XCOM Getting First Wave of Downloadable Content

XCOM is hardly a short game, but if you’re starved for more content, 2K Games and Firaxis are preparing something just for you.

The Slingshot Content Pack, which doesn’t yet have a release date or price, has a set of three Council missions. Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.” There’s also a brand-new playable squad character.

Many of you will already be familiar with the other add-on, the Elite Soldier Pack. Once a pre-order bonus, this additional set of customization options (classic X-Com soldier, armor aesthetic upgrades, color swapping) is now available to purchase for $4.99.

Cool.

I'm glad they decided to pump out mission content so soon after release, but I wonder how it's handled...they don't sound repeatable, but how do they give you one-off missions, especially if you've already beaten the campaign?

Nice, looking forward to checking this out. Loving me some XCom, despite the stress levels it tends to induce.

Slingshot Content pack sounds fine, but $5 for a soldier and armor aesthetics is super lame.

Awesome. I hope it features new enemies and items (weapon or armor) though, and not just some story missions, as the story is not really the main draw for the game.

On one hand, putting the Blaster Launcher in an accessible location is a good idea.

On the other hand, charging probably 10 bucks for 3 missions is... not.

When the thin men walk the streets, the sane stay underground.

I can't wait for a price drop or sale to grab this game.

Doesn't really add much to the game I feel. Give me good sized expansion please =)

yeah 5 bucks for the customization options is just not worth it, there are like 3 different helmets, 2 different armor styles and some damn ugly color schemes...

5 dollars for the Pre-order stuff seems steep. I expected something like 2 dollars.

I can buy full expansions to games for 5 dollars!

Honestly, this is not at all what I want from DLC for this game.

Cool, I am getting a little bored with the missions right now.

As someone who got that soldier stuff with my game (not as a preorder) I assure you, there is nothing of worth in it

@ConstantineL said:

When the thin men walk the streets, the sane stay underground.

Nice.. very nice.

@Dezztroy said:

Honestly, this is not at all what I want from DLC for this game.

you don't want new missions? what then? new aliens?

Anyone make a comparison to horse armor yet?

The thing I want most out of this is the colour options. But not worth the $4.99. Maybe pick it up if it's on supersale on steam.

I don't want to play more XCOM. :/ Still cool though.

@smcn said:

Anyone make a comparison to horse armor yet?

Well, colour customization ultimately does have a strategic benefit.

It's still REALLY shitty, but being able to tell your soldiers apart from a glance (I personally colour code by class - red for assault, blue for heavy, black for sniper, white for support) is helpful.

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

I would like to know more about this but reading this post is as confusing as things get. What with all the typos and added words and lack of any good sentence structure.

Some DLC achievements leaked a little while ago. I'm not sure if all of them are what's in this pack, but the missions all sound like a real bitch. Great!

Also I'll be enjoying my pre-order bonus over here, lalalalalala.

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Seriously, that really caught my eye also.

Kleptok, you are definitely above issues like that.

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

I like to imagine that Patrick slips one obvious typo into every news story to screw with us.

Because there is always one obvious typo. In every news story.

I just want the DLC that lets me play pick-up games against AI. Like a skirmish mode or whatever. Make that. Better yet, make that free because pretty much every strategy game ever does that.

@DeF said:

@Dezztroy said:

Honestly, this is not at all what I want from DLC for this game.

you don't want new missions? what then? new aliens?

It's 3 new Council missions, these usually happen only like once a month so they will hardly put the vanilla gameplay on it's head. Adding new alien foes and some new research/engineering options should also be part of such an "expansion".

Otherwise they should just label it just a "mappack", it's already bad enough they are selling color swapping player avatars as an DLC option..

Hell... I'd be really happy if they added more maps + more aliens.

I hope this includes a TU with the fix for the Zombie crash. My Ironman game is stuck on the same turn as a Zombie crash. :(

@Eldredpe said:

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

I like to imagine that Patrick slips one obvious typo into every news story to screw with us.

