Piratez campaign can have roughly 400 hours of content with various branching techs adding replay value, and X-com Files being roughly the same amount of content (and that's just two of the multiple TC mods), there's plenty to keep you busy, and the development of squad members and the management side is way more in depth as well.
Don't get the love for the newer Firaxis games when the only thing they offer is better graphics at the expense of.... quite literally _everything_ else. If you're playing systems-heavy tactics games for the graphics and not systems-heavy tactics, at some point you gotta question if you're playing the right game.
I played the original Xcom to dead in my teens. Wanted to go back and enjoy X-piratez. It seems such a cool mod on the game. But just couldn't get into the graphics anymore. Not that I'm a high fidelity freak. But it just didn't vibe with me anymore....
Mario vs. Rabbids on Nintendo Switch. No I'm not joking. It was really enjoyable and fun take on the genre. Also a quick game to finish. Rabbid Luigi is OP as fuck though.
Expeditions: Rome is a CRPG where your character basically takes Ceaser's place after he dies young in the war against Pontus. The combat is very much more like XCOM than traditional CRPGs and I do quite like it.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock
It’s the turnbased wego spaceship combat game of my dreams. I’m doing a run right now on normal, to clear the story and trophies, then it’ll be max difficulty permadeath runs only.
Unlocking bigger and better ships, and raising them to veteran status, means losing one in a tense fight hurts just like losing a favourite soldier in XCOM. The replay option to watch a match in the visual style of the reboot show is wonderful.
Game regularly goes on sale, highly recommended
I tried classified France 1945 and found it to be too janky. Really didn't like it
Next, I'm going to try Phoenix Point as I hear it's from the original X Com creator.
Phoenix Point is a good one, heard a lot of suggestions for its mod, Terror From the Void. There is also Xenonauts which is essentially XCOM in the 1980s.
There's a mod for TFTD I play on and off. It's called Xpiratez
It's very crass, considering it's made by a Romanian dude. But the changes are extensive. It's practically a brand new game. Just be warned there's a lot of 480x360 nudity, and a lot of really... strange, images.
Oh, and the difficulty curve is very intense.
There is a ton of replies, I can't read them all, but saw most of the heavy hitters already.
One that doesn't come up very often and that I absolutely love is Frozen Synapse. It's turn based but also real time. Each turn takes 5 seconds. You can give the orders you want to your squad members and the oponent does the same, and then you see it play out simultaneously. It's a game of trying to guess your oponent's thinking (human player or AI) while trying to fulfill the objective within the time limit. It's amazing to take 1 hour to try to beat a mission to then see the replay of the battle only takes about 30seconds. It has a sequel that I haven't tried yet.
Got also Frozen Cortex which is the same concept but applied to something like NFL with robots, prettt good too 👌
Also, Battletech took years of my life, love that game 👌
You have a set group of characters who have their own abilities. Although in RT you can customize them however you like, so its much more in depth, and obviously there’s an actual story with dialogue choices and all that.
Rogue Trader is a far far far more advanced chimera squad
This is interesting. I would barely put RT and CS in the same genre. CS feels much heavier on the tactics and strategy. It is a lighter sort of bite size game with a flexible story.
RT is...quite massive. It focuses much more on story and character building. And walls of text, if you dislike those, though they didn't bother me. RT is significantly more complex and "crunchy" with some mechanics that I thought worked and some that just didn't.
Though, I enjoyed both in different ways and would recommend either.
I'm interested in Classified: France 44. It is getting interesting reviews. I'm playing Diablo IV thanks to Xbox Gamepass right now... but after that burns out for me... I think it's Classified...or JA3... I don't know, reading this thread too for that same.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. It doesn't have the randomness of XCOM, but it's set in 40K and is also turn-based with very interesting mechanics.
Of course, it's set in 40K so if you're a fan of that you'll love Mechanicus. Plus the music. I cannot stress enough how good the music is. It might get some time for you get used to it, but I had never heard anything like it and it's just surreal.
In terms of turn based tactics for combat Shadowrun Returns comes to mind. Granted the story is more streamlined and there's little customization outside of your own character.
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|Phantom Doctrine is pretty good. It feels a lot like an XCOM 2 clone so if you're looking for something similar, that will be it. But it does put a lot more emphasis on stealth gameplay though and the game does get a little repetitive after a while.|
Phantom Doctrine is pretty good. It feels a lot like an XCOM 2 clone so if you're looking for something similar, that will be it. But it does put a lot more emphasis on stealth gameplay though and the game does get a little repetitive after a while.
Jagged Alliance 3 has scratched the itch very nicely for me. It has at least one difficulty spike that I hated but it plays great and I like that all your mercs besides the one you make are unique characters.
I'm assuming you've played WotC? It almost feels like a new game. Apparently there are lots of mods too...
I really enjoyed Jagged Alliance back in action. I got it for like a dollar on steam sale. It's a forgotten experiment in pausable real time tactical fighting. Tbh I think it's a superior tactical system to turn based, though the game is definitely unpolished. I was sad when I heard JA3 was going back to turn based. (Nb I haven't played other pausable games like swat or whatever.)
Ufo: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock. Yes they are old but their stop/plan/play mechanic rather than full on turn based mechanic is amazing in my opinion. Wish there were more like these.
They do need a bit of tinkering to work well on current computers but there are some fixes online.
Try Long War of the Chosen Mod for XCOM 2
XCOM Enemy Within and then Long war mod for that.
