XCOM: Enemy Unknown mod brings back scrapped ‘Second Wave’ campaign options

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Members of the Nexus community have been rootling about in the XCOM: Enemy Unknown directory and have stumbled across some scrapped content that was originally meant to unlock after completing a playthrough of the campaign. The ‘Second Wave’ added a good deal more randomised stats and deadliness to XCOM. The details of how to install it are below.

This was spotted by PC Gamer,but I had to share it because this looks like an excellent addition to the XCOM base game.

PepprmintButler discovered the files after they “went on a search for the Second Wave options (of which descriptions were found in the demo files; these are advanced options that can be activated after a first full playthrough, supposedly). Mostly because I did finish my first playthrough and found no sign of it in-game.”

The options they managed to recover are campaign mutators that can be selected individually or cumulatively:

  • Damage Roulette -Weapons have a much wider range of damage
  • Red Fog (not working) -Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier’s stats for that mission
  • New Economy -The funding offered by individual council members is randomized
  • Not Created Equally -Rookies will have random starting stats
  • Hidden Potential -As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly
  • Absolutely Critical -A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit
  • The Greater Good (not working) -The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien
  • Marathon -The game takes considerably longer to complete
  • Results Driven -A country will offer less funding as it’s panic level increases
  • High Stakes -The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized
  • Diminishing Returns -The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built
  • The Blitz -The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack
  • More Than Human -The psionic gift is extremely rare

Anyway, how to get them working: another Nexus user, Arietatray,has created a modthat plops all these features back into the game for you to play with.

Hopefully this will become a modular mod once XCOM’s Steam Workshop integration comes online.