We show off the Bolt Caster, Hunter's Axe and more from the XCOM 2: Alien Hunters DLC. Follow XCOM 2 at GameSpot.com! XCOM 2’s Alien Hunters DLC looks to give you more reasons to jump back into the fight for humanity later this month. Alien Hunters will include a new narrative-driven mission that has players facing off against new aliens called Rulers. These Rulers are more formidable versions of pre-existing.

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INTRO:

DLC packages can be a problematic thing, especially for a picky consumer. If they merely add content to a game with turning its gameplay topsy-turvy, they should be free.

On the other hand, when they do greatly alter gameplay, the matter becomes more complicated. The Alien Hunter DLC for XCOM 2 is one such example.

PREMISE:

As has been already established, the XCOM organization of the previous game has been demolished, destroyed from within by traitors. However, not everyone perished; among the survivors, there is Dr. Vahlen, the controversial scientist who conveniently drops any adherence to ethical limits when there is knowledge to be gained. (That happens to be one reason for her employment with XCOM in the first place.)

Instead of re-establishing contact with the next incarnation of XCOM, Dr. Vahlen has struck out on her own, seeking to gain more knowledge about the secrets of the aliens without the restraint from being in the employ of an organization.

Unfortunately, as is often the case with characters of the “mad scientist” trope, however refined it is by Firaxis’s writers, things went quite awry. On the other hand, cleaning up Dr. Vahlen’s mess happens to make for a good premise for this DLC.

SUBTLE START:

The content in this DLC package starts itself off with a subtle increase in the remarks of the Avenger’s main officers about Dr. Vahlen’s unknown whereabouts. Central Officer Bradford, in particular, is rather concerned about her unchecked curiosity. Meanwhile, the player’s playthrough would continue as usual.

WEAPONS CACHE:

Eventually, XCOM is alerted to a cache of peculiar weaponry. The player can recover them by having the Avenger park on its icon and spend time there, much like any other non-combat event. The player will then obtain four different types of gear: two guns, one melee weapon and one type of grenade. Each of them is one-of-a-kind, i.e. they cannot be replicated. These weapons will be described shortly.

BOLT CASTER:

The Bolt Caster is a weapon which is an alternative to the standard-issue rifle. It has an inherent accuracy bonus and has the highest damage per hit for any weapon of its tier (more on tiers and how these DLC weapons can be upgraded later). Furthermore, it has a small chance of stunning the target. (There will be more elaboration on the Stunned de-buff later.)

However, it is a single-shot weapon and despite being a primary weapon, it cannot have any upgrades installed in it.

Gameplay-wise, the Bolt Caster is better balanced than the Shadowkeeper and Hunter’s Axe. The other two weapons are practically straight upgrades over the standard-issue gear they replace.

HUNTER’S AXE:

The Hunter’s Axe is a weapon which is exclusive to the Ranger. It is actually a pair of axes, one of which can be thrown as a free action. The thrown axe is surprisingly accurate too, and it can also stun the target if it lands. However, it is wasted if it misses.

The other axe is used like the Ranger’s sword. If the axe and the sword are in the same weapon tier, the axe does more damage; the axe can also stun the target. Considering its strengths, there is little reason not to bring it into any mission.

SHADOWKEEPER:

The Shadowkeeper is a handgun, so it can only be used by the Sharpshooter. Despite its baroque looks, it is more accurate and does more damage than any handgun of the same tier.

The weapon’s main benefit is the Shadowfall ability which it grants to the Sharpshooter. This ability has the Sharpshooter firing a single shot with the handgun, but with much lower damage output. If the shot kills a target, the Sharpshooter gains Concealment. (This is rather inexplicable, of course, thus suggesting that Firaxis’s designers do not exactly have very good ideas for what this gun can do.)

FROST GRENADE:

The Frost Grenade is a grenade which encases anyone in its area of effect in immobilizing ice. The temporarily frozen victim cannot use its dodge rating and the ice will not provide any protection either. This makes the Frost Grenade an effective crowd control weapon, especially when used on Muton Berserkers.

(Despite being described together with the other Alien Hunter gear as one-of-a-kind, the Frost Grenade is replenished upon completion of the mission. Its limitation is that it can only be equipped in a single utility or grenade slot on a single soldier.)

However, they have reduced effect on certain enemies, specifically the heavily armored ones such as MECs, Andromedans, Sectopods and Gatekeepers. They are likely to break free on their turn, but will lose Action points as a consequence.

STUNNED DE-BUFF:

The stunned de-buff is introduced in this DLC, and can be inflicted by the Bolt Caster and Hunter’s Axe. The target is rendered almost helpless by this de-buff and cannot take any action, but it is not made any easier to hit.

The Stunned de-buff, together with the Frozen de-buff, will be the main means of dealing with the “Ruler”-class aliens, which will be described later.