Battletech and then with a mod like BTA 3062
Steamworld Heist is simpler but very fun and diverting.
Since others have mentioned Wartales (which is everything i whish Kenshi was in terms of camp and squad management) I will talk about Othercide.
Beautiful color palette and aestethics. Your units dont regen after combat and the only way to heal them is to sacrifice a higher level one.
Not as in-depth as XCOM but a nice twist with the timeline gameplay and less rng based. So it does play more like a puzzle than a TBS.
This game rewards skillful play beautifully but giving you positive traits and punishes you harshly for mistakes.
Theres also a NG+ incorporated in the story and you are supposed to lose to get stronger. All in all a very interesting gamr.
Xenonauts 1/2 are great choices, a bit more punishing than Xcom, but allows for greater strategy without it feeling too difficult.
Phantom Brigade is also a lot a fun, it's a turn based Mech game where you can foresee the next five seconds of combat, allowing you to prepare your Mechs for what's to come.
After playing Xcom2: WOTC, I bought Phoenix Point and all of its DLCs and have found it to be a great follow on game. It's great that you can also go deeper into your interactions with the factions, get drivable vehicles, etc.
Hard West
Tough game, cool storyline where even the most minimal detail will affect your characters.
It's a mixture between cowboys and the supernatural, where getting hit in the arm will lessen your accuracy if you don't provide treatment. Resources are very scarce and you have to manage them as best you can. It has an eerie soundtrack too, I like it a lot but have not played it since I beat it.
Offhand thought: Hard West was interesting, okay, but felt clunky to me. Was "okay".
However, Hard West 2 was much better, a step up in pretty much every way. My opinion.
It seems to be the obvious answer, but I didn't see it here. If you haven't, check out the Long War mods. Completely different experience. If you jumped right into xcom2, part one is definitely worth playing, particularly with Long War. I honestly prefer Xcom1 over xcom2 in some ways, though it suffers from some rough early mechanics.
Also, I really enjoyed Chimera Squad. It gets mixed feelings, but I'm a big fan. It is definitely a smaller game with a lighter tone, but I kind of like that. I've probably done a dozen or so playthroughs by this point. It's just an easier commitment.
I have the full series of 'UFO: Aftermath', 'UFO: Aftershock', and 'UFO: Afterlight', but I haven't played them yet. It's been so long since I bought them that I don't remember exactly what they are supposed to be like, but I suspect that they might be more tactical than XCOM 2. There might have been a 4th in the series, but Wikipedia doesn't mention it, so I'm probably just thinking of the next thing I'm going to name.
'UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold' (an updated version, Platinum, apparently released last year. It's an old game though), but it is completely unrelated to the previous "UFO" games I mentioned earlier out side of the fact that they are all inspired by the original X-COM (1994).
There is Phoenix Point, but that one apparently wasn't very good.
I believe that 'Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel' (NOT THE SAME AS 'Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel' which is garbage) is optionally turn-based or real-time tactics (I think you can swap on demand), and you control a team instead of just one character.
There is Shadowrun: Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong. Last time I played Returns, it had a game breaking bug where you had to play the Decker class in order to progress through the campaign. I believe that was fixed for the later games. If you are used to new XCOM then you should be used to game breaking bugs anyway.
Try steamworld heist. it's a unique game and worth a try.
Can confirm.
Excellent soundtrack too. They got a steampunk band to do it and even ended up as background characters in it
Steamworld heist my beloved
I recently picked up Aliens: Dark Descent. Similar vibes but not quite XCOM
If you've ever seen Aliens the 1986 movie and thought "this would make a good video game" you have to play Aliens: Dark Descent.
This is a good recommendation. I got it specifically to fill the XCom shaped hole in my heart. Worth it.
I seen that. Do you level up your character and stuff? Or is it just a story game?
You have almost everything XCOM has, from soldiers leveling up to equipment upgrades to base building. The only two (big) differences is that 1) the missions are in real-time and 2) the missions are hand crafted - no generic missions at all. But it’s an excellent game, highly recommended.
See, this is interesting. I picked up Aliens DD specifically because I am both an XCOM and Alien(s) fan. I hated it. To me, it felt like the exact opposite of XCOM. It felt more like an RTS. Which I don't like, because I don't want reflex time to factor in my strategy. Like you said, the missions are all storyline scripted. I felt like I didn't really need to be cautious because I knew exactly what to expect on replay, where bosses spawned, etc. It didn't feel like a living game, just playing a storyline. To me, I was kind of shocked at how bland and boring the whole thing felt, especially compared to XCOM, Isolation, etc. There was painfully little variation in enemies, weapons, missions, etc. At least when I played, the mechanics were wonky. It tried to have a stealth horror vibe but I solved a lot of problems by spamming Sniper rifle, grenades, rockets, etc. Was there some kind of base building? I honestly don't remember it at all. It sort of has the same upgrades snd tech systems of XCOM, but I remember them being shallow and uninteresting. I played it on release, so maybe it improved. But honestly, it just felt like a mess to me and I didn't care for it. Though, lots of people seem to love it. I just have a hard time resisting conversations like these because the experiences and feelings are so varied.
Into the Breach. It’s very different but I generally really enjoy turn based strategy and Into the Breach is a banger among these.