Because there is always one obvious typo. In every news story.

I hope he does it to fuck with idiots who take umbrage at this stuff

What I really want, and what I'm certain everybody who enjoyed the game wants, is an alien campaign. That, or the ability to setup skirmishes against AI and use an alien team.
Really, I'm just too impatient to get behind this multiplayer in a real way. I mean, a same room setup, like they had going in TNT, sounds like a blast, but I really don't have the ability for that.

@Red12b said:

@Eldredpe said:

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

I like to imagine that Patrick slips one obvious typo into every news story to screw with us.

Because there is always one obvious typo. In every news story.

I hope he does it to fuck with idiots who take umbrage at this stuff

why the hell is the comma inside quotes? that's really dumb and senseless

@dicnose: Did you fail 4th grade English?

The Guile hair alone is worth 5. Ok not really but I got the Elite pack with the game when I bought it new. Gonna get the new missions though, more XCOM makes me happy.

@MildMolasses: Yeah I'd say it's tough to justify $4.99 for the pack. Although I have enjoyed the color swapping for the plates to help me easily identify who is who on the battlefield.

@murisan said:

Slingshot Content pack sounds fine, but $5 for a soldier and armor aesthetics is super lame.

If you got the console version its packed inside the box on first-run copies.

@Phatmac: me neither, burned out on it pretty quick

Considering the length and scope of missions in the main game. A $10 dlc for 3 missions seems a tad too pricey.

Unless they are somehow larger in both scope and provide an increased challenging tactical difficulty. Or some interesting twists. Over vanilla missions.

Also whoa! deja-vu, i think i said the exact same thing for some other game before, just don't remember what game it was.

I want a new campaign, not overpriced tack-on one-off missions. Sigh...

dollary doos for colour customization

@dicnose said:

@Red12b said:

@Eldredpe said:

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

I like to imagine that Patrick slips one obvious typo into every news story to screw with us.

Because there is always one obvious typo. In every news story.

I hope he does it to fuck with idiots who take umbrage at this stuff

why the hell is the comma inside quotes? that's really dumb and senseless

"You're dumb and senseless," I said.

This article reads like a bunch of gobbledygook to me.

Five dollars to change the color of the armor.

Fuck you.

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

You seem like a great guy.

@Intelligent_Space_Man said:

@dicnose said:

@Red12b said:

@Eldredpe said:

@Chumm said:

Scoops you're a professional writer, whether you like it or not. Does GB seriously not have a copy editor?

No:

Within, players will meet of an “enigmatic Triad operative,” sent an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

Yes:

Within, players will meet an “enigmatic Triad operative,” send an alien ship off course, and somehow battle aliens “in the skies over China.”

I like to imagine that Patrick slips one obvious typo into every news story to screw with us.

Because there is always one obvious typo. In every news story.

I hope he does it to fuck with idiots who take umbrage at this stuff

why the hell is the comma inside quotes? that's really dumb and senseless

"American English--British English--they're all the same color in the end."

......colour

I want to merge french-fries with pancakes.

@Terramagi said:

@smcn said:

Anyone make a comparison to horse armor yet?

Well, colour customization ultimately does have a strategic benefit.

It's still REALLY shitty, but being able to tell your soldiers apart from a glance (I personally colour code by class - red for assault, blue for heavy, black for sniper, white for support) is helpful.

Yes.

Those bemoaning the 5 spot should have pre-ordered

just sayin

@crcruz3 said:

@Terramagi said:

@smcn said:

Anyone make a comparison to horse armor yet?

Well, colour customization ultimately does have a strategic benefit.

It's still REALLY shitty, but being able to tell your soldiers apart from a glance (I personally colour code by class - red for assault, blue for heavy, black for sniper, white for support) is helpful.

Yes.

Does no-one else just look at the gun icon when changing units? That's how I tell them apart. Sure, it means you have to cycle through initially before you know but after the first move you should have a rough idea of how you've set them up.