25 Hours Later: Long War 2 for X-Com 2 Review

It’s rare that a free mod generates months of pre-release hype and is anticipated as much as the release of a full game. That, though, is exactly the situation surrounding Long War 2 — a mod developed by Pavonis Interactive for X-Com 2.

Long War, Long List of Changes

Long War 2 is a complete overhaul mod, making sweeping changes to the entire game. There are mechanic tweaks, bug fixes, new perks, classes and features (for most people, more on that later). This mod aims to keep players entertained for up to 200 hours. Yikes!

The changes are immediately obvious. Squad deployment has been completely redone. You now have to select a squad of soldiers (squad management has been introduced and it’s the best thing since Storm guns) to infiltrate the target area. The Sky Ranger will drop them off and they’ll be left for several days to infiltrate. You can fly off and attend to other things while they do their thing, reducing the amount of enemies they’ll encounter.

As you get a couple of missions in, you’ll find yourself having to make compromises. Do you go for large squads (you can deploy up to ten soldiers in some missions), who infiltrate slower but have more fire-power and flexibility in combat, or do you go for a small squad, which will infiltrate quicker but be out-gunned occasionally regardless?

One positive change is that there’s a real element of being able to pick and choose your battles, enhanced from the…