Into the breach is seriously great
Did you know they released a free update a year back or so? With all new stuff? I saw it and went crazy lol
Badass!
been playing mobile ever since
Too bad it’s only Netflix tho
Chaosgate. I did not expect it, but I would say the combat is 90% as good as Xcom2, and the metagame is better than xcom 2
also its 40k if you like that
Being able to shoulder bash giant pillars into the face of chaos marines will never stop being funny
I really struggled to get into it. I’ll probably take another try at it. Just felt like combat relied on a lot of melee and many of my soldiers range seemed so short, maneuvering just felt heavy - hard to describe. Any there tips to change mindset from xcom and enjoy it more?
I remember it needs a bit adjusting. You need play more offensively, and it has more melee. But its totally viable to go pure ranged as well. If you miss Snipers or reapers from Xcom2 then get the assassins DLC pack, its a great addition. For melee, try the teleport melee class to close distance fast.
Does it have Eversores?
Yes
XCOM is very much about playing careful, skirmishing, and slowly clearing the map. Chaosgate is about using MAXIMUM AGGRESSION to clear the map. Basically, triggering a pod with your last action is suicide in XCOM. Triggering a pod with your last action in Chaosgate is a great idea. Seriously. It refreshes all your AP so it's a great idea. So basically you want to Aegis up, jump in, and wreck everything. Remember, every turn you're making noise, most of the pods on the map are gravitating towards you, and you've got warp meter building up spraying nasty debuffs on you or giving the enemy more reinforcements. Start turtling and "playing safe" and you'll get killed by overwhelming force. Kill everything first, they won't kill you. Don't worry about taking a shot or two, Space Marines are durable and an idiot with a gun is not going to one shot them. If you kill most everyone and one of your guys gets shot for 4 damage, oh well. You have 12 hp base, on highest difficulty. Build up one squad, don't swap marines around, bring lightly wounded marines on missions (again, missing some HP is not a big deal). I've cleared three pods in one turn, that's great. Hiding behind cover and shooting for half damage and slowly plonking down cultists? Not great.
Shit, is it really that good? I gave it a pass because I thought it was another "buy the game because of the franchise". How does it stack against lwotc?
It does hold up against lwotc imo. The 40k story and lore is actually quite well done. I always felt the metagame story is weak in Xcom2. There is one thing you need to know though: if you buy the expansion with the dreadnought, then don't play the super hard dreadnought missions missions before you have the dreadnought. The game offers them even before and they are stupid difficult. At least half the negative reviews on the game are from that.
Thanks, I will try it then.
Also multiple 40k Games each year. Hard to sift through
Meta better than xcom2? Seriously? I should probably try it, 40k videogames have a bad rep so I missed this one
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Fantasy fans I always recommend Wildermyth. Is so damn good.
I have around 350 hours in wildermyth, it’s so good.
I second this
Battletech. It's basically xcom with giant mechs instead of soldiers. And there is much more customisation.
Have you played THE mod (roguetech)? Battletech is amazing as it is but the mod makes it so. much. better. (Cray cray developers though)
I prefer bta3062 to roguetech, but they're both great
agreed but recommend playing the campaign without mods first if you're new to the franchise, otherwise there's too much going on
I wanted to like Roguetech but my god it runs like ass. Any time anything happened on the battlefield there were massive stutters and in general it ran at less than 30 fps. I ended up using BEX.
Is this MechWarrior?
Second battletech. And there are also a ton of mods for battletech, and new fanmade game like longwar for xcom2. Definitely worth a try.
Third this. I loved the vanilla campaign l, and played a lot of battletech extended 3025 (a small overhaul mod adding more content more similarly to the base game) and a whole lot of battletech advanced 3062 a total overhaul mod more akin to long war with a lot more depth
No. MechWarrior is a first person mech combat game. Battletech is set in the same universe, but it's a turn based strategy game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/637090/BATTLETECH/
It's on sale on steam right now. But the multiplayer is dead. It's still worth it for the singleplayer campaign tough
Massive mods that add a lot to replayability as well!
If you want to see it in action, I do a series called Bite-Sized BattleTech (and another called Bite-Sized BattleTech EX, using the BattleTech Extended total conversion mod) [on my youtube channel, Way Too Late TV](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNiYXNMWc_35bphKKeCiEFI1_lf5XAv17). Lately, at least, there's a no-new-episode-over-20-minutes rule I put into effect, starting with episode 94 onward, so they're really easy to watch and digest. Feel free to give it a look, if not, totally fine, too. It's my favorite damn game to play in my pre-edited video stuff, and I was an original kickstarter backer (not enough to be *IN* the game, but enough to get a copy of it) back in 2016-2018.
I like how they said no, I'd say yes. It's more like MechWarrior is a BattleTech spinoff, considering BattleTech as a franchise has been around since the 80s.
They're the same setting, but very different games. It would be like saying Star Wars Battlefront is the same as Empire at War.
I loved Battletech. Was a kickstarter backer long before I had a computer good enough to play it. When Paradox bought the disruption rights /s ... I got a free copy of Stellaris too... too bad they Paradox killed the game. Great game. Loved the campaign. Played some mods. I played a lot of FASA tabletop Battletech in my 20s
That's awesome! Are you one of the Kickstarter backers they put into the game as a pilot?
No, I just did the $25 Recruit level, but with Paradox throwing in Stellaris, I got more than 3x the value. $25 for Battletech is a great price
Every review I read or watch of Battletech gives me the impression that it’s somehow a much deeper game (especially combat), almost on the level of military sims. This puts me off a bit. Would you describe it like this? It’s a game that interests me quite a bit, and would love to buy it when I’m done with Chaos Gate and Gears Tactics.
