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XCOM 2 launch trailer goes all-in on the action, how was your first play session?

XCOM 2 launch trailer

Look, don’t pretend you aren’t currently yawning your way through a second cup of coffee trying desperately to stay awake at your desk/workstation/high-powered drill because you sat up all night playing XCOM 2. We all are, especially Fraser who spent his precious should-be-asleep time making the above homage to Team Features of him, Matt and Jeremy. His betrayal of Team News has been noted, I assure you. Meanwhile, 2K have also been busy releasing one final trailer to mark the launch of the game.

Mid-campaign? Don’t forget to pick up the XCOM 2 psi-ops, they’re mighty powerful.

It’s nicely different from the other marketing we’ve seen so far. It’s all been quite methodical, quiet strategy playthroughs. This is the opposite, bombastic and ballistic in the extreme, straight out of a Call of Duty trailer produced by Michael Bay. I’m also fairly sure a couple of the scenes in it are tremendous spoilers, but of the sort that will only make sense once you’re deeper into the game which I, as I’ll explain in a moment, am not. Still, you’ve been warned.

Hooray for explosions and gunfire.

But nevermind all that, how did your first evening on the job go? I managed to lose the second mission playing on the default difficulty setting after getting mind-controlled by an accidentally triggered Sectoid, killing off one of my soldiers, causing another to panic and be unable to throw a key grenade. Thankfully I was allowed to restart the mission despite playing on Iron Man, as everything up until the end of that is scripted when playing with the tutorial enabled. Aced it (with one major wound) the next time, of course.

In my defense, Tim did exactly the same thing.

Fraser, meanwhile, got it all right, despite having gone in almost entirely blind with no knowledge of what would be fielded against him. “Those ADVENT chaps were a surprise,” he chirped merrily this morning. I’m hoping the first Gatekeeper he comes up against turns all his friends into zombies.

How did you do, dear readers? Tell us your tales of triumph and loss.