XCOM: Chimera Squad Announced

In this day and age of bloated marketing budgets and seemingly endless hype, it’s always refreshing to see a game come out without too much fanfare. Which leads us to XCOM: Chimera Squad, a new entry in the XCOM franchise from Firaxis Games that’s set to go live on April 24, 2020.

Priced at $19.99 or your regional equivalent (not including the hefty 50% pre-order discount), Chimera Squad will let you play as aliens and alien sympathizers on a mission to build an interspecies alliance. In gameplay terms, this will mean new systems and features, and a squad of unique agents as opposed to XCOM’s usual custom recruits.

Here’s the official game reveal trailer:

And some actual Chimera Squad gameplay:

And here’s the game’s description:

XCOM: Chimera Squad delivers an all-new story and turn-based tactical combat experience in the XCOM universe.

After years of alien rule, humanity won the war for Earth. But when the Overlords fled the planet, they left their former soldiers behind. Now, five years after the events of XCOM 2, humans and aliens are working together to forge a civilization of cooperation and coexistence.

Welcome to City 31, a model of peace in a post-invasion world. However, not all of Earth’s inhabitants support interspecies alliance. Chimera Squad, an elite force of human and alien agents, must work together to destroy the underground threats driving the city toward chaos.

Your agents are unique: each of them equipped with special tactical abilities and driven by a different motivation for joining Chimera Squad. Deploy targeted team members to investigate and combat the dangers that pervade the districts of City 31. Lead Chimera Squad through a new experience that innovates on XCOM’s turn-based legacy, utilizing strategy, teamwork, and new breach-and-clear gameplay to complete your mission objectives.

The future of City 31 depends on you.

Unique Alien and Human Agents

Each of the 11 agents have their own distinct personality and tactical abilities, including species-specific attacks like the Viper’s tongue pull.

Specialized and Complementary Classes

Execute devastating combos by teaming the right agents and utilizing cooperative actions. The difference between mission success and failure can depend wholly on team composition.

Re-Envisioned Tactical Combat

Missions are structured as a series of discrete, explosive encounters, keeping the action intense and unpredictable.

Breach Mode

Shape the battlefield to your advantage with a new combat phase that injects your squad right into action. Strategically assign your agents to different entry points and coordinate their assault with a range of Breach-specific skills.

Interleaved Turns

An automatic initiative system slots individual agents and enemies into an alternating turn order, creating new strategic possibilities based on what unit is queued to act next—and what unit is at the greatest risk when they do.

Suspenseful Strategy Layer

Outside of combat, manage the operations of a high-tech HQ, where you must prioritize competing tasks, investigations, and agent assignments in the face of a ticking clock: the constantly rising unrest in the city’s various districts, driving City 31 closer and closer to total anarchy.