XCOM: Chimera Squad

Lore & Background

Chimera Squad is set in City 31, a model city with humans and aliens living alongside one another. It takes place in 2040, five years after the events of XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, in which the titular organization defeated ADVENT, the alien-led puppet government that ruled Earth for 20 years following an invasion. The game puts players in control of the eponymous squad, an elite peacekeeper force pitted against unknown elements that seek to destabilize City 31. City 31's Mayor Nightingale is killed in a terrorist attack and Chimera Squad is tasked to find the culprit. During their investigation, Chimera Squad confronts three criminal factions, one at a time: The Progeny, a doomsday cult composed of individuals with psionic powers; Gray Phoenix, a street gang composed of aliens who see themselves unfit for Earth society; and Sacred Coil, a religious cult preaching salvation for those who opposed XCOM composed of former ADVENT soldiers and aliens. They eventually discover that these groups are backed by a fourth, mysterious faction, which they codename as "Atlas." Once all the three criminal groups are defeated, Atlas launch an attack on City 31's Town Hall and Chimera Squad rescues Deputy Mayor Parata while fending off the attackers. Soon after, they learn that Atlas was the mastermind behind the chaos, but the direct perpetrators of Mayor Nightingale's assassination were the Progeny. In response, Chimera Squad storms Atlas' hideout and defeat their leader, bringing down the organization. One month later, as Chimera Squad celebrates their victory, two individuals watching their headquarters from a monitor note that by the time XCOM realizes that they are in a new war with the mysterious new threat they represent, it will be too late to stop them.

In Their Own Story

The player takes control of a squad of eleven characters, both human and alien, that form Chimera Squad. Each character has unique abilities, replacing character classes from previous installments in the franchise. The game is divided between turn-based tactical combat and management of the squad's non-combat activities. These non-combat activities take place in the game's strategy layer, which allows players to modify or upgrade squad members' equipment and assign squad members to investigations. The strategy layer shows the level of unrest in each district, and failing to address that unrest leads to the city breaking out into violence. Once players initiate a combat mission, they choose which of the playable characters will participate. Each mission may have multiple separate combat segments. Missions start in a planning phase called "breach mode", which allows players to position their units at designated points, from which they will enter the combat area. Different entry points present different bonuses and challenges for players, and players can split their units across multiple entry points. Once combat starts, player-controlled units and computer-controlled enemies take turns based on their position through a mixed player-enemy turn order, a system which the game calls "interleaved turns." Some agents have abilities that enable them to modify the turn order, and once per mission the player can force one of their units to act next regardless of the turn order. Characters can be downed during combat, requiring another character to stabilize them, but if any character is not revived in time and dies, the mission fails and has to be restarted. As with previous games in the franchise, players will have the option of enabling "ironman mode", which limits them to a single save slot and imposes permadeath. A playthrough of the game's campaign is expected to take around 20 hours.

Reader's Guide

Chimera Squad's lead designer is Mark Nauta, who was a designer on XCOM 2. According to XCOM 2 lead developer Jake Solomon, the development team for Chimera Squad includes many people from the XCOM 2 team, though he himself was not part of the project. Work on Chimera Squad began after completion of the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen expansion. Firaxis, Chimera Squad's developer, called the game "neither a sequel or expansion to XCOM 2." Nauta stated that their intention was to explore different gameplay and storytelling mechanics of the XCOM games without having to re-balance the elements within XCOM 2 or War of the Chosen. Nauta said that with Chimera Squad, they felt the changes were large enough to be challenging to experienced players, but the game's smaller scale would help draw newer players into the XCOM universe. 2K Games, the game's publisher, stated that the game's price – US$20 with a 50% discount for the first week after launch – was intended to draw new players into the series. The decision to pivot to a character-centered game where each unit had unique abilities was a result of the developers experiences with the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen expansion, which had several unique enemies and recruitable soldiers. Because they opted for designing characters, rather than using randomly generated ones as typical with XCOM games, they avoided the normal permadeath rules, while also ensuring that there are still consequences from having characters bleed out in battle. The "interleaved turns" mechanic was a result of complaints from players of past games about the normal XCOM turn order, where all units on one side move followed by movement of the opposing side. Players found they could not easily implement long-term strategies in combat due to mass enemy movement, while the new interleaved turns allowed for players to maintain this strategy but react as needed to individual enemy movement. Firaxis founder Sid Meier was an early advocate for the mechanic, and developed a prototype in an engine that he had been building for around twenty years. This helped Nauta and others see how it would work and make small refinements to improve the idea for XCOM-style gameplay. The Breach system is based on the past XCOM games' Ambush system, but gave players multiple encounters per mission to set up breaches which is meant to improve the pacing of the game. There are no plans for console versions of the title, nor for any downloadable content or expansions.

Did You Know?

• Chimera Squad was released on Windows on April 24, 2020.
• The game features a mixed player-enemy turn order called 'interleaved turns', a divergence from previous XCOM games where all player units acted then all enemy units acted.
• The interleaved turns mechanic was developed by the Firaxis team, not by Sid Meier personally.
• The game's price was US$20 with a 50% discount for the first week after launch, intended to draw new players into the series.
• There are no plans for console versions of the title, nor for any downloadable content or expansions.