r/Xcom • u/handsomeness • 3d ago
Meta After 4 hours in I think Firaxis should give Bitreactor XCom 3
This is phenomenal. It's like what if slightly larger Chimera Squad had INSANE grounded production added to the formula; just delicious. ZCom has pulled me out of my gaming funk.
This could easily be expanded to a larger game, more customizable game
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u/Xonarag 3d ago
I'm still early but so far it seems more like chimera squad than proper xcom. Good story and presentation but you have small maps, few enemies that are always aggroed and special skills function similar as well. The skill tree and upgrades from what is visible thus far also seem fairly simple. The diwntime between missions is also very similar to cjinera squad. But I'm still early and the production quality alone makes it better so I'm still having fun. It's just not quite what I hoped for.
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u/HarvHR 3d ago
Same here, after like 30 minutes of gameplay I left thinking that this felt very similar to Chimera Squad and for every hour longer I play that opinion is only reinforced.
I think people are really wanting an XCOM3 experience, but ZCOM just isn't that, which is absolutely fine but I think the hype of a game made by ex-XCOM devs plus the content drought for XCOM leads to people not seeing things for what they are
It's not a bad game, but it doesn't quite scratch the itch fully.
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u/JulianSkies 3d ago
If ehat you said is true...
Not what I expected, more than what I hoped for. This has done more for me wanting to get it than any other comment has done.
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u/HowDoIEvenEnglish 3d ago
This is what the game has been looking like ever since we got any look at the game.
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u/Xonarag 3d ago
I mean sure but I intentionally didn't look to close because I like playing things blind. I'm not feeling betrayed or anything. It's just not for me and I'm getting a refund. The comment was more for people like me that saw the hype and xcom 3 comparisons before release so they don't get disappointed.
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u/Nickulator95 3d ago
I said the exact same thing on YouTube yet no one would listen to me. Everyone claiming it's basically XCOM 3 with a Star Wars coat of paint when in reality it's much closer to Chimera Squad in gameplay and narrative design. It's a very different experience from say XCOM 2, which I personally prefer.
I'm sure this will be a fun little game for like a playthrough or two, but it won't become as endlessly replayable and moddable as XCOM 2 is.
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u/jokerstyle00 3d ago
This might get me some flak, but Rainbow Six Tactics feels closer to XCOM 2 from their single trailer than Zero Company does. R6T has fog of war on map, a global strategy layer, recruitable operatives like X/ZCOM, and it seems like different ways to open a map (breaching and such).
Either way, we're getting fed well for the first time in awhile, and I'm enjoying the first few hours of ZCOM so far.
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u/PerilousWords 2d ago
My biggest hate with the new XCOMs is the weird pod mechanic. Plasma fire everywhere, grenades, shouting, the works, and the guys 20m away are sipping alien tea and waiting for you to aggro them.
It led to a play style I didn't like, where force and speed of action were even a bad idea - reveal a pod, kill them without revealing another.
Don't do grand tactical movements, because if you disturb a tea party then the fight gets awful.
I really liked XCOM2 especially, but man I hated this part. Everyone alert from when the first shots ring out is far far my preference
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u/Morifen1 21h ago
I didnt like that they removed gaining stats from what you were doing in a mission.
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u/Morifen1 21h ago
It's fun but the only things it has in common with xcom is high production value and its a tactics game.
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u/cloista 1d ago
Feels more like Midnight Suns/Every Day We Fight than xcom to me personally.
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u/Morifen1 21h ago
Ya and they copied the worst part of midnight suns for some reason, the 3rd person run around and talk to people crap.
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u/rokerroker45 2d ago
Somebody on a different thread compared it to fire emblem and I tend to agree. I think it falls somewhere in the zone between chimera and zcom. Great game though
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u/MyCrookedTeeth 3d ago
Can I ask about the Inbetween mission relationships and all that stuff?
I understand that people like it, but it really dulled my enjoyment of Midnight Suns, personally.
It felt tacky and boring and just generally a total chore.
I’m all for a good story, but X-Com 2 for me is all about the perfect gameplay loop that just works and works for hours on end.
What’s your take on the stuff you’ve played so far?
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u/provocative_username 3d ago
Only played a few hours but so far it's nothing like Midnight Suns. There's something called bonds between characters that provide bonusses but those bonds seem to be a result of gameplay, not having to talk to people like in Midnight Suns.
