Phantom Doctrine brings a dose of espionage to the post-rebooted XCOM world of turn-based strategy, with an appropriately paranoid take on Soviet-era spy fiction and a healthy dose of tactical tension. The reviews are in, and they’re pretty good – though the game’s successes are held back by a handful of flaws and a sense that we’ve seen this all before.
Our own pithily eloquent Jeremy Peel says “You might well find the evocative, smoke-damaged backdrop of ‘80s espionage fresh enough to carry you through a satisfying playthrough. But even with the plates changed and the serial number filed off, there’s no mistaking XCOM 2.”
The 7 of 10 score Jeremy gives in our review is more or less in line with the critical consensus. The game sits at an aggregated 79 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic, though that mixed overall score hides a disparate range of impressions. Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s unscored review is overwhelmingly negative, while GameSpot offers an effusive 9/10 and our friends at Strategy Gamer award an impressive five star score.
But hey, if you like words along with your numbers, don’t be shy about clicking through to the links below. Reviews are for the PC version unless otherwise noted.
- GameSpot – 9/10
- IGN – 7.4/10
- PCGamesN – 7/10
- Push Square (PS4) – 7/10
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun – unscored
- TheSixthAxis (PS4) – 8/10
- Strategy Gamer – 5/5
- Wccftech (PS4) – 7.7/10
If you’re leaning more toward the positive end of the scale, Phantom Doctrine is available now on Steam and GOG with a 10% launch week discount, bringing the price down to $35.99 / £26.99 / €35.99.