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XCOM Reclamation Agency

Director Kelly

Director Jane Kelly

Race: Human

Origin: Ireland

A hero of the resistance and veteran officer, Jane Kelly rose from humble beginnings as a front-line soldier to a major leader within XCOM. Following the end of the war, she became an advocate for the rehabilitation and integration of alien POWs in order to diversify XCOM's forces in the event of a counterattack by the Elders, and was appointed as the director of XCOM's newly-formed Reclamation Agency.

For information about her appearance in XCOM 2 and its DLCs, see this page.

All-Loving Hero: She's not only the Reclamation Agency's leader, it was her idea to found the unit in the first place, much to Central Officer Bradford's dismay. It takes an almost superhumanly big heart to not only hold zero grudges against any of the numerous alien races that made your life a living hell for over twenty years (as well as develop close friendships with them), but to also actively invite them to work together instead once they were free to choose their own path in life.
Ascended Extra: Rarely has an extra been so ascended. Formerly the entirely generic ranger you get handed for completing XCOM 2's tutorial, she not only received a backstory in the Tactical Legacy DLC, but is now one of the most important characters in the sequel.
Benevolent Boss: There's no doubt that she cares deeply for those under her command no matter their origin and race.
Big Good: She's the leader of a multi-species anti-terror unit attempting to keep the peace in what might well be mankind's most important experiment in post-War history.
Da Chief: As the Director of XCOM's Reclamation Agency, she's Chimera Squad's boss. All of the orders the squad follows come from her.
Earn Your Happy Ending: It was Jane Kelly who fired some of the opening shots of XCOM's war to retake Earth from the Elders. Not only did she survive the grueling campaign, but five years later she's settled in as the highly respected leader of a multi-species peacekeeping unit, away from the front lines but still hard at work protecting what she fought so hard to create.
Fair Cop: Nothing that happened to her during the war has changed anything about her good looks. In fact, with her new civilian dress code and haircut, Jane is looking better than ever.
Foil: To Bradford in XCOM2. Bradford's a bitter, borderline alcoholic old fighter who never got over the invasion and even 5 years later still carries a grudge about the occupation and the whole ordeal. Kelly meanwhile's looking to the future and building a new world. She's the one that pushed for the liberation of the imprisoned aliens and their inclusion in Chimera Squad. Kelly mentions that this isn't "the old days" anymore, while Bradford outright says it having been only 5 years since can't make it "the old days". Also Kelly prefers coffee to booze. Several of the archived conversations feature the two clashing over their differing point of views.
Letting Her Hair Down: She used to wear her hair in a short and practical ponytail during the war, but her new civilian job allows her to wear it longer and open instead, giving her a much more relaxed appearance.
Locked into Strangeness: She's developed a skunk stripe of grey in her hair in the five years since the events of XCOM 2, likely owing to the stress of the war and its aftermath.
Must Have Caffeine: If she isn't talking to her troops from behind her desk, she's nearly always shown standing up with a white coffee cup in hand.
Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Kelly is Irish, but speaks with an American accent.
Parental Substitute: Heavily implied to be a parent figure to Torque, whose past as a Child Soldier for ADVENT left her unable to cope with life outside of combat. In one conversation, Kelly encourages Torque to talk about her non-mission problems.
Kelly: Call me later, okay? I can talk and do paperwork at the same time.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Demonstrated as part of her Establishing Character Moment if the tutorial is played. Chimera Squad is concerned that she'll chew them out for failing to prevent the Mayor's assassination. Kelly instead points out that they actually did everything right; it was 31PD's responsibility to check their vehicles for bombs.
Saved by Canon: Although Jane was a Mauve Shirt and just as likely to die as any other XCOM operative in XCOM 2, Chimera Squad shows that canonically she survived and went on to become Legendary in the Sequel.
The Strategist: Working with The Commander has obviously rubbed off on her a little seeing as she's now leading the Reclamation Agency. One loading screen focusing around the formation of the Reclamation Agency and Chimera Squad shows her talking to Bradford, and she seems confident that the Commander will support her ideas as "the Commander's always seen the bigger picture".
BRADFORD: Aliens in your Agency? Jane, what are you thinking?
KELLY: What is our greatest existential threat?
BRADFORD: The Elders returning.
KELLY: If they do, who will we need to fight them off?
BRADFORD: Everyone. I get it, I've seen the projections. But do you really think the Commander will go for this?
KELLY: I think the Commander has always seen the bigger picture.
—transcript of Reclamation Working Group meeting, 2037-Aug-25

Whisper

Race: Human

Origin: Canada

Voiced by: Chris Parson

A local XCOM operative acting as the mission control for Chimera Squad.

Butt-Monkey: Generally gets picked on by Torque and Terminal, has to endure the puns Cherub makes, has his takeout eaten by others, and when he tried to do something nice for Axiom, stuff got broken.
Courteous Canadian: He's originally from Canada and, true to form, is nothing but nice and polite to the squad even with all the crap they put him through. His origin comes up in a conversation where Torque asks where his endless optimism (which she finds annoying) comes from. Whisper credits it to being Canadian.
Captain Obvious: A briefing he gives will mention he's not sure why The Progeny would be interested in this High Tech research center. Terminal points out that his answer is in his question, to which he reluctantly agrees.
Hoist by His Own Petard: He taught Cherub about puns, and now has to endure it whenever Cherub starts cracking puns.
Mission Control: His job for Chimera Squad.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Torque cops an attitude with everyone who isn't Kelly but has seemingly singled out Whisper for the worst of her abuse.

Chimera Squad

General Tropes

An experiment in joint human-alien operations, Chimera Squad was established by Jane Kelly as an elite rapid-response unit within the Reclamation Agency, tasked with aiding local-level police and peacekeeping forces against domestic threats such as terrorists and crime syndicates.

Awesome Personnel Carrier: Chimera Squad's main vehicle is a heavily-armored self-driving APC capable of high-speed response to emergency calls and is tough enough to bust a hole through the wall of an old skyscraper. It's also controlled by an ADVENT MEC's brain modified and repurposed by Lily Shen, and said AI doesn't seem to know what a brake is, judging by how it takes corners so fast the wheels leave the pavement.
Contrasting Sequel Main Character: In keeping with the past two games, this iteration of XCOM takes a new form. Rather than a shadowy global organization or a ragtag resistance movement, Chimera Squad is an 11-man counter-terrorist unit consisting of both humans and aliens working together.
Heel–Face Turn: The alien members of the group are formerly enemies to XCOM since the first invasion. Some already supported XCOM during the second war, but others continued to oppose them until XCOM emerged victorious. Now that the Elders are no longer controlling them, they work together with their former enemies in keeping the peace of City 31.
Hero with Bad Publicity: In the intro, alien residents of the city are suspicious of an offshoot of XCOM moving into town and some humans question Chimera Squad's use of Alien members. To make it worse the mayor that invited them into the city was murdered the day they arrived. This paints Chimera Squad as either complicit or incompetent in many peoples' eyes. As the game goes on and the squad completes more investigations and takes down more criminal groups, an inversion happens, where Chimera Squad is seen with better eyes than the city's own police department.
Meaningful Name: The Chimera was a hybrid mashup of lion, goat, and snake in Classical Mythology and is the scientific term for a properly formed animal that is the result of two embryos, possibly those of two different species, fusing together to create a single one. Chimera Squad is a team consisting of some of the best, drawn from the ranks of humans and aliens, and their insignia is an arrangement of a lion, a goat and a snake.
Mildly Military: Chimera Squad operates separately from City 31's police force. They are a branch of XCOM's Reclamation Agency, and XCOM itself began as a military organization. Whisper mentions that normal local criminals would fall beyond Chimera Squad purview, but as the situation in the city is volatile, and 31PD is requesting their aid, they will assist.
Old Soldier: Godmother, Axiom, and Claymore have been soldiers since the first invasion or the subsequent resistance.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Every member, including Whisper, are only known by their call-signs.
Pretentious Latin Motto: Diversis Viribus^note, illustrating the strange backgrounds of the squad's members.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The squad consist of six humans and five aliens working out of a railyard depot converted to headquarters, yet is bonded through thick and thin together.
Spanner in the Works: The Big Bad's plan relies on XCOM eventually stepping in with full military force to contain the chaos. They definitely weren't counting on XCOM bringing in a small low-profile force to fix the mess with minimum fuss instead of the loud, noisy and heavy-handed crackdown they were hoping for.
Super Cop: They're an elite police squadron consisting of superpowered aliens as well as humans equipped with advanced technology, psionic powers or simply skill and experience.

Axiom

"Crashing the party!"

Class: Breaker

Race: Muton

Age: 46

Origin: Shipborne

Voiced by: Chris Fries

"Surrender, or don't, I'm fine with either. Are you?"

A muton soldier and a veteran of the first war. He spent most of his time doing security, and after ADVENT's surrender, gained recognition for fighting Chryssalids and protecting humans.