WEAPON UPGRADES:

The Bolt Caster, Shadowkeeper and Hunter’s Axe can be upgraded after the player has unlocked the usual weapon tier advancement projects. For example, after developing magnetically-accelerated guns, the Bolt Caster can be upgraded to have its own magnetic accelerators.

This allows the three weapons to remain competitive (or overpowered, depending on how the player sees them) throughout the game. However, the cost to upgrade them is considerable; Elerium cores are often needed, for example.

ADDITIONAL MISSION:

After obtaining the weapons, the player eventually receives a garbled distress call by Dr. Vahlen. The call is tracked to a remote installation, seemingly alien-built and more importantly, rather ancient-looking. The mission comes with the search-and-clear parameters, but there are quite a number of factors which are worth noting.

“CENTRAL”:

The first and perhaps most entertaining of these factors is that Central Officer Bradford comes along for the mission, immediately taking over the role of squad leader. If the player has not significantly advanced far into the playthrough, Bradford would seem rather powerful, having high stats for someone his age. In-game, he functions as his own class; he has a mixture of abilities which are drawn from the existing classes.

Furthermore, he is also armed with his heavily modified combat rifle, which was first seen in the tutorial sequence of the game. Of particular noteworthiness is the ludicrous number of weapon upgrades which it has. (Unfortunately, his gun will not be one of the rewards for pursuing the storyline which is associated with this DLC.)

Bradford is also only ever available for the additional mission. He also happens to be a mission objective himself: he must not die, or this leads to a straight game-over. Therefore, he is as much a liability as he is an asset in the mission.

WEAK VARIANTS OF VYPERS:

The following is a major spoiler, but it also concerns gameplay, so it will be described here regardless.

The player will be facing weaker variants of Vypers in the mission – swathes of them in fact, and who would also appear at locations which the player has cleared earlier.

They have the same combat capabilities as the regular Vypers, but have only a few hitpoints each; they can be killed with one hit from just about any weapon. On the other hand, there are many of them, and if the player cannot control their numbers well, the squad is doomed to be overwhelmed, likely through having each and every member constricted.

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ALIEN RULERS:

At the finale of the mission, the player will encounter the first of the alien “rulers”: the Vyper King. It has traits which it shares with the other two “rulers”: tremendous amounts of hit points, and a more worrisome capability, which is to perform an action every time any of the player’s soldiers spend an action point.

That second trait is indeed the one which the player needs to manage. Even the dozens of hitpoints which the rulers have can be whittled down, perhaps even in the same turn, but the ruler’s ability to make a move after the player makes any can ruin the player if he/she is not careful about keeping soldiers out of the reach of the rulers.

Indeed, the first encounter with the Vyper King will be a very painful lesson. The player could also be doomed to a game-over as it can finish off Bradford quite easily if it focuses its attention on him.

Eventually, the wise player would realize that the Alien Hunter weapons are the key to managing the ruler’s hyper-activity; the main officers on the Avenger even mentions that the player should bring them along.

On the other hand, the player will have to count on some good luck anyway; the Bolt Caster’s and Hunter’s Axe’s ability to stun the target is dependent on an RNG roll. The Frost Grenade at least has certainty in what it can do, but it does not inflict any damage.

Therefore, the task of taking down a ruler is as much a matter of luck as it is skill.

Of course, if the player is willing to have a few soldiers die horribly in the process due to bad rolls, then having the entire squad focus on the ruler usually produces a favorable outcome. However, the rulers are rarely on their own.

RULERS APPEAR IN REGULAR MISSIONS:

After the demise of the Vyper King in the DLC mission, the player will begin to encounter the other two rulers in regular missions. Where they do appear, they are indeed a serious threat to the player’s forces. Furthermore, even if the player spotted them via concealed soldiers, they trigger their scrambling response anyway and will start to move towards the other XCOM soldiers. (They are not able to detect concealed soldiers, fortunately.)

This means that chancing across them is more often than not an unfortunate occurrence that will complicate the progress of the mission.

Therefore, the player would have to consider taking measures such as checking the read-outs of the Shadow Chamber against the difficulty rating. (By default, the Shadow Chamber will not show the presence of the rulers, but if they are indeed in an upcoming mission, their presence will bias the stated difficulty rating.)

SPECIAL ALIEN RULER ATTACKS:

Each of the rulers has its own repertoire of attacks, which the player would find out the hard way if he/she does not do research on them before-hand. For example, the Archon King has a habit of grabbing an XCOM soldier and rising up in the air, before slamming him/her down in the next turn for considerable damage.

The rulers can do these special attacks of theirs as their “reactions” too, further emphasizing the need to manage what the rulers can do and which moves the player should spend action points on.

RULERS FLEEING & RETURNING:

Thanks to a (rather unbelievable) narrative excuse, the rulers (including the Vyper King in the DLC mission) also have the ability to open rifts in space and time in order to escape. They will do this if they have taken too much damage.

