Lessons on small scale strategy with the X-Com Files

I’m constantly surprised and impressed with the sheer scope and creativity that comes from the modding scene. One that has been on my list to check out for a long time is the X-Com Files, one of the larger mega mods to the original game. Giving it a play and despite being restricted by the UI/GUI of the original game, delivers an experience I’ve been wanting from tactical strategy games for over 20 years now.

Starting from the bottom

The premise behind the X-Com Files is reimaging everyone’s favorite alien-busting agency as the bottom of the barrel, quite possibly put together as a tax-write off, organization that must go from hunting down big-foot sightings and crazy farmers to fighting interdimensional threats.

Instead of starting with assault rifles, powered armor, and a fully furnished base, you have six agents, a beat-up sedan, and hand-me-down weapons and gear from other agencies that are too useless for them. In the original game, you can field a fully furnished skyranger with troops, flares, healing, and go straight for saving the Earth. Here, you’re going to start out only able to field two agents, using a few pistols and shotguns, and have to fight everything from zombies, to cultists, to even the chupacabra. The one improvement at the beginning is that you can actually buy flashlights as opposed to flinging 20 flares around your vehicle at the start of every map.

Your mission isn’t to save humanity from aliens at the beginning, in fact, you may not see any aliens for the first few hours of your campaign. Your job is to prove to the UN that you are not a waste of money. I love the sense of progression that the X-Com Files has compared to the original and modern tactical strategy games — where those will throw the player into the lion’s den immediately. I’ve said it before, but the original X-Com may be one of the greatest of the genre, but it is just a pain to go back to and play today. The mod makes use of OpenXCOM which is a free modded version that improves the UI and performance, and even adds hotkeys to make things easier.

With the gameplay itself, the progression is slower, but more pronounced here. Just going from a beat-up sedan to a beat-up van now means you can bring a whopping four agents to the field. If you think you’re going to immediately get laser rifles and jet fighters, that’s not going to happen for a long time. And like the original game, and unlike Firaxis’ take, there’s far more leeway in losing missions and being able to keep going.

However, remember this point, this is still X-Com, expect to have an enemy take 16 shots in the head and shrug it off, to only then have your best agent get hit by a pistol from 60 feet away and immediately die. With the X-Com Files, it brings up something that I’ve felt is missing from a lot of tactical strategy games for some time.

Getting off the ground

Strategy games are infamous for throwing everything at the player from the word go or requiring the player to be on point from the very first mission. This was one of the biggest complaints I have about Firaxis’ take on XCOM, and how it felt on the higher difficulties that there was no wiggle room for not playing the game perfectly.

the x-com files does escalate, but you won’t be seeing huge fights for the first hours of play (source: mod.io)

While Jagged Alliance 3 went with giving players multiple guns, operatives, perks, and more to work with from the very first mission. What I found was the beauty of games like Mario + Rabbids was building the progression into the tactical strategy elements. It’s fine to start a game with simple missions/low encounter fights to start escalating things as the game goes on. Taking on an alien base or a terror mission in X-Com was a huge deal; it shouldn’t be something you do within the first hour of a game.

Tactical strategy fans on social media have joked about having a low-tech version of X-Com, but I seriously want to play a game whose plot starts like this:

Two guys known as the local fix-its get a call from the shut-in who lives alone on the edge of town about squirrels being too loud and want them to investigate it. When they arrive, they find a mummy attacking the wildlife, why a mummy? That’s the mystery. Now these two must figure out what’s going on in their town when cultists, the undead, and maybe Cthulhu shows up. Unfortunately, they are also going to have to do side jobs and bartering, as they have no weapons or anything like that. Do you think two guys who answered a “bickering squirrels” job have assault rifle and shotgun money?

What is missing a lot from the strategy genre is progression that can carry the game from beginning to end. Often, the progression is used to make the beginning of the game harder, to break once the player has a few upgraded characters/powers, to only then come back to bite them if they have a full wipe in the back-half of the game. The joy of an X-Com experience is that win or lose, the player should still be making progress one way or another. That requires both unpredictability as to what’s going on, and some measure of progress that is the throughline of the game experience. I want a game where there should be a huge deal for unlocking a new pistol or going from armor 1 to armor 2; that the game is still throwing new and interesting challenges at the player in the back half that isn’t just “here’s a ton of enemies in a small room.”

Getting that sense of design also means changing the base rules and interactions a player has access to, but I don’t want to turn this anymore into a design essay as I can go on when it comes to tactical strategy design.

Strategizing small

For me, the X-Com Files confirms for me that what is missing from a lot of tactical games is the feeling of starting small with the intent to grow. While there should be some room for the player to handle overwhelming odds, there needs to be variability built into the gameplay. Somewhere between XCOM 2, X-Com Files, and Mario + Rabbids, there is the perfect tactical strategy game for me.

The X-Com Files is available to download. OpenXCom requires proof of a legal copy of X-COM UFO Defense on your computer during installation.

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