XCOM 2 - Five Months Later...

Rock, Paper, Shotgun takes a look at the state of XCOM 2, five months after release.

Five months and one day, in fact. XCOM 2 was a big huge hit at release, and mostly very well-received – although, variously, there were complaints about performance, difficulty, time-wasting and the opacity of its complicated systems. The picture’s a little different now we’re here in July. There have been three DLC packs, a bunch of patches, a mod community and most of all, plenty of time for repeat visits to see how it feels now we know how all the pieces fit together. I’ve just emerged from the requisite sleepless nights to wage the main part of another campaign, and I have indeed found a significantly changed game – for reasons both good and bad.

I’ll start with performance, as I was one of those who was blighted by lousy and wildly-spiking framerates both at launch and after the initial patch. The good news is the worst issues have been resolved – where once I was seeing my frame rate drop to sub-30 on a GTX 970 even with most settings at absolute minimum, now I’m seeing it range between 40 and 60 when almost everything is maxed-out, and at 1440p too. (Full SSAO, as opposed to the lesser and not hugely different Tile SSAO still takes a big toll). It’s never dropping below 30, it’s smoother and I can get the magic 60 if I compromise on a few things. I can’t prove this, but I swear it looks a little prettier than it did too. Or perhaps I’m just able to appreciate it a little bit more now I’m not seething about jerkiness and worrying that my poor graphics card is running at the temperature of the sun.

The aggravating delays between certain actions have been toned down too, although there’s still an unwelcome amount of heel-dragging as various animations or reactions play out, maddening when one is keen to know the consequence or action a riposte. This is compounded by a sometimes unbearable-feeling regularity of interruption on the strategy map side of the game. Already a beeswarm of nags and forced deviations from one’s R&D plans, with the two story-led DLC packs (the third is purely aesthetic) in the mix it’s off the scale in the early game.

Read more.