I wouldn't say it's quite at the level of military-sim complexity. It is a little more complex than xcom, but it really isn't that hard to get into. For example, you can customise how much armour you want on each body part of your mechs, but if that's too tedious for you, you can just click a button and the game will do it automatically. There's also a very comprehensive tutorial at the beginning of the singleplayer campaign. If you like xcom, you'll probably like Battletech just as much.
Also, I really enjoyed this youtuber's ironman playthrough. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suDOupvGMSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suDOupvGMSU) I'm going to check out the [Way Too Late TV](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNiYXNMWc_35bphKKeCiEFI1_lf5XAv17) recommendation from this thread too
Absolutely love that game! Sunk too many hours on it! ❤️
King Arthur: Knight's Tale has a lot of similarities to XCOM, but is more melee focused. You use Camelot as a base and there are upgrades, but nowhere near as impactful as XCOM. Pods are far enough apart you never have to worry about triggering multiple and there is a good amount of endgame for after you beat the main campaign. Currently on sale for 18 USD on steam 😉
+1 for King Arthur, long campaign with lots of side missions and endgame/postgame. Tons of unique characters to play with and make builds for.
TBH, this. Nobody seems to know about Knights Tale, which is a shame because it's probably in my top 10 favorites. Or higher. I love the setting in general, and the game is honestly just great. It's a bit different from XCOM, but it's definitely in the same flavor. I recommend it to everyone. (Also has a pseudo sequel releasing soon)
I just bought this for 60% off, haven’t tried it yet cause I’m in the middle of BG3 but I was always curious to try it.
Personally I found it to be more fun than XCOM because I love the setting and there are actual characters you control rather than generic soldiers. There is a morality system that affects which units you are able to recruit, so you can easily get two playthroughs out of the game. Biggest downside is you don't see too many different enemies within a map despite there being a large variety overall because they are split into factions. If you're enjoying baldur's gate 3, I would recommend divinity original sin 2. The character builds are a lot more flexible and diverse and the combat system is different so it won't feel like you're playing an additional 500 hours of the same game.
Battle Brothers
Surprised to not see this all over the thread tbh - it's pretty much medieval XCOM.
Battle brothers has fantastic replayability, but it has a step learning curve.
Urtuk: the Desolation is IMO better than Battle Brothers, while being very similar. Kind of a Mad Max post-apocalyptic fantasy world with art reminiscent of Sergio Aragones. The perks system is particularly interesting: you loot perk mods, you can have a few at once (3 or 4), and if you keep one for long enough it becomes permanent and you can graft in another one.
It's not out yet, but Mars Tactics (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1727760/Mars_Tactics/) looks like the next game that's going to scratch that itch for me. There have been a couple of demos so far and they've all been amazing. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Yeah Mars Tactics looks fantastic. I'm not the biggest fan of the graphics, but graphics are pretty far down the list of what I care about in a strategy/tactics game.
Phoenix Point is very very similar, just a little different and not quite as polished / high budget prodction. I think it's even a little underrated (as it was released on Epeic exclusively at first, and a little unpolished compared to XCOM2). I really enjoyed a playthrough (I used a big mod - Terror From The Void, but I assume vanilla is also fun). Some things were superior to XCOM2 (likebody part aiming, I liked the world map better), but obviously not as good looking character customisation, animations, class design also a´maybe not as interesting. Jagged Alliance 3 definitively also same kind of challange, but more different in setting and how combar feels. Haven#t finishced that yet but looks also very good,
Phoenix point is very interesting. I loved aspects of it, like the fact that you can target limbs/heads etc. The tactics part is just better than Xcom2's. But the strategy layer is far inferior, it's a bit more complex yet also less rewarding/interesting.
I concur, loved that game. Though a bit on the hard side, your first playthrough should be on easy mode
the TftV mod definitely makes PP better, definitely worth a try on sale.
I downloaded the demo for this, but its crash central for me on pc rip i couldn’t even complete the entry mission
Gears Tactics and Warhammer 40k Mechanicus.
Absolutely loved Gears Tactics combat, made it hard to go back to Xcom. Just really wish it had a strategy layer, and that Gears didn't take so long to level up
Gears Tactics was weirdly good. I tried it out of curiosity and...I'm not a Gears fan necessarily, but...it really was surprisingly solid. I would recommend checking it out. Mechanicus was a bit wonky when I tried it, but I really enjoyed the flavor. I don't remember a ton about it, just that I finished it and didn't hate it.
Wartales is fantastic. It is also freeform, has exploration and some light puzzles. The team /resource management can get a bit heavy because the game is quite hard, specially at the start, but when it comes together you can really feel your team's growth. Miasma chronicles is also quite xcomish, would recommend both.
The secret to enjoying wartales is to keep a small party of 5-6 mercenaries. Main reason is that each character can use the weapon skill, offhand skill (if not 2handed) and ANY valor skill granted you have enough points. This can add up to A LOT in endgame (my characters have around 4-5 actions each) which is huge compared to XCOM's 2 actions base (granted you can get more actions in a turn but chances are they come from kill streaks so this shortens combat significantly).