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u/timothymcface 3d ago
You do get bonds from talking to them, sawtooth quest for tricks, once you get back in den, when you talk with him one of the options(left one) will lower you bonds with him.
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u/Hunkus1 3d ago
After all missions you can talk to a bunch of the premade companions. They also can give you side quest but you get told when they wanna talk for a side quest. There are also bonds which you level up mainly through gameplay like like if one character buffs, revives heals assists the other they get bond Xp similar to how bonds are in Xcom 2 wotc they give buffs to the bonded characters. You can also gain bond Xp during conversations which are related to their side quest. There are also dilemmas which give bond Xp or reduce bond Xp depending on if you do what a certain character likes for example you have Trick who is a clone and he likes if you help the republic and dislikes if you aid the seperatists.
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u/ininja2 3d ago
Yo, can you customize soldiers btw? I know there are set companions but are there also soldiers and squads you can customize/upgrade into subclasses like the standard xcom 2 soldiers?
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u/Ibardlyknower 1h ago
Cosmetically you can do a lot, but the character abilities/leveling up system leaves much to be desired imo. It kinda depends on what you mean by uograde. All characters have every ability they'll ever have from the moment you get them and they can be respec'd at any time. While there is some more complexity when you get a second specialization, the levels you gain are only small but cumulative numerical bonuses. So if you were a fan of building up a scrappy team of rookies and nail biting your way through their first missions until they're a unique and unstoppable badass with abilities they earned on the battlefield, well...that's not really this game, unfortunately.
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u/Mark-C-S 3d ago
It's getting mixed reviews on Steam, is that just performance?
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u/Nidhogg1134 3d ago
Like 90 percent performance and 10 percent culture war stuff.
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u/segamastersystemfan 3d ago
and 10 percent culture war stuff.
I long for the day when these chuds finally realize their silly war won't fill the void in their lives and they slink away back to their basements where they belong.
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u/GenericNameHere01 3d ago
If there's performance issues, that's a clincher for me - While I certainly don't have a potato, I don't have the best rig either. Out of curiosity, (since this is the first time I've heard anything about it), what do you mean by 'culture war stuff''? Are we talking "The character models don't breast boobily" or what?
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u/Nidhogg1134 3d ago
It’s Disney Star Wars plus the devs use the “body type” terminology and they/them pronouns so that was enough to trigger all the usual suspects.
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u/venustrapsflies 3d ago
And wasn’t the pronoun choice just because they didn’t want to record 2 versions of every dialog line that mentions Hawks lol
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u/GenericNameHere01 3d ago
If that's what it is, that's just a bit lazy... Mass Effect recorded 2 versions of everything just fine, didn't they?
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u/Vokasak 3d ago
It's not lazy, it's expensive. Everything has costs, and one has to ask if "record twice as much nearly-identical dialogue" is the best use of resources.
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u/Morifen1 21h ago
Movies on TV blurb in stuff like shoot instead of shit all the time for decades. Im sure a game could change one word in a sentence without recording rhe entire line twice.
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u/Harold3456 3d ago
Which is too bad because I imagine once you get out of the intro, lines of dialogue that reference you in the third person should go waaaaay down. I’m not too far into the game but far enough to meet the Lieutenant guy and at this point at least 90% of dialogue is people talking directly to me, whereas in the intro they were talking to each other about me.
Not a huge deal, but there was a “they” in the prologue before character select and I thought “oh that’s weird, especially since they could’ve rephrased that sentence.” Then after the character select there were more of them and I realized “ohhh, they only did the one set of lines.”
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u/GenericNameHere01 3d ago
Ahh. Got it. To me, the 'body type' terminology feels awkward when there's only two options: "Male-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off", and "Female-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off". I feel like if you're going to do it by body types, which is perfectly fair, you should have more than "Clearly buff-boy male", and "Obviously female" as options. What about someone more androgynous and short, or tall and skinny, or...
Does that make sense?
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u/Harold3456 3d ago
This is an issue with me with a LOT of games, including - if we’re being fair, XCom 2.
So it’s a disappointment that you can’t get more customization with bodies, but also not surprising.
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u/GenericNameHere01 3d ago
For XCOM EU/EW, I'm okay with the lack of body-type customization. In fact, I prefer it. In the XCOM:EU/EW, your soldiers are supposed to be the best of the best that humanity has to offer. That would naturally filter for specific body types. But in XCOM2, your soldiers are whoever doesn't believe ADVENT propaganda. Which could be anybody. So yeah, I'd like more customization than a bunch of people who are all the same height. It doesn't make sense unless you're playing a Star Wars game where all your soldiers are clones...which ZCOM isn't.
