2020-08-01_PC_Gamer_(US_Edition

Each breach point has pros and cons.

I assign my human-alien hybrid

Cherub to the most dangerous

entrance. His massive shield should

protect him from return fire. I assign

my shotgun-wielding badass,

Godmother, to a breach point that

grants extra mobility, which should

help her get close to

the enemy. I assign my

medic to the safest

entrance, and my

psychic alien warrior,

Verge, to the last one. A

big glowing button

invites me to

‘BREACH’. Time to

take a deep breath and

see what happens.

XCOM: Chimera Squad is still

classic XCOM. You gather resources

and unlock technology on the

strategic map, and then dive into

turn-based tactical battles to secure

objectives and beat down the

resistance menace. The world has

changed, though. The Advent war is

over. Humans, aliens, and hybrids

have reached an uneasy peace. In

City 31 they live side by side, but

there are still restless groups who

want to continue the grudges of the

Advent war. As such the Chimera

Squad is a special forces unit

designed to cripple those resistance

movements and keep the peace.

SQUAD GOALS

There’s no world map here. The

game focuses purely on City 31’s nine

districts. You have to manage levels of

unrest in each district to keep the

city’s anarchy level low. If the city

anarchy bar maxes out, it’s game over.

To save the city, you need to

investigate three

resistance groups, one

at a time. You take on

missions, gather intel,

research new gear,

unmask each group’s

leader, and then take

them out in climactic

final missions. Don’t be

fooled by the smaller

scale—this is still a very lengthy,

chunky tactics game.

Missions are much shorter than

XCOM fans will be familiar with,

however. Some are just a few rooms

packed with enemies. Significant

missions are chains of three room-

clears, each of which has a ‘breach’

phase in which you position your

squad at different entrance points.

And that’s why my squad members

are all dangling off ropes outside of

an old warehouse.

The breach phase is chaotic. One

by one my four squaddies smash

through their assigned window. Then

time slows to a crawl. The camera

shifts to an over-the-shoulder

perspective as my primary breacher,

Cherub, takes aim. The camera has a

blurry fish-eye filter that makes it

impossible to gauge the layout of the

room, but I can switch focus between

enemies and choose what I want to

pick off. I tab between enemies,

noting their classes. There’s a

turret—that will deal damage to my

squad over time, but it can wait.

There are a couple of androids, easily

killed but they can self-destruct and

do significant area-of-effect damage.

Then I see a purifier. The purifier

has to die. It’s just a man with a

flamethrower, but area-of-effect

attacks are massive when you’re

fighting at room scale. The flames

can linger and make traversal a bit of

a nightmare. Also the initial spray can

set off explosive barrels, creating a

cascade of events that could end up

with my entire squad aflame and

covered in acid.

Instead of shooting, I order

Cherub to hunker down. You don’t

create your own characters in

Chimera Squad. Each of the 11

available heroes have unique abilities.

Each functions as a separate class.

You’ll recognize some archetypes

from XCOM 2 : The gunslinger, the

medic with a healing drone, the

shotgun maniac. Then there are

others like the muton Axiom, who

hits people and sometimes goes

berserk in the middle of a mission.

Your agents can’t die either. If they go

down in a mission, as long as you

stabilize them, they turn up back at

base safe and sound. There’s a chance

they can gain a wound, which

sabotages their stats until you rest

them for a few missions. The system

is far less punishing than XCOM 2.

It’s easier to experiment when the

stakes aren’t so high. You can risk

slotting in new under-levelled agents

to play with their abilities.

However this approach sacrifices

one of XCOM’s greatest features: The

ability to name your soldiers and

bond with them over the course of a

campaign. There are advantages

though. Each character is voiced. The

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

A city-scale turn-based

tactics game about

squashing

resistance outfits

EXPECT TO PAY

$20

DEVELOPER

Firaxis

PUBLISHER

2K

REVIEWED ON

Intel i5-4670K CPU,

GTX 970, 8GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER

No

LINK

xcom.com

Humans,

aliens, and

hybrids have

reached an

uneasy peace

Y

ou join me in medias res as the members of my squad hang

precariously from rappel lines at the windows of a

warehouse. All this is because a resistance group has been

conducting some troubling experiments on the premises, and

it’s now time to shut them down.

TEAM SPIRIT

Your enemies want City 31 to burn—it’s up to you to put

them down in XCOM CHIMERA SQUAD. By Tom Senior

SOLDIER ON Every agent has unique talents

VERGE

Psychic who draws

enemies into a

deadly psionic web.

TERMINAL

Masterful medic

with a helpful

healing drone.

BLUEBLOOD

Low damage, but

shoots with deadly

accuracy.

CHERUB

A tank who can take

fire on behalf of

other teammates.

REVIEW

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