If they manage to flee, they will return in future missions, often with underlings in tow. However, as a balancing measure, it retains most of its wounds; somehow, they are incapable of healing well.

RULER POSSES:

Being “rulers”, the rulers are often accompanied by other aliens, generally those of their kind. In particular, as long as the Vyper King lives in the finale of the DLC mission, it will always be assisted by waves of underdeveloped Vypers.

If the rulers manage to escape, they will return in the next mission in which the player encounters them, together with a group of aliens. If they escape again, they return with even more minions next time.

Utorrent hollywood movies in hindi dubbed 1080p. The rulers are still the primary threat which the player has to deal with, but the others can deal the coup de grace if the player does not manage to keep casualties to a minimum after handling the rulers.

ARMOR “SUITS”:

After a ruler has been eliminated, its corpse can be examined for scientific gain. In the case of two of the rulers, their corpses are converted into suits which humans can wear – a rather entertainingly awful fate, in this reviewer’s opinion. (The third ruler has its gear repurposed into a suit, but since its gear is actually a part of its body, it can be considered as having suffered the same.)

Anyway, these suits are actually variants of existing suits in the original package of the game. For example, the Vyper suit is a variant of the Spider Suit; it has the same grappling hook ability. However, these variants have more to offer. Returning to the example of the Vyper suit, it renders its wearer immune to poison, acid and fire – a benefit which the Spider Suit does not impart. More importantly, it grants a one-use ability to encase an enemy in ice, and in the case of the enemy being a human-sized creature, it gets yanked out of cover as well.

Of course, converting the suits costs resources; this is an understandable balancing measure. The suits can also be upgraded after the player has unlocked the requisite tech. For example, the “R.A.G.E.” suit can be injected with Elerium after XCOM has developed an understanding of current Elerium technology, thus increasing the bonuses provided by the suit.

All these designs should already give the impression that the special suits are straight upgrades over the original types of suits of which they are variants of. If these still do not give that impression, the other ability of these suits will, as will be described shortly.

SPECIES-SPECIFIC PANICK AURA:

Each of the suits has an amusing effect on enemies of the same species as the ruler which was made into the suit. To elaborate, any enemy of the same species which can draw a line of sight to the suit will be forced to take a morale roll; if they fail the roll, they panic. Panicking enemies become less predictable, but also generally far less of a threat.

In the original package of the game, the player could see aliens panicking, but usually as a result of the use of psychic powers. That meant that the player’s Psi-Ops will have to use mind-altering psionic powers instead of doing something else with their action points.

These suits can trigger panic in enemies without the player having to do much of anything. This is an incredible advantage that can imbalance the gameplay.

For example, in the original package of the game, Muton Berserkers are a looming imminent threat that the player will have to deal with, lest they come near enough to wreck the player’s soldiers. With the R.A.G.E. suit sending them into a panic, the threat that they pose are averted. Their state of panic is temporary of course, but the player has effectively divided the strength of the enemy by simply having the Berserkers look at the human who is wearing the suit.

VISUAL DESIGNS:

Like the original game package, the DLC has a dollop of visual assets, most of which looks like they are unique to the DLC. For example, there is the animation for the deployment of the launching mechanism for the Bolt Caster and the throwing animation for the Hunter’s Axe. Some animations are recycled from existing assets, such as the grappling hook animation of the Vyper suit, which is recycled from that of the Spider suit.

Perhaps the most impressive visual assets are those for the alien rulers. They do resemble members of their species, but there are obvious differences such as the variety of chemical reservoirs which are affixed to the body of the Berserker Queen; regular Muton Berserkers do not appear to have these.

It should be apparent that Firaxis’s designers are rather enthusiastic about the visual assets for the DLC. If there is any doubt left, then there is the animation for the Icarus Jump ability of the Icarus suit. Watching the soldier who is wearing it take off into the air with a fist raised to the sky could be an entertaining sight.

SOUND DESIGNS:

Most of the audio assets which came with the DLC are the voice-overs for the main officers aboard the Avenger. Central Officer Bradford provides the bulk of the voice-overs, which is quite appropriate considering that only he knew Dr. Vahlen personally, and he is convincingly aghast at how careless Dr. Vahlen has become in sating her curiosity of alien sciences.

The sound designs for the alien rulers and new gear are not as impressive though. The only convincingly new audio asset for these is the sound effect for the Frozen de-buff, while the rest sounds like they have been adapted from existing assets, if not recycled.

SUMMARY:

The Alien Hunter DLC certainly has more content than the previous DLC package, Sons of Anarchy. However, the DLC introduces some gameplay balance issues. There are the potentially overwhelming challenges in the form of the alien rulers, and there are the incredibly powerful rewards for pursuing them, which reduce much of the challenge in the original package of XCOM 2.

Perhaps there can be such a thing as too much reward. Still, the journey to this sobering realization was quite the smashing fun.