The Berserker: Like all Mutons, he has anger issues, but he controls himself better than is stereotypical for his people. In gameplay, one can psyche him up for bonus attack power, but the more angry he is, the more likely it is he'll start attacking without orders. He refers to his fits of rage as part of his 'muscle memory' — in that it is something instinctual that comes to him from the time before the Elders infused their mutons with human DNA, back when their brains were mostly muscle.
The Big Guy: Being a Muton, he's essentially a humanoid battering ram, and he has the base HP to match.
Blood Knight: He's usually pretty mild-mannered, but specifically gets a rush out of combat. If you bring him along on the final mission, he'll cheerfully admit that he hasn't been this excited in weeks.
Cursed with Awesome: His berserk turns can activate out of turn, causing him to automatically move and attack after an enemy attacks him. While this can ruin positioning, it also means Axiom has a more-than-fair chance of severely damaging or even killing enemies unexpectedly.
Counter-Attack: His ultimate Training attack gives him the chance to ignore melee damage and immediately retaliate against anyone who tries, exactly like the Mutons of XCOM 2.
Dynamic Entry: Place Axiom in front of a door breach, and he will do his best muton roar, blow something away with a shotgun, and then be at the top of the turn order to rush straight into battle to smash things apart.
Graceful Loser: He fought in the war on the side of the invaders. When XCOM retook the Earth, he didn't hold a grudge, and even stepped in to save the very same humans taking him to a detention camp because, in his own words, "The war was over, and I was ready for what came next — no matter what that was." In fact, his "no hard feelings" attitude almost gets him in trouble with Godmother when he tries to compliment her on being one of the few survivors of a particular sortie.
Hair-Trigger Temper: He tries to keep it under wraps. Tries.
- When he arrives he gets furious that someone took the largest locker, and clears it out, violently. Only afterwards does he find the note Whisper left explaining that he took it specifically to save the spot for Axiom. He sheepishly apologizes and promises to replace what he can.
- He hunts his own food, and doesn't take kindly to others taking it. One wonders why they would.
The Juggernaut: Some of his branching skills focus on this: the ability to regenerate health between turns and a random chance to reduce incoming damage turn him into an incredibly tough customer. One of his training skills grants him extra armor and mobility, allowing Axiom to get up in people's faces faster and survive longer.
Leeroy Jenkins: If Axiom goes berserk, he will smash someone without being ordered to. This can come from building up too much rage, or sometimes just from using Smash.
Lightning Bruiser: Despite his massive frame, he's one of the more mobile members of your squad, and he's tied for the tankiest as well, which suits him nicely when he wants to run right up to an enemy and either unload full bore into their ranks with a shotgun, or just beat their faces in with his fists.
Meaningful Name: He's an old soldier with a lot of war stories, and can help out with translating idioms — in other words, axioms.
Mood-Swinger: He's very pleasant when he's not in combat or provoked into a pile of unbridled rage. The latter is surprisingly easy to do even by accident.
Non-Lethal K.O.: Downplayed with Smash. In keeping with the melee attacks in XCOM 2, there are rare cases it'll knock the target unconscious rather than kill them, but most of the time Axiom's fists are far from less-lethal.
Old Soldier: As a war veteran on the ADVENT side, Axiom knows a lot about alien culture and military logistics. During plot missions, he can come up with surprisingly detailed answers to odd or confusing questions about aliens — to him, he's just reciting an old war story. He is, in fact, the second oldest member of the team (after Godmother, who is older by two years), but his massively different experience "growing up" is highlighted several times.
One-Hit Kill: His Smash has a chance of inflicting various status ailments upon enemies. One of them is "unconscious," which, for your purposes, is as good as "dead" except you've captured them. This can proc on almost anything organic (but has a low base chance and a low chance overall, even when he reaches maximum Rage).
Punch-Clock Villain: He used to be one during the war; after the Resistance took down the Elder regime, he peacefully surrendered and wound up fighting alongside his former enemies during the Bugtown Massacre.
Regenerating Health: One of his possible upgrades is regenerating health, which is good when your main battle strategy involves getting in the face of enemies and drawing as much attention to yourself as possible.
Shockwave Stomp: Can slam the ground to damage nearby enemies. The skill Aftershock makes each Smash attack an area-of-effect shockwave.
Take Cover!: Part of his kit focuses on destroying enemy cover, exposing them for his squadmates.
Vocal Dissonance: As with other Mutons in this game, he has a surprisingly light and soft voice for his size.

Blueblood

"Boom!"

Class: Gunslinger

Race: Human

Age: 34

Origin: Eastern US

Voiced by: Todd Williams

"Do it the smart way. The hard way gets you killed."

From the United States, Blueblood is the son of a teacher and a third-generation police officer. During the occupation, he and his father moved to City 31, where he worked for his father's private detective agency, helping the underserved sections of the city, and secretly aided the Resistance from within the city before ADVENT was ousted by XCOM. After the war, he was one of the first to join 31PD, before eventually transferring to the Reclamation Agency with the blessing of the previous 31PD commissioner.

Ace Custom: The Lancer. His secondary gun. During breach it fires regular bullets that ignore cover. During encounters it can fire a big cover-piercing undodgeable beam like the Psiops' Null Ray from the last game. However both types of shots are unaffected by Tranq Rounds.
Armor-Piercing Attack: His special pistol can shoot straight through cover.
Bottomless Magazines: This is averted for the first time in modern XCOM games, where pistols usually had infinite ammo. This is probably a nerf to keep his Face-Off ability from being too powerful; he will stop firing at everything once he needs to reload. That said, his final training upgrade is "reloads don't cost an action point" so while his magazines may not be bottomless, they are endless. His personal locker has a personal stash of handgun ammunition, which indicates that he keeps his own stockpile for all his extra reloads.
Defector from Decadence: He and his family were afforded a relatively peaceful and privileged life under ADVENT's regime, but he nonetheless chose to oppose them by helping smuggle dissidents and resistance operatives out of the city.
Guns Akimbo: Averted, surprisingly. Yes, he has two pistols, yes he can fire two shots, but the second pistol is a special one he only whips out for special occasions.
The Gunslinger: His class, being able to fire off rapid shots with his Lancer pistol.
Heroic Lineage: His father was a cop, as were two previous generations of his father's family.
Lightning Bruiser: Despite being armed with the weakest weapon available (pistols only do 3-4 damage at basic levels, compared to shotguns which do 4-6), Blueblood has excellent health, good mobility, and his all-important Desperado ability, which lets him shoot twice if he forgoes moving. Needless to say, the ability to do 6-8 damage (in fact, more than that, since his Deadeye ability boosts damage by 50%) at the beginning of the game without upgrades is incredibly powerful, and he only gets better as he levels up. For maximum damage output, he's hard to beat: at max level, armed with one of the unique pistols, and equipping a superior extended magazine, he can attack as many as 10 times^note. No one on the Squad can dish out as much damage as Blueblood can.
Meaningful Name: On multiple levels. The color blue is often associated with the police, and Blueblood's family have been police officers for several generations, meaning it's in his blood. He also lived a relatively luxurious life as an upper-class resident of City 31 during the occupation - a sort of dystopian nobility.
More Dakka: Sometimes, you just need to shoot many times to solve a hairy situation, Blueblood is happy to oblige.
The Strategist: He combines his clever strategic mind with precision targeting to control the battlefield. His choice of weapon is because of this as well, in his own words: "The big, loud muton [with the shotgun] gets all the attention. Me? I pick off those who would do him harm."
Wave-Motion Gun: His Lancer Pistol, once he gets promoted, can unleash its true power: a Null Lance attack like the kind XCOM Psi Operatives used to be able to unleash. That thing can lay waste to several lined-up enemies and can be used more than once a mission (though it has a long cooldown).

Cherub

"Shielded from all angles!"

Class: Warden

Race: Hybrid (Clone)

Age: 5

Origin: Estonia

Voiced by: Rama Vallury

"I'm just happy to be here!"

While trained as an ADVENT soldier, Cherub had not yet undergone indoctrination when he was found by XCOM and captured. He was enlisted in XCOM once it became clear that he had no ADVENT sympathies.

The Baby of the Bunch: Cherub was still in the stasis tank went XCOM found him, making him at most 5 years old, the youngest member of the squad.
Barrier Warrior: Focused around protecting his allies for his niche.
Beehive Barrier: His Kinetic Shield skill lets him deploy hexagonal prism-shaped barriers onto allies.
Clone Angst: Is one of tens of thousands of clones of Bellus Mar, the leader of Sacred Coil, and angsts that the rest of the squad will see him differently due to this. Director Kelly reassures him by saying the only thing they share is DNA.
Damager, Healer, Tank: Cherub fits the classic tank role. His pistol does low damage, but he has abilities that let him draw aggro, shield allies from damage, and gives him extra durability.
Draw Aggro: His Phalanx ability means all enemies focus fire on him at a breach with the added bonus of blocking all of said damage and giving one charge point for each attack he absorbs.
Foil: To Zephyr, the other Hybrid on the squad. While Zephyr is a battle-hardened ADVENT soldier-turned-Skirmisher, Cherub came out of his cloning tank after the collapse of ADVENT's psionic network, meaning he missed out on the fighting and his indoctrination. Zephyr is a modified human, Cherub is a cloned hybrid. Finally, while they're both melee-oriented units, Zephyr is pure offense, while Cherub focuses on shielding himself and his allies to empower his attacks.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite carrying a shield, Cherub starts with 0 armor like all agents and not more HP than other agents like Godmother. The energy shield on his arm is mostly decorative except when he bashes or uses a special ability.
Good Counterpart: To Breakers.
Happily Adopted: Cherub is adopted by the two XCOM operatives who found him in his tube. They kept an eye on him as he was processed, and adopted him (Godmother signed the adoption papers as a witness). In fact, the two operatives are in a relationship because they both found Cherub.
Hoist by His Own Petard: His Guard ability allows him to count as half cover for allies. This however also works for enemies, who will gladly run adjacent to him, shoot him point blank, and then use him as cover from the rest of the team. Fortunately fixed in a patch: now Guard will wear off if he takes damage, though that can leave you in a tight situation.
I Meant to Do That: one of his quotes on a missed shot is "That was a warning shot!"
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He uses an energy shield as his signature weapon, and many abilities allow him to use it to mitigate damage for himself or other.
Meaningful Name: Cherubim are depicted as baby angels in modern pop culture. In older depictions they are portrayed as guardians of holy things such as the Garden of Eden. This guy is the baby of the group and also one of the most good-hearted, as well as in charge of protecting his teammates. They're also associated with Cupid, the god of love. Fittingly he's the reason his adoptive parents got together.
Sacrificial Lamb: A non-fatal version. As the most good-hearted member of the squad, he is scripted to suffer an incapacitating injury in the Justified Tutorial to both demonstrate the risks of Chimera Squad's work, and to teach the player about stabilising fallen teammates.
Shield Bash: His Charged Bash ability lets him strike enemies with his energy shield. It gets more powerful the more damage he's "absorbed" (through his active shield defense ability, or through Phalanx), to the point that it can down just about any non-elite enemy if he has full charge. In addition, having at least one charge gives his shield bash range.
Stone Wall: Not a lot of offensive options, but tons of defense. Cherub will keep you alive through troublesome boss encounters or large enemy groups.
- His Kinetic Shield ability will completely stone wall any one attack on himself or an ally, and also charge him up. This can make him the bait to a trap for a particularly troublesome enemy.
The Pollyanna: His primary benefit to the squad? He's just constantly nice and a delight to have around. He has a positive effect on his squad's morale.
Younger Than They Look: Despite his appearance, Cherub is actually about five years old.
Weak-Willed: His incredible defensive ability does not translate to a strong mind: he is very vulnerable to psionic attacks.
Will Not Tell a Lie: Cherub doesn't understand why communication has to be layered, he'd rather just tell things how they are so that he can get on with his life.

Claymore

"Shrapnel out!"

Class: Demo Expert

Race: Human

Age: 32

Origin: India

Voiced by: Kamal Khan

"There is never a red wire. I'm lucky if there are even wires."

A survivor of the original invasion, he was forced into a nomadic lifestyle with his parents. He spent the war making explosive devices for the resistance.

