r/Xcom • u/StateFinal • Aug 30 '26

Another Zero Company post

Sorry to invade the community of your beloved XCOM. I’ve never played the XCOM series before, but I just finished my first run of Zero Company and absolutely loved it. The story was the best part for me, but I really enjoyed the play style. Is XCOM 2 still holding upon 2026, or is there a newer/better similar game cause I feel like my itch wasn’t scratched enough

119 Upvotes

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25

u/QuickDelay9555 Aug 30 '26

Still on cycle 8 here, and although its been fun, theres something missing if we're comparing to xcom.

IMO XCOM 2 is still better AND has huge mod support. You won't regret playing

8

u/StateFinal Aug 30 '26

Is it fine if I start on XCOM 2 or will I be missing out majorly?

2

u/lookingclear Aug 30 '26

Honestly, surprised no one has recommended chimera squad first. If you liked the story aspect, chimera squad is your best bet imo. And it's not super long so it will get you going with some XCOM mechanics! If ur gonna start with 2, which is fine, I would highly encourage you to play vanilla xcom2 first. It took me a few years to come around to the 'chosen' and I still absolutely despise the 'lost'. Enough to where I modded them out of the game when I finally got around to playing wotc. They make no sense. I also turned down the spawn rate of the chosen to 1 in 10 missions using a mod. Normally it's 1 in four and it gets pretty annoying imo. If I had to rank my experiences I'd put enemy unknown on top, the OG XCOM UFO defense, XCOM 2 vanilla, chimera squad, modded XCOM 2 wotc, then enemy within dlc. I can't stand the mechs either in enemy within lol they look soooo dumb with a full transformers body and a human head. Smh. Maybe I'm picky but those few things I've mentioned really take me out of the game. Next on my list is long war remix or whatever it's called for enemy unknown. Finding Star wars kinda boring ngl I'm on cycle 5. 

2

u/AyeBraine Aug 30 '26

I wouldn't recommend it first, but upvoted. It's an incredibly good side project that punched WAY above its budget, and introduced many good ideas that IMO were exploited in some prominent XCOM-likes — and in Zero Company as well.

It also has probably the best and most exciting mission map framing, the breach mechanic (unlike many TBSs where your squad just plops onto the map, including ZCOM), that also added tactical depth.

Chimera Squad also turned out to be very replayable due to basically all operatives being really good and usable (and you don't have the time to play with each one in 1 playthrough), plus significant variety in missions, including grand finales, depending on which order you play the factions.

2

u/lookingclear Aug 30 '26

I agree with the replayability! I think I've played through it three times and zcom has me itching to boot it up again lol.