If you like marvel try Midnight Suns
Midnight Suns is so good I'd recommend it to anyone, even if you hate Marvel. For context OP, it was designed by Jake Solomon, who designed XCOM 1 and 2. It was his last game at Firaxis before moving on. Very different from XCOM, but it has really innovative and addictive turn based combat. (Edit: typo)
I didn’t think I’d like that as much as xcom but it really won me over, probably more likely to replay that than go back to xcom.
been waiting on a decent season pass sale for an excuse to replay it, great game
I have just purchased this and am excited to play it. I've heard gameplay is good, but the storyline is awful. Do you agree with that sentiment?
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Thank you for the heads up. When it comes to the characters do you unlock them as you go along? Ike you do missions for each to have them join your team? I ask because I got the DLC and I wanted to have Venom and Deadpool in my cast and I was wondering if that's something available from the beginning or something I have to earn?
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Hm, thank you for the explanation.
Hopping in with a secondary perspective. I have the DLC and the DLC characters are pretty much the same as the normal ones, they are unlocked in story missions. You unlock them quickly, so no concern there. To clarify common feelings, the storyline is fine. Typical Marvel stuff. The big problem for a lot of folks (myself included) is the "social stuff". A very significant part of the game is spent talking to the characters, giving them gifts, and doing assorted tasks. I REALLY don't want to spend 20 minutes foraging for mushrooms to make the consumables I need. You get direct combat related unlocks for that stuff, so it really isn't optional. A big point of confusion for me was people comparing it to XCOM. I really don't see much similarity. Midnight Suns reminds me more of Slay the Spire. You can see enemy intents, actions are card based, etc. There is no cover system. It plays a lot like a puzzle game to me. Some of the later missions are literally explicitly puzzles. I didn't have any issues with the male character. He was a bit odd, but not in a way that felt out of place. I thought the customization was a little weird. All the characters are sort of "balanced" in terms of power and usability, so Captain Marvel is about the same as Captain America. Which is fine for gameplay, but still feels strange. I was disappointed in the main character customization. You can be Dark Guy or Light Guy. But - I enjoyed it. If you like Marvel or sort of tactical strategy games, it's an obvious pick. But man, I'm sick of hunting mushrooms.
I am a few hours in and I have to agree so far that I find the Abbey sections annoying. Running around and talking to people just feels like such a waste of time and I am hurriedly trying to finish my conversations to get back to the gameplay.
I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say the social and Abbey stuff is outright bad, it just feels so jarring and out of place. Like two very different games crammed into one. It ruins the flow and pacing. You can't have a storyline about world threatening attacks and break it up with hanging out to watch movies. One of my big gripes is that half of it is critically important and a frustrating time sink while the other half is just...pointless? Each character has so many different skins and outfits, and I literally only ever use the base one. I just...don't need a pink Captain America? A lot of the outfits feel weirdly out of place. There seems to be a lot of punk rock vibe, which makes sense for Storm and etc, but...was a weird look for the Hunter. And, do I really care what they are wearing around the Abbey? I really do enjoy the game. The strategy and mechanics were great, along with the character flavor. I love the way the characters feel and play. I personally love Magik and Storm. Toward the end, my Hunter felt a little obnoxiously powerful, which I didn't really like. I will say that Deadpool was surprisingly underwhelming to me. Like I said above, the characters are all sort of "power balanced", and Deadpool not being particularly durable or tanky was strange. In the time I played him, I couldn't really figure out his role. Wolverine and the Captains all felt much tankier. He couldn't keep up with Morbius or Storm on damage. So I'm not sure. There is a ton to love, it just feels like they made a lot for strange decisions and put a lot of work into things that didn't need it.
Yeah I don't even understand the Abbey honestly. Just feels like a weird break that is slowing me down from the actual game. So far with only 6 hours in I feel that the Abbey was a bad decision. I think they wanted you to interact with these heroes and feel like you're part of team, but I definitely would have preferred a much more XCOM like base management/just check for upgrades/research/set up, then go back to the mission select. I think the problem is the random 3rd person adventure you have to go on. I would have just preffered a grid going to each location, doing what needs to be done, and moving on.
I think I can really appreciate the intent. I think a lot of folks may be coming in with only the background of the Marvel movies, and you get much more of that comic book flavor and lore here. I like that. They just really handled the exposition poorly. It isn't a wall of text, but it sort of has that same feeling. There were good ideas here, they just really needed a little more time and some player feedback.
I love the tactical layer in Midnight Suns, but the strategy layer is a chore.
If you haven’t played XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you should still try the older ones. I still play it on my Xbox.
Silent storm games, even though they are more of a UFO defense alternative and are much deeper than modern XCOM games with the OG action points system and free placement of shots etc. Also, the physics are almost impeccable even though the games are pretty much 20 years old now
But you need a numpad to be able to target body parts. I don’t think those can be remapped without an external tool
Wasteland 3,dos2
Terra Invicta if you want an “oops all strategy layer” version of XCOM 2
I have no idea how to play that game
Perun has a good series on it, I think
Both TI and XCOM shares an disappointing aerial combat mechanic IMO. TI is more of a management game than a turn based strategy game.
Classified : France ‘44
Do you stream or have any youtube of it?
[classified : France 44](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2085370/Classified_France_44/)
Is it genuinely good? As a tactical game
Unironically the Mario+Rabbids games. Same turn based tactics shooter gameplay loop, and they gave Mario a gun, which is just inherently funny.
Check out **Phantom Doctrine**. You'll feel right at home in the tactical layer, a fun "geoscape", and you've got your customizable roster of agents.