Action Dad: Though it's difficult to see in-game, a family photo he keeps above his shows that he has a wife and three children.
The Big Guy: He is definitely not a case of Muscles Are Meaningless, because he is ripped. In gameplay, his stats trend him towards durability too.
Close-Range Combatant: Both his shotgun and his thrown explosives have limited range, so he should usually be rushed into close combat first chance you get. His high durability only emphasized his tank status further.
Collateral Damage: He often jokes about it during briefing, or pipes up when Whisper asks the squad to be careful.
Claymore: Yes, yes... Keep structural damage to a minimum. You can all stop looking at me.
Damager, Healer, Tank: Similar to Axiom, Claymore hits a good balance between damage and tankiness, with enough staying power to draw fire away from his squad while he rushes in to deliver shotgun blasts and explosives at close range.
Demolitions Expert: He specializes in the use of explosives.
The Gadfly: It's a downplayed example, but Claymore is very well aware of the reputation that explosives and those who tend to use them have. He often says things that are completely in line with your average Mad Bomber only to immediately clarify that he's saying that exactly to get a response from his teammates as a joke. To wit:
- "Claymore, don't blow up the dam" - no, he never planned on blowing up the dam, he just said it preemptively because it gets said a lot with an explosives-using character around a dam, and he thought to get it out beforehand for efficiency's sake.
- "All I heard was 'throw explosives everywhere'" - Said with a big smile plastered across his face; he heard you loud and clear, he's just playing into stereotype.
- "I'll be careful where I throw my explosives" - He always is, that's the joke.
Gentle Giant: He's tall and powerfully built, but by far the gentlest soul in his squad, more so even than Cherub. His interactions with his buddies often make him come across as Chimera's Team Mom.
Grenade Spam: His loadout is oriented around explosives, and it's supported by all his perks. He starts off being able to throw normal shrapnel bombs, gets a later perk for a Sticky Bomb, one of his upgrade paths lets him regenerate any of the otherwise-single-use grenades between encounters, and his final perk lets him throw two shrapnel bombs per turn and modifies his stickies to not end the turn when used. In training he gets the ability to have 2 of each grenade he's equipped with.
Happily Married: If the aformentioned family photo is anything to go by.
The Heart: Claymore's profile describes him as putting parts together to make a greater whole, whether they're human or alien, it doesn't matter. They're talking about his explosives, but it could just as well describe his role in the squad off-the-field.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Claymore's "Sticky Grenade" skill allows him to throw a sticky grenade on any enemy he can see. The enemy will then run in a random direction before the grenade explodes at the end of their movement. This can cause them to run towards Claymore or other XCOM team member, causing them to be damaged by the grenade.
Nice Guy: Claymore cares deeply for the people around him. When he's first recruited, he reveals to have smuggled curry into the base from outside city 31, and that dinner is on him tonight.
- Subverted with Torque, who can often get him to trade insults with her because of her attitude.
Mad Bomber: HA HA HA—No, though you'd be forgiven for thinking that a Grenade Spamming demolitionist wouldn't be the sanest person around — and Claymore certainly gets some jokey mileage out of the fact that the stereotype is this trope — but he actually gives his explosives the respect necessary to employ them during combat in a squad as the rest of the tropes here will attest to.
Meaningful Name: His callsign is a hint towards his skill with explosives.
Mighty Glacier: He packs a lot of firepower, has higher base HP than other characters, and can get a training for a permanent point of armour, but he has the lowest mobility score of all characters.
Must Have Caffeine: Inverted, Claymore doesn't drink coffee. Verge notes that his mind is one of the calmest he has ever experienced, and it might be because of that.
Take Cover!: Like Axiom, he has terrain manipulation abilities to open up new options.
Taught by Experience: A self-taught demolitionist known for tinkering.
Trademark Favorite Food: Curry, he and Verge are trying every single curry place in town, something Verge is more than happy to do, especially considering that noodles are amongst the foods that aren't poisonous to sectoids.
The World Is Just Awesome: When asked how he remains so calm, he responds that he allows himself to love the world and the people around him.
Tranquil Fury: Claymore doesn't get 'angry' in the traditional sense, keeping his mind perpetually calm is probably part of why he's so effective with his explosives. That said, when Whisper describes the security detail in the penultimate mission having been "completely overwhelmed", his response makes it clear he doesn't plan on taking prisoners.
Claymore: Then let us return the favour.
Younger Than They Look: Claymore physically looks like the oldest member of the team. Yet he's the 3rd youngest human member at 32 years old (With only Terminal and Patchwork younger than him at 29).

Godmother

"Chimera squad trains for the unpredictable."

Class: Ranger

Race: Human

Age: 48

Origin: France

Voiced by: Mela Lee

"Of course my plan is 'by the book'. I wrote half the book."

A veteran, no-nonsense soldier, she is known as a bit of a perfectionist. She was an instructor before the alien invasion, and ended up leading part of the Resistance in the long years of the rule of ADVENT.

Always Accurate Attack: One of her special abilities allows her to land a guaranteed shot, by blowing three full shotgun blasts in a direction. This also completely destroys cover in an area around the target. "Ventilate" doesn't even cover half of it.
Badass Normal: No fancy alien biology; no psionic powers; no high-tech gadgetry; just a middle-aged woman with a shotgun. Not that this slows her down any; play her right and she can easily become the hardest-hitting member of the team.
Doesn't Trust Those Guys: She doesn't trust "leaders" since most surrendered early in the invasion. While she did lead bits of the Resistance afterwards, as her trailer notes, with the sort of experience she has, the old soldier could call herself anything she wanted.
Guest-Star Party Member: While it doesn't come up in the game itself, Godmother is technically only temporarily attached to Chimera Squad, to help them through their first deployment, rather than being a full-time member.
Last Chance Hitpoint: Her Last Stand ability saves her if she takes enough damage to start bleeding out, instead leaving her at one hitpoint and giving her a turn after the current turn.
Married to the Job: Subverted. When Cherub asks what she does to unwind, she says she has no idea what he's talking about - when he gets insistent, she eventually reveals that she likes to unwind by bluffing at cards, and she's constantly practicing against everyone.
Meaningful Name: She is the Team Mom, obviously, but she's also literally Cherub's godmother as she was the witness to his adoption papers.
More Dakka: Combine a Reflex Grip with her Alpha Strike ability, and she can fire up to three times in a single turn. If you throw in her "Overtime" ability, she can shoot five times in a single round, more than any other agent-if you take her final training skill, she'll automatically reload her shotgun every time she kills a target, meaning that you'll very rarely have to stop shooting to manually reload.
Older Than They Look: Though she doesn't look it, Godmother is the oldest human member of the team, at 48 years old.
Old Soldier: Her general attitude. Though while well trained and a perfectionist, she's prone to downplay her role in the war, as she mostly trained resistance groups, as opposed to being part of XCOM field teams.
Short-Range Shotgun: Generally played straight. However, her Ventilate ability lets her hit a target with an Always Accurate Attack, meaning that she can potentially snipe a hostile on the other end of the map so long as she has them within her field of vision.
Shotguns Are Just Better: Her weapon of choice. Early on she's your heaviest-hitting agent; equip her with tranq rounds and she can easily boost your intel income.
Team Mom:
- She takes this role, especially towards Terminal, constantly advising her.
- Blueblood outright says she reminds him of his mother, which she takes offense to until he makes it clear that it's not in an overbearing kind of way, but in her nature as a teacher.
The Leader: In cinematics she's portrayed as the Squad's field leader. In both the trailer, tutorial and ending cinematic Godmother is the one giving commands to the others such as getting ready to move or giving the order to breach. She will also sometimes do this in missions if you have her along.
When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Unlike virtually all other Chimera Squad members, she doesn't really have any gimmicks or special weapons. She has a shotgun and almost all her skills revolve around it, usually using it to blow away enemies or flushing them out of cover. This in no way changes the fact she's one of the most consistently effective squadmembers available, offering great synergy with almost anyone against almost any foe.
Wrote the Book: Her recruitment quote.
"Of course my plan is 'by-the-book.' I wrote half the book."

Patchwork

"Frying some circuits!"

Class: Operator

Race: Human

Age: 29

Origin: Mexico

Voiced by: Jeannie Tirado

"Don't worry, we can fix it."

A survivor of a brutal attack during the invasion, she was raised in an ADVENT orphanage and paraded by ADVENT as a show of their kindness after they gifted her with prosthetics. She rebelled and joined XCOM, during which she was transferred from the backend support team to field operations after losses sustained during an Avenger Defense battle. She was transferred to Chimera Squad on Lily Shen's recommendation after ADVENT was defeated.

Artificial Limbs: Both her legs and one of her arms are prosthetics made for her by ADVENT; the man who created them for her notably resembles a younger Tygan. The legs notably resemble the MEC Trooper limbs from XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
Attack Drone: Her GREMLIN is keyed for offense, unlike Terminal's, including an electrical Always Accurate Attack, robotic hacking, and trapping enemies in an impenetrable stasis field.
Chain Lightning: Her Chaining Jolt ability has her Gremlin zap an enemy which then jumps between nearby enemies.
Crutch Character: If you recruit her early on and take Sacred Coil as your first investiation, then her ability to instantaneously drop their mechanized hordes of Androids, MECs, and Turrets will probably carry you through huge chunks of their campaign... but once you take down Bellus Mar, Patchwork's raw combat power will drop noticeably, turning her into more of a support unit. Even so, many players consider her support ability to be extremely powerful, so she remains viable till the end.
Damsel out of Distress: While under ADVENT "protection," she engineered her own rescue by XCOM.
Hack Your Enemy: Her Reprogram ability allows her to take control of robotic enemies.
Handicapped Badass: She had three amputations and was given advanced prostheses as a sign of the aliens' "generosity."
Harmless Electrocution: Averted: Her shock drone deals lethal damage and cannot knock enemies unconscious. It can be upgraded to inflict various status ailments in addition to the damage, but none of those could be construed as "harmless."
Meaningful Name: She can patch together just about any random bit of tech and have it work flawlessly. Though a base convo with Terminal reveals that some have had some unfortunate misunderstandings about it relating to her prosthetics instead, and she wonders if she should perhaps get a different callsign. The two even have a conversation about trading callsigns.
Remember the New Guy?: Other than Kelly and maybe Whisper, Patchwork is the only member of Chimera Squad who was on the Avenger during XCOM 2, explicitly as one of the soldiers the Commander... commanded.
Shock and Awe: Many of her abilities have her manipulating electricity.
Techno Wizard: Her specialty is "TECH." Drones, hacking, and strategic electric shocks. She also has interest in other technological matters, leading her to take a more tech-friendly stance where others shun technology once abused by the Elders due to only remembering the horrors of the Avatar project.

Shelter

"Postponing the target"

Class: Psion

Race: Human

Age: 36

Origin: Chile

Voiced by: Mark Mercado

"I can't be your weapon. But I will be your shield."

A former psionic slave-soldier who managed to escape ADVENT. While he dislikes his psychic powers and eagerly awaits the day he can stop using them, he is willing to help the post-ADVENT provisional government keep the peace.

The Confidant: Shelter has read enough minds to the point where he can pick out on people's thoughts and emotions even without actually reading them, and in the base chatter he often assuages people of their worries - As he informs Blueblood; being happy that your loved ones died before the invasion and not having to live in the current, broken-but-rebuilding world, is a very common thought.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: Enemies will throw timed explosives at Shelter just like they will any other of your agents. If Shelter's turn on the Visual Initiative Queue is before the grenade explodes, he is easily capable of turning their own explosive against them via Relocate.
Lethal Joke Character: Combined with Magikarp Power: Shelter is a technical unit with a lot of abilities that require a little creativity from the player to make the full use of, not to mention that he starts with very little of his kit thus very weak early on. However, once you level him up to decent level and figure out how best to use his kit you can run circles around the enemy.
Self-Duplication: He can create a psionic clone that can buff and relocate people.
Ship Tease: It's all but outright stated he has a crush on Zephyr. It's unclear if she reciprocates, however.
Slave Mooks: One of the rare human examples. When he showed psionic potential, ADVENT snapped him up for their own use.
Smart People Play Chess: Implied in that he will occasionally refer to his psionic swap as 'castling', a move in chess which grants a number of benefits simply from being the only move that repositions two pieces in one move - exactly like his psionic swap. Shelter himself is also a psionic, so the brain power part of the trope is also in play.
Swap Teleportation: His Relocate ability psionically swaps his position with a targeted enemy or ally.
Technical Pacifist: Judging by the pained tone of his voice when Shelter says "I...stopped the target", he does not like killing opponents.
White Mage: A psionic based around supporting his teammates and relocating people compared to Verge's black.

