The Firaxis XCOM Series

Hmmm, no idea, then. Guess it could probably be chalked up to a bug.

Awww, why they remove the Anna Sing mission.

I've never played the Thomas Hutch mission on the new map in EW. Always thought they had removed that too.

edited 1st Sep '15 4:05:16 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Because her revised story was added in the form of the Progeny missions.

Eh, that's pretty weak.

Yeah. I would have liked to have seen it expanded from the original mission instead of replaced (as much as I dislike Boulevard, I dislike the design of Portent much, much more), but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Don't know if it's been posted before, but Jake Solomon talks about the Strategy Layer trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7EnrZ_aHuU&feature=youtu.be

yeah it's been posted already....but until we have the Pax footage we really have little about XCOM 2 to talk about.

A little snippet from the official site about the main characters in XCOM 2.

• I don't really buy Lily Shen being 35. Her face model and her way of speaking made me put her closer to 25.

• Does Bradford even have a first name? Every piece of information on him calls him Central Officer Bradford.

• Where the hell is Vahlen?

Maybe lily got the Genes that asians get that make them look young no matter how old they get...:P

As for Vahlen all we've heard is that she's lost....not dead. we don't know where she is....*cough*Advent*cough*.....maybe we'll have to find her as one of the missions.

Older Than They Look (and sound) is pretty much a thing people are used to at this point, especially with real-life examples

edited 2nd Sep '15 1:26:36 PM by YoKab

Vahlen is in one of three places: working for Advent to further the cause of SCIENCE!, turned into a twisted abomination and otherwise experimented on as an ironic punishment for her crimes during the war, or just plain old regular captured and you have to go rescue her. I'm betting on number 1, honestly.

Honestly, everyone is so much at this point I'm thinking it'd be quite The Un-Twist for that to be the case.

edited 2nd Sep '15 2:00:37 PM by VutherA

For all her willingness to cross the line, I doubt she would join the ADVENT, barring essentially being a slave researcher with a gun to her head.

I'd like to see her as part of one of the uncontacted cells, helping them to fight back similarly to the way she helped the original XCOM.

Can I ask something?

Where does "Vahlen is Mad Scientist and ready to break the rules" comes from? I can't remember anything like that in the games. Only reference I can find is "That woman is aliens worst nightmare", which could mean anything.

She is more readily accepting of using alien technology to radically modify XCOM soldiers' bodies and minds with gene mods and psionics to combat the alien threat, as well as being more willing to risk the Hyperwave device possibly blowing XCOM HQ after it seemingly starts going haywire if it succeeding will bring them the needed advantage to detect the Overseer UFO. At least all Dr. Shen does is replace the soldiers' limbs (and perhaps a bit of their torsos' internal organs) with cybernetic prosthetics; Vahlen's use of xenogenetic implants and psychic gift-awakening chemical-based alien tech to create supersoldiers is dangerously veering on eventually changing those human subjects into something no longer human.

edited 4th Sep '15 5:03:18 AM by MarqFJA

That's part of why I don't think she'd ever turn to the aliens' side: she's willing to cross those lines in order to defeat the aliens. Fight fire with fire, as they say. Joining them would run completely counter to that motive.

Any advice for LW psionics?

I can make almost any soldier a psionic, yay! They're out of action for a week and they may not learn the power at the end of it...yay?

Psionics aren't a trap like satellites, right? A ploy to get you to waste time and men for powers you'll never receive or use?

Vallahn is a transhumanist at least from what I see, and as a transhumanist...

Yea, joining the aliens would run 100% counter, the point is to benefit humanity, turn it into something greater then it was, those genemods, those psionic experiments? Can you really say those soilders are not better then they were before? A second heart that helps prevent cardiac arrest, super regeneration capabilities, enhanced mental capabilities, telekinesis?

All of those are things that would improve day to day life....

....

Being an alien slave race does not benefit humanity, even if we get things out of it short term, it does not help in the long run.

All enhanced soilders in long war take longer to recover as an attempt to ballence how strong they are and give your mortal men some use....

Personaly I find it a fucking stupid decision given that it already costs a lot of cash to make an army of super humans but ehhh. :/

edited 4th Sep '15 10:54:30 AM by Imca

Vahlen. Not Vallahn.

Vaulon

Vorlon. That's why she's so good at reverse-engineering alien technology, she's secretly a Vorlon.

Dr. Vahlen also does have lines she won't cross, as seen with EXALT elites. There's also what she says about science and how the aliens use it early in the game, though it's clear she may be slipping up a little by the late game.

Considering that the Commander was in stasis until the Commander was sprung by XCOM (and had some sort of implant removed), who is to say that Dr. Vahlen isn't in stasis someplace as well?

Although you'd have to wonder what exactly the aliens had the Commander kept in stasis for to begin with.

Vahlen is working for the aliens now, but she got them to put the Commander is stasis because she's a double-agent.

Maybe they wanted to examine the Commander's brain? Or do experiments? The first game makes it clear the Ethereals are looking for the perfect warrior (or thereabouts) they can use to their own ends. Perhaps they think the Commander fits the criteria, but is experimenting on the scrubby civvies first, so as not to ruin a good specimen.