LONG WAR 2

Long War 2 is a massive overhaul of critically acclaimed Firaxis' XCOM 2. Owing to the success of the Long War mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis' parent company, 2K Games, commissioned the Long War team to create Long War 2. The mod was released on Steam Workshop and the Nexus on Jan. 19, 2017 and is free. It is aimed at giving players the feel of running a worldwide guerrilla war against ADVENT while offering them a greater variety of strategic and tactical experiences during an extended and challenging campaign.

RECEPTION

"A must-play reinvention of XCOM 2" - PC Gamer

"Excels through new tactical depths" - Rock, Paper, Shotgun

"Long War 2 looks like just the excuse I’ve been waiting for to fire up XCOM 2 yet again." - PC World

FEATURES

STRATEGY LAYER

  • RostersAssign multiple squads to simultanous missions, requiring you to build a big roster
  • Infiltrate mission sites by investing time to reduce the enemies you'll face
  • Manage Resistance cells in every contacted region
  • Assign rebels to collect supplies, recruit allies or gather intelligence
  • Deploy a single adviser – a scientist, engineer or soldier – to each region and receive bonuses
  • Permanently capture ADVENT Mecs with an advanced Specialist perk that reprograms them as Haven defenders
  • Uncover paths to other missions, including opportunities to intercept enemy reinforcements, or a five-mission liberation chain that allows the player to entirely remove ADVENT from a particular region
  • Various advancements will take longer and more resources to achieve, extending the campaign duration

ENEMIES

  • ADVENT now operates under a strategic AI
    • Enemy forces now have a certain amount of strength in each region, determining mission difficulty, and will redeploy their forces based on your actions, first from adjacent regions, or by UFO
    • Operate based on the level of resistance from XCOM – leaving ADVENT unchallenged in an area, they will feel safe enough to continue work on the Avatar project
  • Face new enemies from AlienPack, including the Chryssalid Hive Queen, ADVENT Drone, Muton Centurion and Muton Elite, and many new ADVENT soldier types

XCOM

  • CoilDeploy multiple squads out on missions simultaneously
  • Create and manage permanent squads for easy insertion into missions
  • Some missions require spending up to a week or more infiltrating the site to avoid facing overwhelming opposition for an instant attack
  • Squads can have up to 10 soldiers on some missions
    • Smaller squads infiltrate much faster
    • Tactical missions will still be played individually to completion once begun
  • Build a deep roster of soldiers to handle targets of opportunity as well as sudden ADVENT counterattacks against the Resistance with the new squad manager, that allows the player to create standing squads to quickly assign to missions
  • Several new classes with unique secondary weapons;:
    • Sharpshooter: Holotargeter, a target designation device
    • Shinobi: Sword
    • Ranger: Sawed-Off Shotgun, a powerful short-range weapon with two uses per mission
    • Assault: Arc Thrower, a long-range stunning device
    • Gunner: Combat Knife, a defensive melee weapon
    • Grenadier: Grenade Launcher
    • Specialist: GREMLIN
    • Technical: Gauntlet, combination Rocket Launcher and Flamethrower
    • Psi Operative: Psi Amp
  • The officer tree is expanded with new options, including the Command perk (allows granting bonus actions to allies), Intervention (extends mission timers) and Leadership (grants bonuses to soldiers who have previously served under the officer)
  • Two new weapon tiers, lasers and coilguns, created by Capnbubs, with weapon upgrades ordered Conventional-Laser-Mag-Coil-Plasma
  • An SMG weapon class, created by JCLewis and CapnBubs, for all five tiers, which grants mobility and stealth bonuses at the cost of some firepower

NEW MISSIONS

  • InfiltrationJailbreak: XCOM must rescue several Resistance members from an ADVENT jail. Similar to base-game rescue missions, but with multiple people to rescue. Successful missions increase the strength of the Resistance in a region
  • Haven Defense: In this alternate Retaliation mission, XCOM must defend Resistance members against an onslaught of ADVENT forces until the Skyranger is in position to rescue them.
  • ADVENT Base Assault: In the capstone mission for the liberation chain, the player must defeat a well-defended regional military headquarters
  • Invasion: The aliens attempt to retake a liberated region by assaulting a city center. The player must destroy a psionic relay that is summoning continuous reinforcements, and then sweep up any remaining forces.
  • Rendezvous: A Faceless Resistance member is detected as it goes to meet with its ADVENT handlers. The soldier-adviser and a few rebel rookies hunt it down.
  • ADVENT Supply Raid: ADVENT attacks a Resistance supply convoy. XCOM must defend the center of a map area and the Resistance personnel there.
  • ADVENT Intel Raid: ADVENT attacks a Resistance listening post.
  • ADVENT Recruiting Raid: XCOM must extract a group of rebels from ADVENT forces.

OTHER NEW FEATURES AND CHANGES

  • The Advanced Warfare Center no longer grants a single random perk, but lets the player select from a menu of perks. They may train up to three offensive, three defensive and seven pistol perks, if granted sufficient time in the center.
  • All armors have three slots for utility gear. Pistols are now a utility item that may be carried by any soldier.
  • Both high and low cover are more effective.
  • Explosives damage falls off from the center of the explosion.
  • Some gun upgrades have been reworked. Suppressor now reduces infiltration time. Stock now provides the Steady Weapon ability, granting an aim bonus on the next turn. Hair trigger now provides aim bonus on reaction fire. Gun upgrades can be manufactured if XCOM can recover enough of a particular item as loot or from the black market.
  • Player has the option to set a “graze band,” in which to-hit rolls within a range around the to-hit number will result in a graze instead of a hit or miss. So a 85% to hit and a 10-point graze band means that rolls between 75 and 95 will result in a graze. A successful roll against the “dodge” skill now downgrades critical hits to regular hits, regular hits to grazes and grazes to misses, while a “critical graze” counts as a regular hit.
  • Panic forces a hunker down (if in cover) and no other actions are possible. Unit panicking in the open remains motionless.
  • Ammo rebalanced so most weapons have fewer shots before a reload is required. Cannons have more.
  • Once summoned, the Skyranger takes time to arrive at a mission site for extraction. Reinforcements will be more dangerous.
  • An expanded system of Dark Events that serve as tactical upgrades to aliens.

Meet the Long War 2 dev team here. Discuss the mod on the Pavonis forums here.