Terminal

"Let's get your insides back inside."

Class: Medic

Race: Human

Age: 29

Origin: China

Voiced by: Jenny Yokobori

"If you die, everything in your locker is mine. Especially the embarrassing stuff."

An orphan adopted by a doctor, she was rescued by a resistance group after her town was wiped out a second time.

A-Team Firing: Her "Pin Down" ability has her fire off a long burst of suppressing fire over an enemy's head. Since Chimera Squad has a unit timeline unlike previous games, Pin Down has a different effect: it delays the enemy's next turn. It does no damage on its own, but it always works and can set up an enemy to be taken down by someone else.
The Anti-Nihilist: She's convinced she's going to get killed in the line of duty in five years, tops, so she may as well do as much good as she can while she can.
Broken Bird: She has experienced a lot of trauma in her life, and has no illusions about the casualty rate of her chosen profession. She's a borderline Death Seeker, to the point that she needed multiple psych evaluations before she was able to join Chimera Squad, despite excellent testing. She's not looking for a place to die, but she ultimately doesn't care if she does.
Combat Medic: Unsurprisingly. She is noted to be "as handy with a gun as she is with a MediKit."
Crutch Character: Terminal's ability to heal, stabilize and clear out damage over time effects for any ally, no matter where they are on the map once every turn, makes her particularly helpful to newer players. Combined with how she's a part of the default team if one plays the tutorial, and that the new encounter design all but guarantees some squad members will take damage, it makes having Terminal along very useful as her ability to easily dispense healing allows for tactical mistakes to be more forgiving. There's no need to manage medkit charges, and you can always be sure your squad members are within her reach. Her later abilities, such as healing everyone at her breach point in-between encounters, and her capstone ability which heals the entire squad at once, further this. True to the trope though, later in the game it can be advantageous to rely less on her. Her lack of offensive abilities means she doesn't bring much to the table to deal with tougher end game enemies - and enemies who aren't put down or disabled get to keep hurting the squad. Add that her Gremlin heal consumes an action and doesn't scale up (unlike medkits), which means if you're constantly using it she's either not attacking, or having to not move which can leave her vulnerable, or without a good line of fire on any enemies. Lastly as you research, items are made available to replicate some of her abilities such as squad healing at breaches or in the field healing.
- However, that being said, her Special Agent ability, Cooperation, is almost a Game-Breaker at times: the ability to give anyone on the squad one more action is decent at low-to-mid levels, but when you take into account high-level abilities such as Godmother's Overtime or Blueblood's Faceoff, as well as Epic Weapon abilities like Banish, Serial and Fanfire, Terminal becomes a force multiplier all on her own.
Damager, Healer, Tank: Healer. Terminal starts with an ability where she can heal someone every turn. And she gains further healing as she levels.
Deadpan Snarker: Most of Terminal's dialogue involves her snarking at someone.
Fangirl: Claims to be Floyd Tesseract's greatest fan when she finds out he's your VIP in a rescue mission. It's not done in snark either; she loves his show, to the point that Floyd has to half-jokingly remind her that he doesn't give autographs in a combat zone.
The Gadfly: She gleefully takes any opportunity to troll her teammates.
Patchwork: Do you think we should swap callsigns?
Terminal: To confuse everyone? I'm in!
Happily Adopted: Lost her family during the war and was taken in by a doctor... until she was killed by ADVENT.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: It's hard to see under all the snark, but she does care about her squad.
Not Afraid to Die: In one conversation at the base, Terminal remarks that she'll likely be killed in action within a few years, and intends to stay with XCOM anyway. A lot of her snark comes from the total acceptance that any day could be her last.
Sad Clown: She snarks and jokes almost constantly, but she's had a life full of trauma and is a fatalist at heart.
Trauma Conga Line: Lost her parents when she was just 4 years old during the initial invasion. Her uncle escaped with her to a camp where he then died of disease a year later. She was then adopted by a doctor who moved to a small town which years later was destroyed in an ADVENT punitive attack. In line with mental trauma, it was noted she had a severe shift in personality after these events.
- In the same conversation where she admits she is Not Afraid to Die, she also states she HAS to keep fighting to remain functional - "I'm no good if I stop."

Torque

"Putting the squeeze on."

Class: Inquisitor

Race: Viper

Age: 20

Origin: Siberia

Voiced by: Erica Lindbeck

"Quotes? Sure, Whisper. Can you quote this gesture? How about two?"

An ADVENT soldier who specialized in hunting down resistance groups. Unlike most of the aliens on Chimera Squad, she never fought against ADVENT, and simply switched sides after she was captured, eventually developing rapport with Jane Kelly. She was transferred from training OPFOR to Chimera Squad when her request was approved by Director Kelly. As she was hatched on Earth in the New Arctic region in 2020, she considers herself a native of Earth.

Air-Vent Passageway: As a Viper, Torque can use air vents and other small hard-to-reach passages as breach points, when other squad members need a specialized item to do it.
Ass Kicks You: Her Subdue animation forgoes the normal Pistol Whip, instead using her tail's powerful bulk to deliver a solid hipcheck.
Blood Knight: She has spent her entire life hunting and killing targets. After the war, she traded detainment for serving as OPFOR in training exercises so "[she could] still fight XCOM." As part of Chimera Squad, she delights in the combat, but complains about performing supportive actions like using Tongue Pull on a teammate.
Boxed Crook: Once she was captured, she obtained some measure of freedom by offering to train rookies against ADVENT tactics.
Bringing in the Expert: Her bio explains that she basically ran counterintelligence ops against the resistance, something not that far from Chimera Squad's efforts to root out terrorists in City 31.
Child Soldiers: Torque has been fighting since at least the age of 14 and was likely being trained for some time before that. While the rate at which Vipers mature is never clearly stated, her dialogue and behavior suggest that she's still in early adulthood and that she was, indeed, an adolescent during her service with ADVENT.
Cyborg: The back of her head and neck shield as well as parts of her tail have been equipped with segmented armor plates that appear to be grafted directly onto her scales.
Fire-Forged Friends: After being released from prison, Torque worked along with Jane Kelly for some time, forming a close bond with her. Kelly is the only person Torque trusts.
Flipping the Bird: Heavily implied to have done this to Whisper when she got annoyed with him wanting a personal quote.
Furry Reminder: Beyond all the usual snakey Viper attributes, it's implied Torque eats the rats infesting Chimera Squad's temporary base.
Good Is Not Nice: Her 'class' is Inquisitor, law enforcement agents typically don't use poison, and besides those, Torque's got quite the attitude on her. Even her introduction on adding her to your team has her verbally sparring with Whisper. That being said, in the rare moments that she talks to Director Kelly, she's damn nice to her, and admits that she's trying to be nicer to other people, but socialization is hard.
Hidden Depths: While difficult-to-impossible to make out in-game, the contents of her locker include some impressively-detailed sketches of animals (and one of Axiom) with messy but also impressive cursive handwriting and a self-help book about meditation.
I'm a Humanitarian: She claims to have eaten humans (with a particular preference for Canadians as "The maple flavored ones, great on the grill, Bacon of a sort"), though it's likely just her trying to get a rise out of Whisper.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- She's rude, bigoted towards space-born, and an extremely dirty fighter, but she's loyal and a large portion of her bigotry is due to the fact that the space-born invaded Earth.
- Some base conversations suggest that Torque's bad attitude is either an act or lack of self-control rather than actual malice. One dialogue has Torque admit to Jane Kelly that she's "having a rough time" socializing with the others in Chimera Squad. Kelly asks if Torque is still trying, and Torque admits that she is, despite the hardships.
- Her Ultimate Training Upgrade is a support action, where an ally tongue pulled by her gets an extra action.
Man Bites Man: Her ultimate ability is "Vicious Bite", where she'll just bite an adjacent enemy. Of course in this case Torque is a giant cobra person, so it hurts a lot and poisons the target.
Meaningful Name: "Torque" refers to rotational force. Fitting for someone who can coil around you and crush you to death.
Mouthy Kid: Torque is only barely an adult, and it shows when she opens her mouth. Her age is also a bit of a Continuity Nod: Torque is white, similar to the Neonate Vipers encountered in the Alien Rulers DLC of XCOM 2.
Noble Bigot with a Badge: In an ironic twist, towards other aliens, specifically those born offworld. She doesn't trust people who weren't born with the gene mods that make them more human and presentable (but rather were infused with them), which causes friction with Axiom and Verge.
Overly-Long Tongue: Like all vipers, Torque's tongue has the same effective range as her submachine gun, making it several times longer than her entire body.
Personal Space Invader: Much like the Vipers in previous games, Torque can constrict and crush most enemies. It always kills unless she releases the victim while still alive, but can be useful for shutting down a major threat.
Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Sovereign is mouthing off in the finale, Torque doesn't hesitate to interrupt with her trademark sass.
Torque: Sorry, I missed that. I was considering which of your arteries to open first.
Sincerity Mode: The only time she's not (metaphorically) spitting venom at everyone is her interactions with Jane Kelly, who she has a few sincere heart-to-hearts with.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Torque cops an attitude with everyone who isn't Kelly, but has seemingly singled out Whisper for the worst of her abuse.
Sour Supporter: She's loyal to Jane Kelly, not Chimera Squad or Reclamations as a whole, and her dialogue often hints at Torque being not particularly happy with her current employment situation. It's still a step up from being basically live target practice for XCOM recruits, but it sure feels like she'd rather go back to fighting humans instead of helping them... although conversations hint that this attitude is an act, or at least a shield. She admits to Kelly that she finds socializing with Chimera Squad very difficult, to which Kelly points out that she's still trying.
Super Spit: Per her race, she can hurl poison at enemies. One of her upgrades lets her do this during Breaching with 100% hit rate and benefitting from bonuses to standard breach fire, making her highly effective during a breach unless robots are in play.
Token Evil Teammate: She's rude, racist, and a Blood Knight, but loyal to Kelly and highly disciplined.
Trading Bars for Stripes: What her assignment to Chimera Squad amounts to. She went from being a willing, but tightly-leashed glorified target dummy for military cadets, to getting to fight for real as long as it's for the other side. She thinks enough of Kelly to make that compromise.
Ungrateful Bitch: Injured agents usually express their gratitude when one of their comrades heals them during combat. Healing Torque gets you a cranky "I didn't ask for your help!" instead.
Vocal Dissonance: Her voice is low but not nearly as deep as one might think looking at her, she's also completely absent of any Sssssnaketalk.
You Have Researched Breathing: It isn't until the final tier of her training that Torque learns to simply bite opponents with her fangs.
Younger Than They Look: Something of an inevitability given her alien appearance. One might assume that she's a fully-mature Viper, but she's only 20.
You Will Not Evade Me: Can use her tongue to reel in enemies.

