That’s me with the timely Mehgan Trainor reference
Despite running like poo on my more-than-capable PC, I enjoyed XCOM 2 more than Nic did, and have been eagerly awaiting new content, whether it was new missions, weapons, or just plain better optimization. Looks like next week we’ll get all three with the Alien Hunters DLC pack.
A new narrative mission introduces three new Ruler units (the Viper King in the header image is the only revealed example) that will pursue your squad throughout the campaign, all with unique tactics. If these bosses are too tough for you to take out, they’ll flee the scene and keep coming back to haunt you across the Earth. Of course, big threats lead to big rewards, so the corpses of these sure-to-be-frustrating jerks can be used to create a new suit of armor. Wearing these terrifies the underlings of the appropriate boss, which makes sense — I’d be terrified if someone tried to shoot me and they were wearing my dad’s skin. An Icarus suit that allows flight sounds like someone’s been tinkering with Archon corpses to me, but we’ll know soon enough.
To combat these new adversaries, there are four new prototype weapons: the high damage single-shot Bolt Caster, a Hunter’s Axe that can be used for melee or thrown at enemies, the ShadowKeeper pistol that has an ability that can place its user in concealment upon a killshot, and a Frost grenade. But this is XCOM, so there’s a catch; if a soldier using one of these weapons dies, you need to pick up the weapon before extracting or it’s gone forever. Not cool. But kind of cool, since the harrowing moments where your squad survives by the skin of their teeth are the best part.
The big ol’ cherry on top of this DLC is that it includes general bug fixes, balancing (for both the campaign and multiplayer), and performance optimizations. I’m hoping for a consistent framerate and less of those weird freezes where soldiers aim for two minutes before shooting. Alien Hunters comes out May 12 (May 13 for Asia) for $9.99, and is also included in the Reinforcement Pack/Season Pass.
DANGEROUS RULER ALIENS AWAIT IN XCOM 2’S ALIEN HUNTERS DLC [XCOM 2]
