XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is an expansion pack for the 2016 turn-based tactics video game XCOM 2. It was released for Windows on August 29, 2017. Versions for macOS and Linux were released on August 31, 2017.

Gameplay
XCOM 2 is a turn-based tactics video game. The War of the Chosen expansion makes changes to XCOM 2's campaign structure and adds new enemies, new hero characters, modifiers, and more behaviors for characters.

The expansion introduces a new set of enemy aliens called the Chosen, three elite alien warriors tasked by the Elders to defeat XCOM and recapture the commander: the Assassin, which uses stealth and is able to kidnap the player's soldiers directly from the battlefield, the Hunter, an alien-human hybrid that uses long range rifles, and the Warlock, who uses psionic powers and can summon additional enemies during battle. As the game progresses, the Chosen gain new exclusive abilities over time, and eventually become able to launch a direct attack on the Avenger. The Chosen continue to appear occasionally during missions even after being defeated, and can only be killed for good once their base is destroyed as well.

The game also introduces three rebel factions that antagonize each other, but grant special hero classes once their allegiance is earned; the Reapers, specialized in sniping and stealth, the Templars, who developed unique psionic abilities and the Skirmishers, former ADVENT soldiers with exclusive equipment and tactics. Each faction also provides covert ops missions in which soldiers can be deployed to obtain extra resources, delay the Avatar project, or gather info about the Chosen's strongholds, including other benefits. Other new features include a revamped strategic layer and the "Bond" system, in which pairs of soldiers develop special abilities that are accessible when both are deployed during a mission, and when bonded soldiers are killed, their partners enter temporarily in a "berserk mode", ignoring orders but with a great boost in their stats. For research, breakthroughs and inspirations are made to increase the speed that researchers work at, sometimes instantly being able to complete a project.

The expansion also adds a neutrally-aligned zombie-like enemy type called the Lost, former humans that will attack both the ADVENT and XCOM in battle, along new ADVENT units with exclusive abilities.

Release
War of the Chosen was announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017. It was released on August 29, 2017.

Tactical Legacy Pack
An add on for the game called "Tactical Legacy Pack" was released in October 9, 2018. It features a series of missions set between the events of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2, new items, new maps and the option to play the game using either the original XCOM: Enemy Unknown's soundtrack or an all-new soundtrack based on X-COM: UFO Defense, the first game of the original X-COM series.

Reception
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen received "generally favorable" reviews from professional critics according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

IGN's reviews editor Dan Stapleton praised the amount of variety War of the Chosen added to the mission objectives and campaign of XCOM 2. Although he found there to be some balance issues, he thought that both the Hero classes and the Chosen were great additions. Game Informer reviewer Ben Reeves was impressed by the amount of content included in the expansion, noting that it could almost have been a standalone game.

Accolades
Eurogamer ranked the game 46th on their list of the "Top 50 Games of 2017", while Polygon ranked it 17th on their list of the 50 best games of 2017. Readers and staff of Game Informer voted it for "Best Strategy Game". It also won the award for "Best Expansion" in PC Gamer's 2017 Game of the Year Awards; and was nominated for "Best Strategy Game" at The Game Awards 2017, and for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year" at the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. It won the award for "Game, Strategy" at the 17th Annual National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards, whereas its other nomination was for "Game Engineering".