Verge

"My mind over yours"

Class: Envoy

Race: Sectoid

Age: 40 (Estimated)

Origin: Shipborne

Voiced by: Matthew Yang King

"I have my mind's eye on you."

An offensive psion who disables enemies either by stunning them, turning them against one another, or lifting them out of cover. He was originally an ADVENT puppetmaster used to subvert human governments, but he began empathizing with the people he was fighting. He turned to the Resistance's side and began feeding them vital information.

Animals Hate Him: For some reason, any cat he comes across absolutely despises him. What makes this stand out is that he's the only Alien who causes such an extreme reaction from them: it's noted that all Sectoids were assigned cats to attempt to humanize them. Other Sectoids managed to make the cats friendly without using their psionic powers by learning empathy and hospitality. Verge gave up.
The Atoner: Despite the fact that his actions saved humanity even before he had his Heel–Face Turn^note, he doesn't see it that way - holding a very 'The Lesser of Two Evils is still evil', and looking back on his time in the Elders' service as an In-Universe invoked Old Shame.
Beauty Equals Goodness: Compared to the rest of his species, Verge has more prominent eyes and lips, making his facial features more human-like. It's mentioned that this is the result of a genetic treatment some Sectoids have opted to follow to appear more human-like after the war.
Berserk Button: Slavery in general.
- Upon finding Archon Control Collars in a contraband seizure mission, Verge will immediately get upset and insist on securing them post-haste. As he was one of the original generation Sectoid Commanders from the initial invasion, he'd no doubt be familiar with the means the Ethereals used to force the Floaters (and then later the Archons) to obey them.
- When Whisper mentions Sacred Coil has taken hostages and are using them as forced labor to make weapons, Verge replies with "Slavery. Call it for what it is. Slavery" in a much more harsh, angry tone than how he usually speaks.
Black Mage: His psionic abilities are mainly offensive and target his enemies compared to Shelter's more supportive skillset.
Breakout Mook Character: Sectoids have always been the Mascot Mook of the series, and Verge has the honor of being the cover character of the game, as well as one of the cooler starting party members.
The Cavalry: His Establishing Character Moment consists of him arriving just in time to neutralize a bunch of terrorists that were about to get the drop on his team mates, followed by a nonchalant "Clear."
Creepy Good: Verge is a sectoid mind controlling his opposition, and although he's firmly on the side of good, his teammates will occationally remark on how creepy his powers are. He likes to play this up for his own amusement.
Crutch Character: His Stupor and Battle Madness abilities are available right out the gate and are incredibly dependable for causing havoc among the enemy regardless of position. However, the abilities he unlocks as he ranks up don't scale very well, or require time to set up which he can ill afford before the enemy starts shooting back or the rest of his squad has already disposed of them. In the later game he evolves into...
- Difficult, but Awesome: His mid-game abilities remain subpar, but can set him up for greatness: Crowdsource gives him +5 aim and +10 critical chance for each enemy in the Neural Network, and Levitate combined with Slam basically lets him start every encounter with at least one Neural Network link. Because he can also use Stupor and Battle Madness to add two more enemies to the Neural Network on his first turn, by the time his second turn comes around, he has a +15 to Aim and +30 to critical chance. If he doesn't just decide to finish off his puppets with Mindflay, he can use Puppeteer to massively tilt the odds in Chimera Squad's favor for a turn, and if that's not the best option, he can reliably hit just about any enemy with his naturally high aim that's been boosted by the Neural Network. The only time Verge isn't useful is when you're facing high level Progeny missions, where the psionics boast a naturally high defense to Verge's tricks: if Verge misses one of his set ups, he's much less effective for the rest of the encounter.
Cutscene Power to the Max: A cutscene in the tutorial mission shows Verge instantaneously taking out two goons at the same time with his telekinesis. In the actual game, you'll have to level him up quite a bit before he gains the ability to levitate foes, and he'll only be able to do it to one target at a time.
Dub Name Change: To Virgil in French, because "Verge" is one of the numerous words for "penis".
Expy: His tall, lean build coupled with his unique speech patterns makes him resemble Mordin Solus.
Foreign Queasine:
- Zigzagged in that he finds butter to be absolutely delicious, but he's not too keen on how it's actually made.
- In general he's obsessed with human food and cooking, but Sectoids are lethally allergic to a lot of human food. He's willing to pay for half of Cherub's lunch just so he can mind read what it tastes like to him.
The Gadfly: He regularly trolls his human comrades by exploiting the fact that they don't really know what to make of him due to his psychic abilities.
Gone Horribly Right: As noted in his Agent Biography, the 'conversion' process seems to be what started his Heel–Face Turn, or was at least one of the supporting factors.
Hive Mind: Of a sort: anything he attacks psychically gets added to his "Neural Network." This basically gives him a backdoor into the brains of his enemies. Initially it boosts his aim, but it can be upgraded to do stuff like ensure networked enemies are rendered unconscious instead of killed when shot, or regenerating health for everyone he's linked to. (He remains linked to the aforementioned unconscious targets, so they keep buffing him). Later on he can Mind Flay everyone he's linked to or use a once-per-mission Puppeteer ability to control them all for a turn.
Humanity Is Infectious: He was supposed to mind-control high-ranking officials to convince the populace that the aliens had their best interests at heart. Such close, repeated mental contact slowly gave him empathy for humanity.
Meaningful Name: He's gotten enough gene mods that he looks halfway human, and enough human thoughts in his head that he's assimilated into human society with relative ease. So he's on the "verge" of both worlds.
Mind over Matter: One of his breaching options is using a little telekinesis on an enemy to sweep them off their feet and into the air for a second. This lifts them out of cover for someone else to shoot during breaching, but he can't do that during normal combat.
The Mole: He started feeding information to resistance groups when he could.
Mundane Utility: Telepathy and mind reading have their obvious uses, but Verge figured out that by simply being mind-linked to someone who is eating food he can't eat due to sectoid biology, he can get the same experience as though he was actually eating.
Mythology Gag: During his "Meet the Team" short, at one point he helps pull a human Resistance fighter onto his feet, striking the same pose as some of the ADVENT monuments◊ seen in XCOM 2, except unambiguously positive.
Noodle People: Being a Sectoid, he's incredibly lean despite towering over almost everyone.
Non-Standard Character Design: Uniquely has lips unlike other Sectoids seen so far.
Obsessed with Food: One can imagine that the Etherals didn't have a lot of variety, because Verge is up for trying just about anything that isn't poisonous to him, and even then he's more than willing to split the bill if the others will let him use his Telepathy to taste it by proxy.
Pragmatic Hero: Verge is a very pragmatic character. Didn't reach HQ in time to take Chimera's APC to the target with the rest of the squad? Simply hail a cab to get there on your own (Terminal has a field day with this one). Enemy in hard cover? Telekinetically lift them into the air for unobstructed target practice.
Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Promotional material often shows him doing this.
Series Mascot: In keeping with the iconic nature of sectoids across the franchise, Verge gets quite a bit of spotlight time; he notably has a good chunk of the speaking lines in the reveal trailer and is featured heavily on promotional art.
Signature Laugh: One "ha" and not any other kind of ha, just the ha of a completely normal laugh but singular.
Telepathy: Part of his psion package is the ability to sense other people's minds and even hear their thoughts if they're close enough. He doesn't seem able to turn it off, either, but it doesn't seem bother him.
Took a Level in Kindness: He started out as a relatively cold Sectoid Commander meant to ensure control over the Vichy government as it transitioned into ADVENT rule, but his constant exposure to human minds made him learn empathy and kindness, leading him to betray his masters and side with the Resistance.
Troll: He likes to play jokes on his teammates (and Whisper) based around the fact that most people don't understand psionics or by acting as if he's reading their minds even though he's not. For example when Whisper tries to do a comm check, Verge replies in a way that implies he only heard the check because he read Whisper's mind, even though he did not.
Weaksauce Weakness: Verge sometimes muses about the various food group allergies Sectoids like him have to take into account.

Zephyr

"Shattering!"

Class: Hellion

Race: Hybrid (Amalgam)

Age: 33

Origin: Australia

Voiced by: Miranda O'Hare

"Move fast or die slow."

Originally just another ADVENT soldier, then a Skirmisher fighting beside XCOM. She fights exclusively in melee.

Awesome Aussie: Evidence indicates before being turned into a hybrid she was Australian, though she was fourteen at the time. She certainly does have the Australian Accent to match though.
Bare-Fisted Monk: Uses her tech-enhanced martial arts in place of a gun. The main difference between her punching and Axiom's is hers is guaranteed to inflict a status ailment and she can then retreat (or choose to deflect, like the Templar unit), but has no gun whatsoever and no "rage" mechanic.
Close-Range Combatant: She just pummels enemies with her bare hands.
Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Zephyr ran into the Now What? problem after successfully overthrowing ADVENT, and joined up with Chimera Squad to have a purpose again.
Does Not Like Guns: Zephyr has many class similarities to the Templars in War of the Chosen, but unlike them has no backup SMG. Even during Breaching, her action is sprinting to an enemy to punch them.
Human Weapon: Her profile calls her a "living weapon." The squad points her at the enemy, and then the enemy is no longer a problem.
La Résistance: As a Skirmisher, she was one of the few aliens fighting against ADVENT before the end.
Magikarp Power: Zephyr is hit by this so much worse than Blueblood above. First of all, she starts with the same 3-4 damage he does. But unlike him, she needs to be in melee to attack, and doesn't start with the ability to attack multiple times per turn. Second, early in the game during breach she's a liability. Her attacks in Breach mode happen after any aggressive enemy. Meaning you can't use her to reduce the initial gunfire the squad takes. It also doesn't trigger her momentum or parry ability, which means that combined with her low damage, it's not unlikely she's left defenseless next to a very much live enemy or way ahead of the rest of the squad where enemies can easily flank her. It also doesn't apply a debuff the way crippling blows does. So for most breaches she's better used just running for cover rather than trying to attack. Lastly her lack of a gun means she also does not have the option to use Overwatch. Later in the game Zephyr grows into a powerhouse, gaining the ability to up her base damage, and attack several enemies in a turn. Later still she also gains the ability to ignore armor altogether, which effectively gives her damage a gigantic boost.
Mechanically Unusual Class: Zephyr's lack of ranged weapons means she plays very differently from the other characters. She lacks the ability to shoot during a breach, cannot do overwatch, and also cannot any equip mods or special ammunition. During breach she can perform a charge attack, which while 100% accurate, occurs after any enemy attacks. Her regular attacks inflict random debuffs, and obviously she never needs to reload. She is also by default immune to weapon malfunction and rooting effects, including those of breach points.
Meaningful Name: A zephyr is a wind spirit, and this probably reflects how she sprints around the battlefield at high speed to punch and kick her enemies.
That Man Is Dead: Zephyr doesn't identify with the girl she was before she was turned hybrid, but she WANTS to know who she was - after all she's not human, and the skirmishers are disproportionately filled liberated clones now, so she has no real place to call home as her current self, and thus she believes she can't have a future either without knowing who she was. Claymore disagrees.
Was Once a Man: According to her bio video, Zephyr isn't a clone like most Hybrid, but was human once.

