XCOM 2: War of the Chosen New Soldier Features

In the War of the Chosen expansion for XCOM 2, according to an official announcement, your soldiers will be able to bond with one another. This will kick the title’s emergent gameplay up a notch and offer tangible tactical benefits in the process. Apart from that, we learn that we’ll have to take care of our soldiers’ mental well-being and provide them with adequate rest between missions when the expansion releases, and that the character progression system will also get an overhaul with the introduction of the Training Center. Here are some additional details:

HOW SOLDIERS BOND

Each soldier has a compatibility level with each other, the higher the compatibility, the more likely they are to bond while on missions together. But there are also incidents that can occur, mid-mission which can boost a soldier’s compatibility. Whether one solider rescues an unconscious squaddie from the battlefield or if more than half the squad is lost, the survivors bond. In watershed moments like these, two soldiers’ compatibility will shoot up.

When two soldiers are ready to bond, you will see them on the Avenger getting a drink together, practicing at the range as pals and more. Once two soldiers have bonded, neither soldier can bond with anyone else unless their bondmate dies…til death do us part. If a soldier’s bondmate dies, the survivor might not take it well and fly off in a berserk rage and suffer penalties. But they will recover and eventually be able to bond again.

Besides personalizing your in-game experience, there are some inherent benefits to sending bonded soldiers on a mission together

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NEEDING SOME R&R

Whether or not your soldiers are bonded, though, they will need to rest. The more missions you send a soldier on without a break will start to take a toll. Exhaustion and stress, as well as bad encounters in the field, could lower a soldier’s Will and develop negative traits. This can include a fear of certain types of enemies. For example, after a fight against Mutons that ended poorly, the soldier might panic when they see Mutons again. It could lead a soldier to constantly reload a weapon on their second action, a nervous tick, instead of listening to your orders. These negative traits can be cured by setting a soldier to heal in the infirmary.

Needing to rotate your squad makeup between missions does come with a couple benefits as well: You’ll have to make some interesting choices while selecting who deploys. The other notable perk is that your entire roster will benefit from being more evenly-powered.

NEW SOLDIER ABILITY POINTS

The Training Center – replacing the Advanced Warfare Center from the base game – is an essential facility that XCOM can build. Not only is the Training Center there to enhance soldier bonds in War of the Chosen, but this is where you’ll spend Ability Points earned in combat to buy additional skills and abilities for the regular XCOM troops.

According to Senior Producer Garth DeAngelis, the design team wanted to offer a new way of soldier leveling with War of the Chosen. “Since XCOM: Enemy Unknown, progression has been a binary choice: Which of these two skills do I want,” says Garth. “This was an opportunity to allow more meaning to squad capacity overall. Will I dump most of my Ability Points into a promising hybrid XCOM recruit through the Training Center, or save those points for a balanced approach across multiple units? The AP system is also far more comprehensive by being a direct result of smart decisions by the player.” You earn AP by pulling off maneuvers like flanking and taking shots from height. Gaining a resource from intelligent combat play gives progression an entirely new feel.

This also allows the player to execute on a non-linear approach to spec’ing out Faction Heroes, since the tree now offers more than two choices at once. You can rush for the later abilities, or go for breadth and grab a number of low-cost abilities, up front.

This also impacts the original XCOM soldier classes. Take the Specialist, for example. With Ability Points, you can select previously passed-on abilities from either the Battle Medic or Combat Hacker skill paths. Or, you can opt for a third path made up of abilities from the other XCOM soldier classes. The assortment of available abilities is random for every individual soldier. Only a few of these abilities show up for each soldier.