There are ADVENT purifiers, stormtrooper thugs who set the map ablaze with huge flamethrower attacks that engulf your troops and damage them over multiple turns. With new troop types come new enemies Specters who are impervious to overwatch shots and freely knock out and clone your troops with вЂњshadowвЂќ copies, immediately leave you outgunned and undermanned. Sure, it introduces a slew of new troop types with powerful new abilities, squad bond abilities for frequent mission-mates, randomized вЂњbreakthroughвЂќ research projects that buff your troops, and monthly perks in the form of вЂњresistance orders.вЂќ These are lovely little bonuses, but for every new toy, there are devious new challenges to match it вЂ“ and it feels like there is an alien thumb tipping the scales. WotC is fickle, it takes as much (or more) as it gives. As a product intended for purchase itвЂ™s an interesting artifact вЂ“ youвЂ™re essentially paying for the privilege of being tortured in new and interesting ways. It takes an already difficult game and adds entirely new mechanics that almost universally revolve around making the playerвЂ™s life harder and defeat more likely. But itвЂ™s expansion, War of the Chosen, dives headfirst into that nihilism and splashes around in it. XCOM 2 was already a game that wasnвЂ™t shy when it came to screwing over its players вЂ“ the map screen has a literal doomsday clock on the top of it that is constantly counting down. Few mainstream games really present it as a possibility and even fewer bother to make it exciting.

Victory might be hard won, but it is never out of reach.Дefeat on the other hand is something else entirely. No matter how many times you bite the dust, or how spectacularly youвЂ™re pulverized by a gigantic dragon, you always have another shot. No matter how much fuss is made over how brutal and unforgiving a game is, death is never the end.

WeвЂ™re a long ways from the arcade days and early NES titles when Game Over screens were common and gamers could stroke their egos based on how many titles theyвЂ™d вЂњcleared.вЂќ We expect to beat games now, not for them to beat us.Д®ven вЂњmasochisticвЂќ games like Dark Souls are designed to be beaten. It wasnвЂ™t always this way and there are plenty of examples of merciless games you can point to, but IвЂ™m talking about modern, mainstream games.

The vast majority of games are very good at conditioning players to expect victory. ItвЂ™s almost unheard of for one to luxuriate in it. The game always lets you know exactly how close you are to extinction, how much work you have left to do, and graciously allows you to do the math and know there is no hope left.Дefeat is a rare thing in games in general. Not only because it is possible, even probable, to lose the game (so long as youвЂ™re playing honest), but because it takes its damn time. The best and brightest of our generation are either dead or driven mad from trauma, and while I donвЂ™t know exactly how, I am certain that it is all my fault.Дefeat in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is a strange and bizarrely beautiful thing. The hammer hasnвЂ™t fallen quite yet, but from where weвЂ™re standing, you can see its rapidly expanding shadow as it comes crashing down.

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