Androids

Androids that resemble scaled-down SPARKs from XCOM 2 that can be built to replace downed members of the team. Where most of the Agents dislike these robots, Patchwork is fond of them and treats them as her robot buddies.

Can't Catch Up: Androids are specifically intended to serves as emergency backup in case something goes wrong. They have a disproportionally large number of upgrades and components you can research to keep them somewhat useful, but even with the best upgrades installed they just can't rival decently leveled organic Chimera agents, and spending time and resources upgrading them means not spending them on the team.
Good Counterpart: Like the SPARK robots were to ADVENT MECs, they are this to Sacred Coil's own androids.
Mecha-Mooks: They're good for filling holes in your lineup when an agent is in the infirmary, but lack the unique abilities of their biological counterparts. Instead, there are various field upgrades you can slot into them to grant them bonuses that can help them keep up with your agents.
No-Sell: For all their shortcomings they are mechanical units which means they are immune to fire, poison and psychic effects. In fact Purifiers are unable to damage them at all as they resist both flamethrowers and incendiary grenades.

City 31

Mayor Nightingale

Race: Hybrid (Amalgam)

Voiced by: Nika Futterman

The hybrid mayor of City 31. She is the one who invited XCOM's Chimera Squad in town. She was kidnapped and murdered the day the Squad arrived, sparking chaos in the city.

Crazy-Prepared: She has a panic room installed in city hall, adjoining the council room. While it does her little good, it saves the life of Deputy Mayor Parata, who had supported the installation.
Plot-Triggering Death: Her murder kicks off the game's plot, with most everything you do being a step towards finding out who had her killed, and why.
Sacrificial Lamb: A beloved figure whose murder at the beginning of the story kicks off the plot.
Small Role, Big Impact: No matter what you do at the prologue mission, Nightingale perishes before she's transported to safety. The way she perishes also sparks off the first investigation.
Universally Beloved Leader: Criminal groups aside, she was very popular and Director Kelly makes it clear that finding out who killed her is of the utmost priority as everyone in town wants to see her avenged.
Was Once a Man: An archive recording mentions that Mayor Nightingale was a human architect before the ADVENT occupation, where she was turned into a Hybrid and became a Propaganda officer.

Commissioner Halia Maloof

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/comissioner.jpg

Race: Human

Voiced by: Sarah Anne Williams

The Commissioner of the City 31 Police Department. She supported the Mayor's decision to call the squad in for assistance, and requests Chimera Squad's aid in certain missions that her officers aren't equipped to handle.

Deadpan Snarker: She can dish it out, especially with Blueblood, who formerly worked directly under her.
Maloof: "Blueblood" is it now? Couldn't hack it in 31PD so you had to fail upward?
Jurisdiction Friction: Averted. Before she appears, Whisper splits a few hairs to justify deploying Chimera Squad on what's nominally police business. As soon as Maloof makes contact she clarifies 31PD is stretched to breaking point and they're too busy being grateful for the help to get upset about who should be taking credit for what.
Quest Giver: She offers Chimera Squad missions that typically involve high-profile crimes her officers can't handle, like terrorist attacks and hostage situations.
Vetinari Job Security: She's eager to employ Chimera Squad, and willing to take the flak City Council throws at them, because the City Council can't afford to fire her. In her own words, she doesn't care about the politics.
- Subverted during the Progeny investigation. Her suggestion of a Mandatory Psionic Registration List causes such backlash and unrest 31PD is hauled in front of City Council for review. She thankfully avoids any consequences due to Chimera Squad disbanding the Progeny after, causing the entire plan to be cancelled with the subsequent decrease in Psionic incidents.

Xug

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/xug.jpg

Race: Viper

Voiced by: Kat Cressida

The leader of the Viper's Den, a quasi-legal bazaar for scavengers selling equipment salvaged from old battlefields. She offers Chimera Squad periodic access to her top merchandise and tip-offs about the city's various crime groups in exchange for protection for her and her associates.

Friend in the Black Market: Serves as this for Chimera Squad, giving them direct access to her salvage so they can skip the long bureaucratic process that salvage normally has to go through.
Quest Giver: She offers Chimera Squad missions that involve locating and/or protecting informants from her organization.
Vocal Dissonance: Like many of the aliens in the game, Xug suffers from this pretty hard, being a shady and intimidating-looking snake creature with the voice of an ordinary-sounding young woman.

Floyd Tesseract

Race: Sectoid

Voiced by: Kliff VandenHeuvel

A sectoid Conspiracy Theorist who hosts the radio show You Should Have Believed, ranting about the dangers of authority and encouraging his listeners to suspect everyone, including him.

The Atoner: Beneath all the self-aggrandizement and paranoid ranting, his motivation for hosting his show and spreading his message seems to be genuine regret for helping the Elders subjugate other species and a desire to prevent anything similar from happening again. He is completely up-front about how he was part of the empire that destroyed the Earth, but instead of offering mere apologies, he says now his job is to make sure everyone questions authority so it doesn't happen again.
Chekhov's Gunman: The paranoid alien conspiracy theorist you hear ranting in the opening and between missions? He turns out to be a potential major lead in the investigation against Sacred Coil, having picked up on their activities and located a number of their hideouts if you followed the right path.
Conspiracy Theorist: His show is about his various conspiracy theories like claims that some of the floaters from Enemy Unknown are pulling strings from the shadows.
FLOYD TESSERACT: What is IFC, anyway? International Food Corporation? Intergalactic Fashion Conglomerate? I'll tell you what it really stands for: the Invisible Floater Conspiracy. Ever wonder what happened those Vertical Take-Off and Murder machines? You heard the Elders turned all the floaters into archons. Sure, some. But the rest are pulling strings we won't see until it's too late. Keep your eyes on the skies...
—You Should Have Believed, 2040-Feb-29
Disobey This Message: Tries to get his listeners to understand that no anonymous voice on the radio is ever a completely trustworthy source, himself included.
Irony: When you find him, he'll chime in that he always knew XCOM would come for him - though not as friends.
The Load: Considering the last DJ you rescued in XCOM 2's Tactical Legacy Pack, and how Floyd hits many of the same character notes of being a loudmouth on the radio, and with him being the subject of an Escort Mission, you'd expect this to come into play. Nope! Floyd is completely on board with what being a Chimera Squad VIP means.
Floyd: I know the drill, I devised the drill! Head down, follow orders, keep living.
Properly Paranoid: He's not wrong about how easily psionics can turn people into unwilling moles - hell, he did it himself during the invasion, a fact he openly admits to. He's also the first to notice that Sacred Coil is kidnapping humans en masse, and manages to piece together the locations of the victims faster than the actual authorities.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: He and Verge have known each other since before the invasion, apparently. Each makes fun of the other's new name should they encounter each other, and they seemingly can't stand each other.
Stop Worshipping Me: In an earlier broadcast, he says "The voice on the radio is never your friend!" Later on he clarifies "Surely, you're thinking, I didn't include myself? NO! When someone is telling you to think, they're also telling you what to think. Watch for that."
Story Branching: As with the campaign as a whole, you may simply never get the mission involving him depending on the route(s) you follow.

City Council

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/deputymayor.jpg

Deputy Mayor Parata

Race: Mixed

What is a City without a City Council to squabble over minutiae and hold endless meetings? City 31 is no exception.

Minor Major Character: You'd expect the City Council to play more of a role in things, but Parata and Vorthu have only minimal speaking appearances, mostly in Channel 37 news updates. We only learn the name of the Council Treasurer through a printout of an article on one of the squad lockers, and judging by another comment that leaves another six councilors unnamed and unknown.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In one debrief, Vorthu notes that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor rarely agree on anything. When they do? He takes that as a sign that the matter at hand is dead serious, and is willing to support them without question - even if he doesn't necessarily understand all of the details.
Prevent the War: Their main interest is keeping the City from collapsing into internal strife after the Mayor's assassination.
Reasonable Authority Figure: In as much as they don't get in your way or issue frustrating mandates that Chimera Squad has to work around. Maloof might be responsible for this though.
Right-Hand Cat: Treasurer Velmclov is shown holding one on the printout - presumably it's his Government Assigned Cat.
The Rival: Zig-zagged. Parata ran against Nightingale in the last election and lost, and he's always opposed her at city meetings. There's a bit of a subversion of expectation in that when Parata does become Deputy Mayor following Nightingale's death, he doesn't actually reverse any of her policies, though Vorthu notes that when Parata and Nightingale do agree on something, it's worth paying attention to.

Crime Organisations

Gray Phoenix

In General

Agenda: Financial gain and expansion of operations, exodus of alien dissidents.

A Muton-led gang of alien scavengers who have access to the kinds of equipment that would've made the Mayor's assassination possible, which is also the kind of equipment Reclamation wants off the streets.

Alas, Poor Villain: Although Sacred Coil and the Progeny are fairly reprehensible, the Gray Phoenix's only motive is to leave a planet they consider a blood-soaked prison. As soon as this becomes impossible, depending on what order you investigate the groups in, their leader either mournfully tells her troops to surrender, or she walks straight into a furnace to prevent a catastrophe.
Ambiguous Syntax: They're responsible for some alien abductions - that is, they're abducting aliens. They're not, actually; they're protecting the 'abductees', who are likely just ghosting on their families and jobs to join the movement in the hopes of escaping the unstable conditions in the city.
Disaster Scavengers: Their business is the theft of alien armaments to sell on the black market. 31PD is well aware of the fact they're smuggling weapons in through the river, but it's not until they pull in a particularly large shipment that Chimera Squad gets called in to tackle it.
Gangbangers: They're a Muton version of a highly organized and well-equipped street gang.
The Generic Guy: In comparison to the supremacist Progeny and the Sacred Coil Remnant, Grey Phoenix appears to be nothing more than a powerful street gang. In fact, the motive to investigate them is not to discover how they could have assassinated the mayor, but why, because Gray Phoenix is one of the few criminal organizations with the resources to pull it off and so are suspects by default, but has no apparent political agenda to motivate them.
Genius Bruiser: The most technically focused and Gadgeteer Genius gang, and is mostly made of Mutons.
Hidden Depths: While they are at first appearance an ordinary criminal outfit, it's eventually revealed that they're a secret movement of homesick aliens who feel they can't adapt to human society, trying to escape to their homeworld by any means necessary.
Noble Demon: They don't wish any harm on humanity as a whole, simply wanting to return to their homeworld by any means necessary. They ultimately surrender peacefully after their plan is thwarted, with Kelly noting that this and their sympathetic motive may earn them some leniency from the courts.
Spanner in the Works: Mayor Nightingale's assassination ultimately turns out to be the spanner in their works, not their own doing - Chimera Squad's arrival is not what they wanted. They planned for a quieter exit, but her untimely demise forces them to fast track their operations: they're (rightfully) worried that violence will spiral out of control, and they want out before that happens.
Story Branching:
- Take them as your first target and they never get a ship off the ground. Xel orders the remaining Phoenix members to stand down to minimize bloodshed.
- Take them down as your second target, and they get three ships in the air, but none with the command module to organize the exodus. Xel still orders the remaining Phoenix members to stand down.
- Go after them last, and they get onto an "ark" ship equipped with a highly-destructive plasma excavator, prompting Chimera Squad to board the vessel. When Crew Chief Yarvo is downed, the ship is in danger of going out of control and devastating City 31, and Custodian Xel works with Chimera Squad and sacrifices herself to shut down the excavator. Having come so far, Grey Phoenix's mooks refuse to stand down and fight to the last.
You Can't Go Home Again: Their ultimate motivation turns out to be stealing ships from City 31's closed-down starport so that they can find somewhere else to live.

