TLDR

Chimera Squad is for you if you save scummed in the other XCOM games so that nobody dies.

Full Review

If XCOM 2 is a full three course meal, then Chimera Squad is drive thru burger and fries. It’s not as deep or as fleshed out as 2, but sometimes you just want the burger. Chimera Squad is what happens when you take XCOM 2 and repackage it to be played in short bursts. Also there’s a snek lady for you to choke bad guys into submission.

Missions are no longer behemoths that take up to half an hour each, instead being broken down into smaller stages. Stages each begin with a breach phase that allow you to position your squad and confer them stat bonuses that can last the stage, as well as allowing each member to perform an action or shot. The result is that missions are way quicker and fights are more interesting. Gone are the downtime in 2 where you have finished off a patrol and are shuffling around with overwatch to find the next patrol in the fog. Patrol cascades (where your ranger triggers 5 patrols at once and suddenly you have to fight two sectopods, five archons and four mecs) are also no longer a thing thanks to this. During a breach each squad member has several unique abilities that you can use, such as lifting an enemy out of cover or taunting an enemy and drawing their fire. These abilities are not always better than just firing their weapon, but it adds variety and makes an encounter much more interesting than simply having everybody on overwatch like in 2.

Speaking of the squad, you no longer have cookie cutter rookies but now have unique characters that you can recruit. Each has unique abilities and combat styles and you cannot recruit all in a single playthrough (as long as you get the snek the rest don’t matter obviously). Like others have mentioned, they don’t get a lot of development in the actual game, but I enjoyed reading their backgrounds and listening to them talking in between missions. It is a missed opportunity though, they should have cut down on the number of available characters and develop the others in game. There is no perma death. If anyone dies you just lose the game. I personally don’t mind this change, as someone who like to save scum in 2 so that nobody dies, and I bet most people are like this too anyways.

The story is forgettable, but was enough to motivate me to complete the game. I binged the game in a couple of days, which made the last third of the game a bit of a slog. I think the game would be more enjoyable if I had spaced it out a bit more and only played a couple missions a day. The resource balance is also a little weird, since by the end I had a lot of money but nothing to really spend it on.

Overall I enjoyed this adventure back into the world of XCOM 2 once more. The gameplay has been streamlined and has much better pacing. The story isn’t great, but it’s more than 2 imo. Goes on sale quite often too.