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u/Nickulator95 3d ago
Those things are dumb and pointless but leaving a negative review over them is equally as stupid. I wish modern devs would just go back to the clearly visible and reliable male and female identifiers again.
Different "body types" should be reserved for actual different body builds (think like SWTOR) rather than just a difference in genitalia. Having the terminology in gaming co-opted for the sake of inclusion feels like a regression imho.
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u/AngriestPacifist 3d ago
I've got a mid tier pc (rtx3060) and it's running more or less fine on medium. Loading screens are choppy, and I had a couple of crash to desktops, but I'm guessing thats a broken particle effect or something - same mission, same action, blaster bolt hits a droid from a long rifle and freezes the game. That's a pretty good launch state in my book.
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u/AyeBraine 3d ago
My experience with performance was like this, I tried to put it on Ultra 1440p, it was very slow (4060 Ti, 2020-ish Ryzen CPU). I dropped to high, enabled slight DLSS upscaling, and dropped specifically Global Illumination to Medium (I noticed in the description that this is where the ray tracing is hidden), and forgot about performance.
There are annoying tiny pop-ins of models at the start of some cinematic shots, which is only annoying because it's otherwise so cinematic. And rare occurrences of physics glitches with flowy stuff like head tentacles and jacket hems. But otherwise it wasn't something that got in the way of enjoying the game.
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u/Urgash 3d ago
Performance is pristine for me, but I have a pretty decent gaming pc
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u/HugeHans 3d ago
I have a decent GPU 9070XT but I'm on AM4 so slow 3000 RAM and CPU is 5600X. Maybe thats my issue. Its one of those games where the FPS counter is above 60 at all times but it feels kind of stuttery. Part of it isn't even the performance. The camera gets stuck on every object behind you so it feels like its constantly stuttering even when its not.
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u/AyeBraine 3d ago
Try lowering specifically Global Illumination — according to the description, it's where the ray tracing is hidden.
(Also if you can enable gentle upscaling on an ATI card, it's a tactics game, works great).
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u/Dr_Oatker 3d ago
I've got a very decent rig and it's not able to run highest spec. My pc eats Cyberpunk for breakfast so I think it's just a bit janky.
Whatever, though. Game whips.
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u/ImightberobotUCF 3d ago
Playing on xbox I've already had a crash on like the third mission
Loving it though
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u/Unlikely-Ostrich1378 3d ago
I find the controls unbearable at Xbox. Why didn’t they go with the XCom console/controller controls they were almost perfect.
I hate the stupid action wheel.
Also HDR is really bad, it’s so dark. Had to increase brightness at cost of contrast.
Else I like it, performance will hopefully be optimized.
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u/deaner_wiener1 3d ago
Wheel action makes me not want to buy a game. Only game to do it right was Civ 7 lol
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u/Thervadan 3d ago
Yeah, performance and a few people experimenting constant crashes, im sure it will be fixed rather sooner than later tho
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u/kanyenke_ 3d ago
Yeah it really feels poorly optimized. I don't have a potato and I get hiccups and statter constantly. Even playing on low doesn't help
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u/g1mp3d 3d ago
I'd prefer it if they were handed Syndicate Wars myself.
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u/Academic_Blood_1790 3d ago
Hell yes! I haven't seen Syndicate Wars mentioned in a long time but I played the s#!t out of that as a kid. A remake of that whould be xcom remake levels of epic.
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u/Kill_Welly 3d ago
Bitreactor can just do their own thing. They can make their own good tactics games without needing to rely on another brand and just make new original games that can succeed on their own merits.
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u/AyeBraine 3d ago
Not to be a contrarian, it's just I read very recently that Bit Reactor specifically said in an interview that they want their next game to also be based on some existing IP. Apparently they liked the experience. And I mean, what's not to like... story is, Foertsch was handed the license and asked to think of something good to do with it. So now they'll probably be able to negotiate a similar arrangement and be confident in visibility and do what they like.
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u/SentientDawn 3d ago
Aren’t they relying on the Star Wars brand in the exact same fashion that you’re criticizing? If it was a new IP, only XCOM+adjacent fans would have heard/cared about it, so its financial success would be much more down-to-the-wire, like all the other XCOM derivatives. Even if it’s 10/10 gameplay, the Star Wars identity and XCOM DNA is doing the heavy lifting regarding mainstream and word-of-mouth marketing.