Xel and Yarvo

Grey Phoenix's leadership, made up of a muton engineer and a muton Praetorian

And Call Him "George": Played for Drama. The text records reveal that Yarvo actually killed at least two cats issued to try to help mutons to properly learn and express empathy, but that this wasn't malicious and it frustrated him that he couldn't "fix it" afterwards; this convinced him that he and the Mutons were fundamentally different from humans and could never fit into human society, while resenting the pressure to conform to human social and societal norms.
Heroic Sacrifice: Xel will perform one to shut down the Starport Extractor and stop a UFO launch if Grey Phoenix are saved for last, though she's not happy about it. She doesn't reveal it's a one-way walk until just before she does it.
Whisper: I don't know if we can put a good word in for you after all this, but...
Xel: It won't matter once I enter the furnace. For me, this is a one-way trip.
Whisper: Oh. Oh...
Know When to Fold 'Em: When Yarvo is beaten at the end of their story arc, Xel orders the other troops to stand down, realizing there can be no victory. She's very bitter about it though. This is averted if the player saves Grey Phoenix for last, as the remaining members of Grey Phoenix refuse Xel's order to stand down, forcing Chimera Squad into one more fight before the mission ends.
Meaningful Name: Xel translates roughly into "Safe Journey", and Yarvo translates into something like "Newly Forged" — both hint at them wanting to provide a safe journey home, and how they intend to do so by reforging and repairing old UFOs.
Only Known by Their Nickname: If Axiom is in your squad, he'll reveal that their names are "ship dialect" in the Muton tongue, and are probably not their true names.
Poor Communication Kills: When Chimera Squad assaults the plasma drill ship, Xel contacts them over the radio to give them one last chance to turn back before Grey Phoenix departs on the ship, but she ends the transmission before explaining why Grey Phoenix wants the ship.

Praetorian

Mutons equipped with armor-generating tech and pistols.

Always Accurate Attack: 'Duel' allows them to single out a target. From that moment on, anything the Praetorian throws at the target will hit, but so will anything the target throws at the Praetorian.
Gathering Steam: Praetorians start out like big chunks of health with a few tricks up their sleeve, but one particular trick has them gain armor, which lasts a single turn, for every injury they take, making it very hard if not impossible to kill them before they can retaliate.

The Progeny

In General

Agenda: Forced relocation of all non-psionics and aliens from City 31.

An organization of human psychics, advocating that the city should become a sanctuary for human psions. Their anti-hybrid stance and vast resources and means could make them sponsor the mayor's assassination.

Brainwashed and Crazy: Their Mooks, Thralls, are hybrids who have been turned into mindless followers of the psychics in the group through mental reprogramming. The process can't be reversed in the field, so you have no choice but to put them down, lethally or not. Some post-mission text implies that they can be 'deprogrammed', but it's no doubt a delicate affair as it seems to be Mind Control on steroids. Much same is implied with their Muton Brutes and Sectoid Resonant members.
Cast from Hit Points: Progeny Resonants can expend 2 of their own health in order to restore 4 health to an ally.
Cult: While the Sacred Coil is an actual religion, the Progeny troops actually treat their leader like a goddess, regularly invoking her in their taunts.
Defeat Equals Explosion: Late game, Resonants may unleash a relatively small psionic explosion when killed or knocked out. If your agents are caught in this blast, they may panic and be uncontrollable for a couple of turns.
Fantastic Racism: They're a human supremacist organization with a particular loathing for hybrids.
Madness Mantra: Their members constantly reference and quote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in between praises to their leader. With Shelter in your squad, you can learn that this is because the poem was their leader's personal Madness Mantra during ADVENT's psionic experimentation on her.
Mass Super-Empowering Event: Their ultimate goal is the construction and activation of a psionic amplifier to induce psionic abilities in every human in City 31. They're stopped before they can activate the thing, and post-battle analysis reveals that it would have killed anyone with psionic potential instead. In other words, it would've done the exact opposite of what the Progeny wanted. And probably killed most of the Progeny in the City in the process.
Politically Incorrect Villain: They advocate sanctuary for human psions only, and despise hybrids to the point where the assassination of a hybrid mayor is taken as its own motive for the group. In addition, they have no problem brainwashing hybrids into Thralls and using them as Human Shields.
Slave Mooks: The aforementioned Thralls, mind-controlled hybrid soldiers. They also have some other species implied to be under their control as well, like Sectoids (that are notably of a different class than the ones found in other forces).
Status Buff: Aside from healing allies, Resonants can also use Psi Domain to grant other Progeny psions improved damage with their psi abilities. This can be quite nasty given that the damaging psi abilities are all guaranteed to hit their target.
Story Branching: Take them down first, and Violet will be dismayed that her plans are being foiled before she's had the chance to "light the torch." Save them for last, and Whisper will know something big is going on, because one of the city's skyscrapers is glowing with psionic energy, and he can see it from Chimera Squad's base.

Violet

Voiced by: Faye Mata

The leader of the Progeny, a former ADVENT test subject for induction of psionic abilities in humans.

Ax-Crazy: Her face is mostly fixed in a Slasher Smile, she speaks incoherently and her master plan is insane.
Blasphemous Boast: "Behold, for gods and men cast the selfsame shadow!"
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Her mind has been twisted to the point where she regards the awakening of psionics as a gift despite the pain she suffered while receiving it.
Deflector Shields: Her lair contains several shield generators that all focus on her, giving her significant recharging protection unless you take out the generators first. If the Progeny stronghold is the last one you tackle, she'll have up to six generators, almost doubling her HP.
Delinquent Hair: Wears a lopsided undercut.
Final Boss: Of the Progeny investigation.
Freudian Excuse: Abducted as a child and tormented by ghastly experiments to awaken her psionic powers. Unlike Shelter, she never got the help she needed or found a better purpose, leaving her broken and insane.
King Mook: She's a somewhat stronger Sorceress.
One Degree of Separation: She and Shelter were part of the same batch of test subjects. Having him in the squad lets him provide additional details about her.
Tattooed Crook: She's a heavily tattooed antagonist to Chimera Squad.

Sorcerer

Human psions primarily working for The Progeny. They have a wide range of psionic ability to empower allies and surprise enemies.

Amazon Brigade: The Progeny's sorcerers are actually all sorceresses, most likely as an homage to their female leader, who's one herself.
Attack Reflector: They can reflect damage dealt by an adjacent attacker.
Elite Mook: They nave noticeably higher HP than most mooks, and several dangerous ability. Capturing one alive earns the achievement "Bottled Lightning".
Kamehame Hadoken: One of their main damaging attacks is the Null Lance from 2 - and they won't hesitate to use it if you position your agents carelessly.
No-Sell:
- They are highly resistant to stun, and Deflection lets them negate damage dealt to them.
- If the Progeny is tackled last, their Sorcerers will now be immune to mental effects like Distracted, negating the effects of Flash Bang, who usually deny all psionic enemies their abilities.
Psychic Link: Their bread and butter. On their turns, Progeny Thralls can use Subservience to link themselves to a Sorcerer - which redirects damage dealt to her over to the thrall instead, almost like a Human Shield. The connection is indicated via a glowing reddish-purple strand. Sorcerers can also use Tyranny, which allows another Progeny to immediately take an action.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: They're basically reskinned Elder Avatars with slightly lower staying power and even more nasty tricks up their sleeves.
Teleport Spam: They can teleport anywhere on the map.

Sacred Coil

In General

Agenda: Restoration of the ADVENT regime, veneration of the Elders.

A cult of Hybrids promising enlightenment and exaltation to those who oppose XCOM. Their access to ADVENT technology, and their natural opposition to XCOM make them a likely candidate for having ordered the assassination of the mayor who invited XCOM into town.

Achilles' Heel: Their reliance on androids and turrets means that Patchwork will shred them.
Fantastic Racism: Acting as a foil to the Progeny, Sacred Coil is an anti-human organization of former ADVENT hybrids. Their official pamphlets refer to outsiders as "the Insolent Beasts."
Hoist by Their Own Petard: Their ultimate goal is the reactivation of an Elder psionic gateway to overrun City 31 with alien reinforcements. They succeed (briefly), but the first thing that pops out of the gateway is an Ax-Crazy Gatekeeper that was stuck in the portal network ever since the war ended, and which immediately proceeds to zombify anything it can reach, the Sacred Coil's wounded and dead included.
Knight Templar: They combine ADVENT's militarism and general fascist bent with religious fanaticism rooted in their worship of the Elders.
Mecha-Mooks: They make heavy use of robotic units, starting with the same androids the player can field and escalating from there. Half of Reclamation's anti-Coil campaign is about identifying and shutting down their sources of mechanized combat units.
Opportunistic Bastard:
- One of the focuses the investigation into them takes is a wasting disease nicknamed "The Fade", which only affects Hybrids. The Sacred Coil pounces on this by forming a pirate broadcast front called "The Bonded Stair" that, in order to drum up more recruits, preaches a return to the ADVENT days, anti-human rhetoric, and conspiracy theories that a local human biotech company intentionally created the virus and that they have a cure to it.
- Investigating their Andromedon connection reveals they simply took advantage of an unrelated political rift amongst the Andromedons themselves to persuade a few to cause chaos, rather than really offering them anything.
The Remnant: The Sacred Coil is a religious sect formed by former ADVENT personnel and other aliens, who promise salvation to those who oppose XCOM. To hammer this in they utilize androids, and later salvaged MECs, to emulate ADVENT's mechanized support. Their final mission even brings another remnant into play: a Gatekeeper that was stuck in the Elders' psionic gateway network ever since it went down five years prior. Unlike the war-era Gatekeepers and their shiny white armor, this one looks heavily worn and corroded, which all but proves that time passes at least as quickly in portal limbo as it does in the physical world. Unsurprisingly, the thing has gone completely bonkers and starts converting the Sacred Coil's dead and injured into zombies the first chance it gets.
Still Wearing the Old Colors: They use old ADVENT colors as their trademark.

Bellus Mar

Sacred Coil's leader and the foundation for thousand of ADVENT commander clones. Fanatically loyal to the elders and their vision.

