XCOM 2 Chryssalid Revealed

While he might be leaving games journalism for games writing, Kevin Van Ord still managed to get the scopp on XCOM 2’s version of the iconic Chryssalid alien race from Firaxis lead producer Garth DeAngelis. Apparently Chryssalids will now have even more ways to incubate XCOM members and civilians with Chryssalids, and this time coccoons will spawn three of them at a time. It sounds hilariously brutal and unbalanced, but DeAngelis reassures us by stating that the developers have also made the aliens far more brittle this time around:

GAMESPOT: So the chryssalid returns, but outside of multiplayer, there’s no chance of somehow recruiting one to join the XCOM forces, I presume?

DEANGELIS: The chryssalid is very much still one of the alien occupiers of Earth. They are against XCOM. They will never become a part of your army.

We had to have them come back. They’ve been a staple of XCOM, harkening back to the original UFO defense. A couple of decades have taken place since you lost in Enemy Unknown. A lot of the enemies have evolved. Now, the chryssalid, they’re a little bit too crazy of a species to integrate human DNA into them, but they have evolved. They’ve received some upgrades. What they did in Enemy Unknown, is they implanted XCOM with something that would then breed another chryssalid out of them, if you remember. It was a pretty terrifying sequence. Design said, “How can we make this crazier?”

Now they’ve become even more poisonous. They can’t just poison you with the Chryssalid Kiss as they did with Enemy Unknown. Every time they strike you, the tips of their claws have a poison on them. You can receive a chryssalid poison effect with any attack. If you happen to die while that chryssalid poison attack is active, then the soldier that died, or the civilian, can then enter this gestation period, and they will become a cocoon. If that cocoon does not get destroyed by XCOM within a to-be-determined amount of turns, then three chryssalids can pop out. We now have chryssalids running more rampant than in Enemy Unknown. They found a way to breed faster, to multiply more. It is very terrifying to now see chryssalids on a mission. Certainly, if there are civilians nearby too, these things can multiply like crazy.

Of course, design-wise, we had to do a few tweaks that are happening now to make sure that it’s not unfair. I think if people hear three chryssalids at the same exact hit points that we had in Enemy Unknown, it was enough trouble dealing with them what they were. They’re a little bit more brittle in XCOM 2. They can be taken down a little bit easier, but it is overwhelming just to see the sheer number of volume that can come at you if you allow them to go through this cocoon process. 

Check the link to read more on the new Chryssalid abilities and how they’ll affect the multiplayer side of the game.