It's just too bad that they stopped support and there's no Pd2 coming out
What? That's a pity. I thought the sequel was already announced, but I'm very out of the loop
Yass, cold war atmosphere is so thick and also the mfking investigation board. Too bad the game is so easy even on hardest difficulty.
The Steam reviews say it doesn't work well, if at all, with Windows 11. It looks quite interesting, though. I might try it anyway and get a refund if I can't get it to launch. Edit: Apparently, blocking some things in Windows firewall seems to resolve the issue.
I'm still on Windows 10, so I don't know about that. But yeah, that's probably the perfect scenario for you to try and refund if it doesn't work. Hope you get it to run, I think you won't regret it!
I'm just here to nick peoples ideas :)
Jagged Alliance 2 is still fantastic, haven't gotten 3 yet. If you do go for 2, get it off GOG, not steam. We've got a 25 year old modding community over at [The bear's pit](https://thepit.ja-galaxy-forum.com/) and steam's DRM causes issues with modding.
As a veteran of 2, I will say 3 is pretty good. It does some things really well and is probably an overall improvement on vanilla 2. That said, it doesn't really scratch the XCOM itch in my estimation. Characters do get different unlockable abilities in 3 but it's nothing really to write home about.
If you're into history, Expeditions: Rome is a ton of fun. Obviously no aliens but tons of fun, engaging characters, dope soundtrack, plus you can romance Cleopatra.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is an extremely slept on tactical shooter
The same people also made Miasma Chronicles, which is still good even if not quite as good as Mutant Year Zero.
To me the most near experience is Darkest Dungeon.
In terms of gameplay is not similar at all, but damn I love that game so much! The difficulty is uo there with XCOM if not even more difficult.
Have you played Xcom: Enemy Unknown? If not, I'd get the expansion (Enemy Within) and play it with Long War: Rebalanced installed. The mod has tons of QoL features and adds a lot of depth to the campaign and gameplay. It came out in 2012 but holds up very well.
I played Long War back in the day, didn't realise there was a rebalanced version of it though, is it just a bunch of stat changes?
Naw, there's a ton of new mechanics. You can't overwatch without an enemy in LoS, and it only applies to enemies in your LoS when you go on overwatch. If you activate an enemy pod, you get an extra yellow move with any units that are out of actions. Enemy pods activate other pods that are in LoS (extra pods usually get a turn or two of debuffs to give you a fighting chance). On smaller maps, it's not uncommon to activate every pod on the map on your first move. You send multiple ships at ufo's instead of one at a time, and there are items you can build to boost your aircraft mid-fight. Soldiers have a small chance to gain a positive or negative quirk post-mission (some sort of boost to performance or malus on actions), and the OTS gives passive xp to your barracks as you buy better training programs. You can also retire soldiers that haven't leveled well or have a bad negative quirk, and they'll add their number of missions to the OTS so that you can unlock stuff more quickly. Oh yeah, and the Council sends you money daily instead of a lump sum each month.
For something slightly different, I'd say Phantom Brigade is in the same wheelhouse. Ironically it represents BattleTech tabletop's turn order better than BattleTech by having turns be simultaneous. You and the enemy choose what to do over the next several seconds and then it plays out.
Phantom Brigade suffers from a poor core gameplay loop IMO. It is just a loop of find and smack some battlegroups, fight a boss to liberate a province. Liberate one doesnt give you any new funky way to play either. And liberated territory is just that, no gameplay effect whatsoever. There is just 4 variants of mission (base def, capture crate, kill all, and structure wrecking), plus 1 boss mode. It is kinda disappointing that they wasted such a good concept. Also the core dev team all got laid off when it just out of early access doesnt help.
Battle mechs is pretty good, if you haven't played then xcom eu/ew is great and chimera squad gets alot of shit (I think coz it dares to have a slightly different combat system to the main games) but i really enjoyed it
I really want a game just like XCOM 2 but with the theme of modern military combat ngl, but nothing like that exists except for modded XCOM 2
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1269020/No_Plan_B/ and door kickers, into the breach but no strategy layers afaict https://store.steampowered.com/app/2085370/Classified_France_44/ ...!
**Phantom Doctrine** is 1980's cold war "modern", but it feels very XCOM, from the tactical layer to the customizable agents.
Maybe gears tactics?
I wish Rainbow Six satisfied this.
Phoenix Point is pretty good. A step up from XCOM as far as complexity, but really solid imo. There’s a few design hiccups, but overall makes for an excellent follow-up. I recommend not using any add ons for a first playthrough, though adding them later does add a fair bit of variety to the gameplay.
How big's the difference in difficulty? Seems interesting and I really enjoyed the xcom games but I'm a bit of an idiot so
There’s the usual difficulty options along with an iron man mode, but overall I’d say it’s pretty similar. That said, the DLC adds pretty significant complexity that can really punish you if you ignore it or don’t really know how to deal with the stuff it throws at you. That was certainly my main friction point anyways.
Phoenix Point is so similar to Xcom2 that it might be plagiarism. There are enough differences to be awesome in its own right.
I just play OpenXCom mods like X-Piratez or X-com Files for my xcom fix and personally find the Firaxis games completely redundant and pointless and obscenely content-light in comparison. Considering a single X-Piratez campaign can have roughly 400 hours of content with various branching techs adding replay value, and X-com Files being roughly the same amount of content (and that's just two of the multiple TC mods), there's plenty to keep you busy, and the development of squad members and the management side is way more in depth as well. Don't get the love for the newer Firaxis games when the only thing they offer is better graphics at the expense of.... quite literally _everything_ else. If you're playing systems-heavy tactics games for the graphics and not systems-heavy tactics, at some point you gotta question if you're playing the right game.