Et Tu, Brute?: He is utterly flummuxed by the fact that the Gatekeeper he summons has went mad rather that follow him as it did the Elders.
Evil Twin: Mar was an ADVENT hybrid template used to create thousands of clones, including Cherub. The fact they're genetically identical doesn't mean they're anything alike personally.
The Evils of Free Will: Espouses very authoritarian beliefs, being almost an expy of the Chosen Warlock for his belief in the Elders' vision.
Fantastic Racism: Assuming that Sacred Coil's propaganda station, the 'Bonded Stair' holds his views, he really does not have a high opinion of Puny Earthlings, viewing their victory in the war as being equivalent to "animals running the zoo."
Undying Loyalty: ADVENT's days might be over, but Bellus Mar is still convinced the 'New World' controlled by the Elders and ADVENT was far better than what he sees as the 'Old World' resurgeant.

Android

Androids that have been salvaged by Sacred Coil for their own purposes.

Action Bomb: Their self destruct ability causes them to explode to do significant area-of-effect damage.

Ronin

Melee insurgents that are dangerous in the enclosed, close-quarters Chimera Squad often finds itself in.

Blade Below the Shoulder: Their only weapons are two retractable, electrified, wicked-looking blades mounted to the outside of their forearms.
Close-Range Combatant: They can only engage in melee, but their huge movement range rarely makes this an actual problem for them.
Dual Wielding: Ronin fight with two electrified arm blades.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: "Blitz Tempo" means Ronin can take a lot of actions each turn, but like the Alien Rulers from XCOM 2, that also means that if you slap a Damage Over Time effect on them at the start of an engagement, they'll be taking a lot of damage each turn, too.
Lightning Bruiser: The Ronin is a fast moving melee-focused unit that fights much like a non-psionic Templar with the Chosen Assassin's Bending Reed ability.
Ninja: They're what you get when ADVENT loyalists watch too many ninja action movies. The fact that ADVENT already had a supremely dangerous melee unit in their ranks (Lancers) makes the sudden appearance of the Ronin somewhat strange.
No-Sell: They have the Lightning Reflexes ability that lets them ignore the first reaction shot they trigger, making them particularly annoying to deal with when they appear as reinforcements who trip your overwatch killzones to no effect.
Super-Speed: Blitz Tempo, which lets them take a turn more than once per round.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: As mentioned above, Ronin are essentially the Chosen Assassin and the Templars rolled into one, with all the suck that implies.

Spoiler Faction

In General

Shrike

Agenda: Staging of terror attacks using the other three factions as proxies, to provoke authoritarian policy changes in XCOM.

A former hardliner cell of XCOM's resistance turned vicious paramilitary group, disillusioned by the organization's peaceful post-war policies. It was they who masterminded the assassination of Nightingale, in the hopes of causing a crisis that would force XCOM to take military control. They frequently show up as backup for the other factions under the pretext of being mercenaries, and ultimately lead the final siege against Chimera Squad in a last-ditch attempt to derail the Reclamation Agency's progress in City 31.

Bullying a Dragon: They intend on taking on Chimera Squad, and by association the Reclamation Agency as a whole, and by further association XCOM itself, and thus its Commander, using tactics said Commander is very well-versed in and thus can pick apart with ease. Given some of them are former-XCOM personnel and thus at least somewhat familiar with the Commander, one has to feel they're straying dangerously close into Too Dumb to Live territory.
The Conspiracy: They're the ones pulling the strings of City 31's criminal underworld, working from the shadows to accomplish a much larger and more sinister goal. The Stinger takes it further, showing that they're just one cell of a larger movement that seems to be preparing for a full-on coup d'etat.
Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: After XCOM took down a global alien regime in the last game, Chimera Squad goes up against an underground paramilitary group that relies on subterfuge and trickery to achieve their goals. Not unlike EXALT, in fact, though even EXALT was a background threat compared to Shrike who control the three other enemy factions from the shadows.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: They essentially want to create their own version of ADVENT with XCOM in charge instead of the Elders. As such, they've attracted a fair number of alien recruits who are both grateful to XCOM and the Resistance for toppling the Elders and supportive of a return to military rule.
Faceless Goons: Shrike uniforms include a face-concealing mask, though the exact appearance of the mask depends on the agent's role. Even the Vipers and Sectoids in the group have their own custom sinister black masks.
Failure Is the Only Option: Specifically, Shrike sets up everyone else to fail;
- Gray Phoenix is armed and supplied, then pushed into fast-tracking into a full raid on the starport by Nightingale's death. If not for Chimera Squad's intervention, they would have stolen ships and left, taking valuable manpower and supplies with them.
- The Progeny's psionic awakening plot was never going to work, or at least not like they hoped. Instead of awakening new psionics, it would disrupt - and potentially kill - many psi-sensitive individuals in its area of effect. Including many of the Progeny themselves.
- The Sacred Coil had no way of knowing what was going to come out of that gate when it opened, and what did sure as hell wasn't on their side when it was opened. It's entirely possible that all of the reinforcements they received would be Ax-Crazy and simply destroy the Coil's base of operations from the inside out, then go on to wreak havoc across the city.
- Finally, all of this was meant to stretch 31PD to the breaking point, so that Shrike could step in and assert control again - or even force XCOM to intervene fully.
- Even their own plan was doomed from the start, as it relied on a heavy-handed military crackdown by XCOM, which completely flies in the face of how XCOM has always operated. As many in Shrike are former members of XCOM (whether the original pre-invasion or the reborn post-invasion version), they should have known from the start that XCOM would send a small group of elite operatives like they always do instead of what Shrike expected them to.
False Flag Operation: Their methods are essentially this - they don't necessarily oppose XCOM, but are inciting and radicalizing the organization's opposition in the hopes of forcing them to act, to the point of funding terrorist attacks.
Glory Days: They used to be in charge of City 31's security in the immediate aftermath of the liberation. They were fired by Mayor Nightingale when 31PD was formed. They view Nightingale's policies as too soft and the heavy hand they used is what's necessary to keep the peace.
Greater-Scope Villain: Behind the other three factions. Become the Big Bad during the final mission as they take control of the remnants of the three syndicates for a final siege, and afterwards it's hinted that their defeat in City 31 has led their organization to prepare for an all-out war against XCOM.
He Was Right There All Along: The enemies with the skull-shaped symbol representing them are Shrike agents, and they're the tutorial enemies too. As time passes, more and more of them show up in the other enemy teams.
He Who Fights Monsters: The former XCOM and Resistance agents that compose Shrike have become advocates for the establishment of a military dictatorship not unlike the one they overthrew five years ago.
Knight Templar: To them, they're simply forcing XCOM to finish the job it started, and they don't care what civil liberties or freedoms they crush in the process of destroying the Ethereals.
The Minion Master: The Necromancer unit they have can reanimate corpses as Psi Zombies, and can also conjure up a couple of the exploding spectral ghosts the Chosen Warlock could.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Naming your organization after a family of birds known also as butcher birds for their tendency to impale their food on convenient thorns isn't exactly the sign of the most friendly sort.
Obfuscating Stupidity: They deliberately hide their members among the drunk racist jerks of City 31 in order to hide the fact that many of their members are crafty ex-military who are perfectly fine with alien integration. This leads to Shrike initially being believed to be a patsy for one of the three factions when the reverse is true.
Renegade Splinter Faction: Their members are former Resistance members and XCOM personnel, turned guns-for-hire.
The Man in Front of the Man:
- Those mercenaries and malcontents Kelly writes off as a bunch of whiners who can't accept the war didn't end with conquest of the stars? Yeah, they're the actual masterminds.
- After the first failed assassination attempt, Mayor Nightingale writes off Shrike as a bunch of drunkards lacking both the material means and courage to pull this off.
Super Spit: The Cobras working for Shrike have a modified venom that damages your units and roots them to the spot.

Atlas

Sovereign

The leader of the Shrike network and a former XCOM agent. He's the one who masterminded the assassination of Mayor Nightingale and supplied the three crime syndicates with the weapons and resources necessary to escalate in threat.

Big Bad: He's the one that Chimera Squad has been hunting under the nickname Atlas.
The Coup: What his Evil Plan leads up to. Using the three syndicates to spread chaos throughout City 31, Sovereign spread 31PD thin and launched an assault on City Hall when it was most vulnerable, intending to remove the government from power and seize the city.
Chekhov's Gunman: Director Kelly introduces him as a potential suspect involved with Atlas halfway through the game. Turns out he's Atlas himself.
Contractual Boss Immunity: He's immune to Tongue Pull, Bind and Stupor, but not to Berserk.
Evil Sounds Deep: Has a deep, aggressive voice fitting for the leader of a mercenary network.
Fallen Hero: He used to fight alongside XCOM to take down the ADVENT regime, though he was apparently never a particularly nice person.
Final Boss: Taking him down is the last objective you need to complete to save City 31. Whether you kill him or apprehend him doesn't matter.
Flunky Boss: Notable in the fact that he's surrounded by every Elite Mook in the game. Reinforcements won't stop coming until Sovereign is out of the picture, at which point all that's left is to clean up the place.
King Mook: To the Shrike Hitmen. The only thing that's different about him is his appearance, Contractual Boss Immunity and access to Sustain, so you can't eliminate him in one round.
Knight Templar: A terrorist who believes he's saving the world.
He Who Fights Monsters: When he was part of XCOM, he fought for the freedom of mankind from the Elders' terror. Now he's spreading terror to remove what he sees as weakness.
In the Hood: He wears one over his helmet when Director Kelly explains who he is, though he wears different gear without a hood when you fight him.
The Needs of the Many: Justifies his actions this way. In his own words:
Sovereign: A handful of casualties today, or a whole world tomorrow. Easy choice.
The Social Darwinist: Claims that the only way to prepare for the return of the Elders is by "tearing the weakness from our hearts". If you have Blueblood in your squad, he'll remark that Sovereign always had a crazy streak, which is why he never worked with him during the war with ADVENT.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: At least, that's what he claims to be. He's convinced that the Elders will return someday, so he's trying to prepare the city for when that happens. Chimera Squad aren't buying it, though a loading screen shows the XCOM leadership does agree that the Elders potentially returning is Earth's greatest existential threat.

Characters / XCOM: Chimera Squad

XCOM Reclamation Agency

Director Jane Kelly

Whisper

Chimera Squad

Axiom

Blueblood

Cherub

Claymore

Godmother

Patchwork

Shelter

Terminal

Torque

Verge

Zephyr

Androids

City 31

Crime Organisations

Gray Phoenix

The Progeny

Sacred Coil

Spoiler Faction

Shrike

Sovereign

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Characters / XCOM: Chimera Squad

Edit Locked

XCOM Reclamation Agency

Director Jane Kelly

Whisper

Chimera Squad

Axiom

Blueblood

Cherub

Claymore

Godmother

Patchwork

Shelter

Terminal

Torque

Verge

Zephyr

Androids

City 31

Crime Organisations

Gray Phoenix

The Progeny

Sacred Coil

Spoiler Faction

Shrike

Sovereign

Previous

Index

Next