XCOM 2 - Long War 2 will cater to casuals

Eurogamer talk to the makers of the 'Long War 2' Mod Pavonis Interactive.

But let's be honest, when we talk about the Long War mod, we inevitably talk about its difficulty. Very few people have completed a full campaign on Impossible difficulty, as it requires such consistent, smart play over such a gruelling number of missions.

"The original Long War's DNA was that of a hardcore mod," said Lumpkin. "And while we made plenty of effort to open it up for a wider playerbase once its popularity grew, it kept its reputation as being very challenging. This go-round, we've tried to broaden our appeal by keeping the lower difficulty levels of Long War 2 more accessible to casual players who would still like to take part in an extended campaign experience.

"Those difficulties probably still harder than the unmodded game in the sense that we've added a bunch of mechanics for the player to figure out and master, but the gameplay is set up to be more forgiving to players as they learn the ropes. And make no mistake, the higher difficulties are still things even experienced players should very much lose.

More information.

Given that the original "difficulty" comes from the sheer volatility of underlying combat mechanics, where you get all or nothing with a huge gap in between the results - not sure how they can loosen that gap without turning tactical game into a chess match.

Sounds good to me. I was playing with XCOM2 again recently and thinking that I wish there was a way to extend the game more - like a marathon mode from civ or something. I think XCOM2 has excellent mechanics and so many cool things about it but when playing thru I often feel like I'm flying thru the game with a new alien showing up every mission or two.

I liked a lot of Long War but overall it was a bit too brutal for my tastes so something a wee bit more toned down (with the option to go full on brutal) would be nice. When it comes to XCOM I wouldn't say I'm "casual" but I'm also not masochistic.

Originally Posted by Voqar
Sounds good to me. I was playing with XCOM2 again recently and thinking that I wish there was a way to extend the game more - like a marathon mode from civ or something. I think XCOM2 has excellent mechanics and so many cool things about it but when playing thru I often feel like I'm flying thru the game with a new alien showing up every mission or two.

I liked a lot of Long War but overall it was a bit too brutal for my tastes so something a wee bit more toned down (with the option to go full on brutal) would be nice. When it comes to XCOM I wouldn't say I'm "casual" but I'm also not masochistic.

Yeah I liked a lot of the ideas present in Long War, but I couldn't see actually playing it. Extending the game is fine, but I'm not sure I want to play an extra 300 hours of it. It would be nice if there was a middle ground.

Personally, I never understood the need for such a mod. XCOM EU took me around 40 hours to complete, and imo that's plenty long enough for this kind of game. I also felt the difficulty was just about right.

Of course I realize the game can be completed a lot faster than that by climbing the tech tree sooner and not doing optional missions, but having those kinds of choices just adds to the replayability.

Originally Posted by fadedc
Yeah I liked a lot of the ideas present in Long War, but I couldn't see actually playing it. Extending the game is fine, but I'm not sure I want to play an extra 300 hours of it. It would be nice if there was a middle ground.

They later added a not-so-long war option but yeah, when I played I got through the first alien base and called it done. I had over 1000 alien kills at that point.

Having the longer game gives room for the bigger tech tree AND slower growth in that tree. Lasers came and went very quickly in the original game but not in Long War!