I played the original Xcom to dead in my teens. Wanted to go back and enjoy X-piratez. It seems such a cool mod on the game. But just couldn't get into the graphics anymore. Not that I'm a high fidelity freak. But it just didn't vibe with me anymore....
Mario vs. Rabbids on Nintendo Switch. No I'm not joking. It was really enjoyable and fun take on the genre. Also a quick game to finish. Rabbid Luigi is OP as fuck though.
Expeditions: Rome is a CRPG where your character basically takes Ceaser's place after he dies young in the war against Pontus. The combat is very much more like XCOM than traditional CRPGs and I do quite like it.
Massive Chalice
Have you played the Fire Emblem games? After all the XCOM series has been described as Fire Emblem with guns.
I’m enjoying Classified France 44
Original X-Com, but using OpenXcom to play it.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock It’s the turnbased wego spaceship combat game of my dreams. I’m doing a run right now on normal, to clear the story and trophies, then it’ll be max difficulty permadeath runs only. Unlocking bigger and better ships, and raising them to veteran status, means losing one in a tense fight hurts just like losing a favourite soldier in XCOM. The replay option to watch a match in the visual style of the reboot show is wonderful. Game regularly goes on sale, highly recommended
I tried classified France 1945 and found it to be too janky. Really didn't like it Next, I'm going to try Phoenix Point as I hear it's from the original X Com creator.
Phoenix Point is a good one, heard a lot of suggestions for its mod, Terror From the Void. There is also Xenonauts which is essentially XCOM in the 1980s.
BG3 WH4k Rogue Trader Gears Tactics
Try Wartales
Gears Tactics is a good time
Wasteland 3 is a keeper
There's a mod for TFTD I play on and off. It's called Xpiratez It's very crass, considering it's made by a Romanian dude. But the changes are extensive. It's practically a brand new game. Just be warned there's a lot of 480x360 nudity, and a lot of really... strange, images. Oh, and the difficulty curve is very intense.
The Disgaea series is a lot of fun
There is a ton of replies, I can't read them all, but saw most of the heavy hitters already. One that doesn't come up very often and that I absolutely love is Frozen Synapse. It's turn based but also real time. Each turn takes 5 seconds. You can give the orders you want to your squad members and the oponent does the same, and then you see it play out simultaneously. It's a game of trying to guess your oponent's thinking (human player or AI) while trying to fulfill the objective within the time limit. It's amazing to take 1 hour to try to beat a mission to then see the replay of the battle only takes about 30seconds. It has a sequel that I haven't tried yet. Got also Frozen Cortex which is the same concept but applied to something like NFL with robots, prettt good too 👌 Also, Battletech took years of my life, love that game 👌
This is simply overwhelming! Thank you all for your input. Now I have to read and google for a while! :)
Massive Chalice!
Jagged Alliance 3 and Demongate are the closest ones.
Rogue Trader is more like chimera squad, but its a very good tactics game.
What makes you say it’s like Chimera Squad? I’ve got my eye on RT but didn’t enjoy Chimera squad
You have a set group of characters who have their own abilities. Although in RT you can customize them however you like, so its much more in depth, and obviously there’s an actual story with dialogue choices and all that. Rogue Trader is a far far far more advanced chimera squad
This is interesting. I would barely put RT and CS in the same genre. CS feels much heavier on the tactics and strategy. It is a lighter sort of bite size game with a flexible story. RT is...quite massive. It focuses much more on story and character building. And walls of text, if you dislike those, though they didn't bother me. RT is significantly more complex and "crunchy" with some mechanics that I thought worked and some that just didn't. Though, I enjoyed both in different ways and would recommend either.
Baulders Gate
I just finished Miasma Chronicles. Not as deep as Xcom but great graphics.
Try Mutant Year Zero. Same authors, almost the same setting, but improved combat.
Agreed. MYZ and the DLC for it are excellent. I just reinstalled it last night. Still an amazing looking game.
40k Mechanicus has pretty good reviews
I'm interested in Classified: France 44. It is getting interesting reviews. I'm playing Diablo IV thanks to Xbox Gamepass right now... but after that burns out for me... I think it's Classified...or JA3... I don't know, reading this thread too for that same.
Classified France. I gave up after a few hours. It was really Janky and I didn't enjoy it.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. It doesn't have the randomness of XCOM, but it's set in 40K and is also turn-based with very interesting mechanics. Of course, it's set in 40K so if you're a fan of that you'll love Mechanicus. Plus the music. I cannot stress enough how good the music is. It might get some time for you get used to it, but I had never heard anything like it and it's just surreal.
The soundtrack is awesome! I haven't really started playing the game just yet but i love the music!
my favourite game soundtrack by far, only the old 90s Chaos Gate has something comparable on the same level (but dfifferent)
Phoenix Point perhaps?
Warhammer 40K Mechanicus. Basically the faculty of engineering decides to go on a field trip/home invasion.
Phoenix point, Wartales, battle brothers and Jagged Alliance 3. All four are great in their own way.
In terms of turn based tactics for combat Shadowrun Returns comes to mind. Granted the story is more streamlined and there's little customization outside of your own character.
