Kathrin Tost

Ethereals are the leaders of the alien forces. They have numerous, and powerful psionic abilities that can cause havoc among the player’s squad and deliver significant damage. Their deadliest abilities are the ability to control the minds of the player’s soldiers, and the ability to drain a soldier’s health and heal itself at the same time with its Psi Drain. To make them even more difficult, Ethereals have the Hardened trait that makes them highly resistant to critical hits. Ethereals also have a devastating one-two punch with their Mindfray, which lowers a soldier’s Will, and their Rift ability which deals extra damage to a soldier with a low Will sc In any event, it looks like XCOM 2 fans should expect some terrors to rise from the murky depths within the next few years, as the cliffhanger ending shows that Firaxis evidently has no intention of slowing things down with the ser For the curious, the ending of Terror From The Deep resulted in a victory for XCOM , but it came at a price: the ecosystem of Earth is more or less destroyed, forcing most humans to move into urban city centers much like ADVENT had encouraged in XCOM 2 . This led into the plot from XCOM: Apocalypse , but we're going to keep our speculation to one game at a time. Of course, it's possible that Firaxis left the underwater glimpse as a massive misdirection for fans, but we doubt they would show alien technology underwater and abandon the subject entir This is additive with their base hit chance, meaning that if you had an 85% hit chance, Holo Targeting would guarantee a hit. In a Slg game analysis like XCOM where RNG can determine engagements, turning it in your favor is imperative to survival. Skills like these make the Grenadier a solid option in any sq The game purposefully left the fate of Doctor Vahlen, the chief scientist from Enemy Unknown , a mystery throughout the game. While she was mentioned briefly, it looks like XCOM have been unable to establish communication with her. In the prequel novel for XCOM 2 , it was revealed that Vahlen escaped a brutal ADVENT attack on a research outpost by taking a boat to the sea. We have little doubt that Firaxis left her fate open for a reason, and we suspect she has been one of the first to work out that a new threat is due to emerge from the dep Insane enemies will run around the battlefield and panic, preventing them from developing strategies to take you down. They can fire at their own allies, duck into cover and cower in fear, or even become mind-controlled for a few turns. Thanks to its large area, Void Rift remains one of the best crowd control and damage abilities in XC The original UFO Defense Force had players travel to space to eliminate the alien threat, and we wouldn't be surprised to see the sea-based aliens attempt to utilize the moon in order to bring destruction to humanity. Many veteran gamers have been expecting some kind of space mission ever since the series was first revived, and one has to feel like it's due at some point - and logically, the moon has a strong connection to anything water-ba Aliens spend all of XCOM 2 trying to take down your resistance operation while exploiting the planet they've taken over. It is your job to take your overlords out and reclaim the planet as your own ag Astute gamers will have realized that Terror From The Deep was set in 2040 in the original canon. Seeing as XCOM 2 takes place in 2035, it looks like Firaxis is poised to continue their tradition of taking the general XCOM timeline and modifying bits and pieces of it. Terror From The Deep already fits into this timeline pretty nicely, and we fully expect a heavy influence from this title in their next g Early on, pistols deal lacking damage and have few ways of bypassing armor, making this skill somewhat lacking. Once you unlock plasma weaponry or, better yet, get the Hunter's revolver, this skill becomes one of the best in the game. Few things are more satisfying than seeing your Sharpshooter single-handedly kill nearly a dozen enemies in a single act The XCom games are famous for their engaging squad-based combat. The games have always featured a large collection of alien types – each with an ability that players must keep in mind if they want all of their soldiers to make it back to base in one piece. Some of these aliens can fly, some are advanced robotic killing machines, some are basically living tanks, but the deadliest of them have psionic abilities that are frustrating at best – and absolutely devastating at worst. These are the most difficult alien types a player can expect when playing the X-Com titles; minus the unique types like the Uber Ethereal or Warlo As the final battle cutscene came to a close, the Commander is pulled from his Avatar by those aboard the Avenger, and it's quite possible that the remaining ethereals utilized their psionic power on the Avatar's body to not only cling to life, but find a way to rebuild and bring the fight to XCOM in the coming years. Truthfully, in the closing seconds of the game XCOM gave the ethereals exactly what they were seeking: a powerful avatar to host their bodies. It's entirely possible this gaff by Bradford and his crew may cost countless human lives in the near fut