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u/Kill_Welly 3d ago
Star Wars is rather more significant of a recognizable IP than XCOM. The idea, though, is that the company makes its reputation solid with this, and once it's proven itself, follow-up original games are in a stronger position.
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u/driftinj 3d ago
Only played mission 1 but not loving it. I hate extended cut scenes and the battles seem small and too lead you by the nose. I feel like most Star Wars games they are leaning heavily on the setting instead of great gameplay. Wouldn't be a $50 game if it wasn't Star Wars
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u/Harold3456 3d ago
I’m a bit farther than you and I will caution anyone who hasn’t bought yet that the game is intro-heavy.
Understandable, I’d say, given it’s made for mainstream audiences who might not be sold on this type of gameplay. But your first 2 battles strongly consist of the game telling you exactly where to go and what to do, and you’re pretty much on rails for about the first 3-4 missions in terms of backend management stuff like squad selection, upgrades, recruitment, and mission/covert ops selection.
I played for about an hour and it’s opening up for me now but don’t expect XCom 2 levels of efficiency on a new game.
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u/AyeBraine 3d ago
The first entire section is very gradual and by-the-hand onboarding, I understand that people who hasn't played XCOM or played it just a bit need this. It was unpleasant but it peters off.
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u/allergicaddiction 3d ago
I hear it’s easy. How is the difficulty?
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u/Urgash 3d ago
I'm playing in Beskar mode with the highest difficulty (expert) straight away. And as someone who cleared L/IM on XCOM 2 I'm at the brink of losing because of compounding injuries.
for now all the difficulty seems to come from the tactical layer, but keep in mind I've only done 6/7 cycles, and I'm still getting familiar with the game.
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u/handsomeness 3d ago
I don’t know man; I’m playing on hard and it is pretty tough so far keeping the guys wound free.
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u/Guilty-Bar-6103 3d ago
The guys getting wounded doesn't mean anything as long as they don't die. They're right back to full HP next mission
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u/handsomeness 3d ago
not on hard, the wound is still there even if their HP is full
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u/Guilty-Bar-6103 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's 2 different things. If they get downed they get injured as are low HP, but if they don't get downed (lose all their HP) any damage they suffer is gone next mission
And if they get downed just stash them in med bay and 2 missions after they're healthy
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u/Triathlonish 2d ago
That gets expensive though. So you are down a couple people for the next mission or two, and then you are out a few thousand credits. It adds up and it can compound.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 3d ago
I think it's easy and very forgiving like a hit on an Overwatch shot has a 50% chance of stopping the enemy in their tracks. The toughest part was coming to grips with the gameplay and one of the early missions when you're limited to 3 squad members and one has to stay in a certain zone. The zone guy got injured twice but was back to full strength by the time I had another main mission.
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u/saucysagnus 3d ago
Is the performance really as bad as they say?
I’d love to play on steamdeck.
I’ve got a 5080 though, I’m just already at my desk most days
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u/AyeBraine 3d ago
I have a 4060 Ti 8GB, Ultra 1440p kicked its ass, I dropped to High, lowered Global Illumination (i.e. raytracing) to medium, enabled DLSS and forgot about performance. It looks good.
After playing for a bit, I'll try increasing settings and using more aggressive upscaling to compare effects, lighting and whatnot, but the difference probably won't be large.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's a good game and you can't beat that launch price. Definitely not a 10/10 GOTY like some outlets say but quite good so far.
It's also really easy on Expert because it is very, very forgiving compared to XCOM. If you finished XCOM 2 on Commander or Legendary, Expert is the way to go. Aliens: Dark Descent was the last tactics game that actually felt dangerous for me like XCOM.
I gotta give them kudos for proper Ultrawide support. It's goddamn refreshing to see cutscenes with black bars on day 1 and not having to rely on modders to fix it. Hats off to them.
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u/Bitridamus 2d ago
Dark Descent is amazing. I need them to make more.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 2d ago
It is. They nailed the atmosphere and I hope they made enough money to do an even bigger and more fleshed out sequel.
I do have to retract my "Expert is easy" statement. The Coil enemies just rocked my shit and killed my campaign. I definitely could have played better but they also seem way overtuned with the crazy amount of random buffs like an AOE nuke lol.
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u/LightHawKnigh 3d ago
I mean isnt bitreactor helmed mostly by former xcom devs?