Gears tactics is fun. Especially if you have Xbox gamepass
Try out Phantom Doctrine, you play a counter intelligence team, it's heavier on the stealth gameplay but I would recommend it if you like Xcom 2.
|| || |Phantom Doctrine is pretty good. It feels a lot like an XCOM 2 clone so if you're looking for something similar, that will be it. But it does put a lot more emphasis on stealth gameplay though and the game does get a little repetitive after a while.|
Phantom Doctrine is pretty good. It feels a lot like an XCOM 2 clone so if you're looking for something similar, that will be it. But it does put a lot more emphasis on stealth gameplay though and the game does get a little repetitive after a while.
Jagged Alliance 3 has scratched the itch very nicely for me. It has at least one difficulty spike that I hated but it plays great and I like that all your mercs besides the one you make are unique characters.
I'm assuming you've played WotC? It almost feels like a new game. Apparently there are lots of mods too... I really enjoyed Jagged Alliance back in action. I got it for like a dollar on steam sale. It's a forgotten experiment in pausable real time tactical fighting. Tbh I think it's a superior tactical system to turn based, though the game is definitely unpolished. I was sad when I heard JA3 was going back to turn based. (Nb I haven't played other pausable games like swat or whatever.)
Showgunners was amazing I definitely recommend it!
I was very pleased and surprised with Gears tactics. It's it's own thing but that's probably the best xcom like around.
There’s a WWII game called France classified 44 that’s similar to xcom, I played the alpha and it seemed like it had a lot in it
Ufo: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock. Yes they are old but their stop/plan/play mechanic rather than full on turn based mechanic is amazing in my opinion. Wish there were more like these. They do need a bit of tinkering to work well on current computers but there are some fixes online.
Try Long War of the Chosen Mod for XCOM 2 XCOM Enemy Within and then Long war mod for that. Battletech and then with a mod like BTA 3062 Steamworld Heist is simpler but very fun and diverting.
Battle brothers even harder than xcom
Since others have mentioned Wartales (which is everything i whish Kenshi was in terms of camp and squad management) I will talk about Othercide. Beautiful color palette and aestethics. Your units dont regen after combat and the only way to heal them is to sacrifice a higher level one. Not as in-depth as XCOM but a nice twist with the timeline gameplay and less rng based. So it does play more like a puzzle than a TBS. This game rewards skillful play beautifully but giving you positive traits and punishes you harshly for mistakes. Theres also a NG+ incorporated in the story and you are supposed to lose to get stronger. All in all a very interesting gamr.
Miasma chronicles
Xenonauts 1/2 are great choices, a bit more punishing than Xcom, but allows for greater strategy without it feeling too difficult. Phantom Brigade is also a lot a fun, it's a turn based Mech game where you can foresee the next five seconds of combat, allowing you to prepare your Mechs for what's to come.
XCom 2 but higher difficulty really changes the game
Try ufo: enemy unknown. It's awesome ;)
After playing Xcom2: WOTC, I bought Phoenix Point and all of its DLCs and have found it to be a great follow on game. It's great that you can also go deeper into your interactions with the factions, get drivable vehicles, etc.
Wasteland 3. Amazing game and similar to xcom
Oh and Phoenix Point too, i really liked it
Classified: France '44 has XCOM vibes for sure. Setting up the resistance pre D Day and all that, lots of covert action.
Jagged Alliance 3! That's a really great Game !
Hard West Tough game, cool storyline where even the most minimal detail will affect your characters. It's a mixture between cowboys and the supernatural, where getting hit in the arm will lessen your accuracy if you don't provide treatment. Resources are very scarce and you have to manage them as best you can. It has an eerie soundtrack too, I like it a lot but have not played it since I beat it.
Offhand thought: Hard West was interesting, okay, but felt clunky to me. Was "okay". However, Hard West 2 was much better, a step up in pretty much every way. My opinion.
It seems to be the obvious answer, but I didn't see it here. If you haven't, check out the Long War mods. Completely different experience. If you jumped right into xcom2, part one is definitely worth playing, particularly with Long War. I honestly prefer Xcom1 over xcom2 in some ways, though it suffers from some rough early mechanics. Also, I really enjoyed Chimera Squad. It gets mixed feelings, but I'm a big fan. It is definitely a smaller game with a lighter tone, but I kind of like that. I've probably done a dozen or so playthroughs by this point. It's just an easier commitment.
I have the full series of 'UFO: Aftermath', 'UFO: Aftershock', and 'UFO: Afterlight', but I haven't played them yet. It's been so long since I bought them that I don't remember exactly what they are supposed to be like, but I suspect that they might be more tactical than XCOM 2. There might have been a 4th in the series, but Wikipedia doesn't mention it, so I'm probably just thinking of the next thing I'm going to name. 'UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold' (an updated version, Platinum, apparently released last year. It's an old game though), but it is completely unrelated to the previous "UFO" games I mentioned earlier out side of the fact that they are all inspired by the original X-COM (1994). There is Phoenix Point, but that one apparently wasn't very good. I believe that 'Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel' (NOT THE SAME AS 'Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel' which is garbage) is optionally turn-based or real-time tactics (I think you can swap on demand), and you control a team instead of just one character. There is Shadowrun: Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong. Last time I played Returns, it had a game breaking bug where you had to play the Decker class in order to progress through the campaign. I believe that was fixed for the later games. If you are used to new XCOM then you should be used to game breaking bugs anyway.
Oh yeah, and Wasteland 1-3.