A great turn-based strategy game and Star Wars title in its own right, Zero Company also did something special for me: it more or less made up for the disappointment of XCOM 2 . And now, with the recently added campaign modifiers, it might finally prove to be a challenge, too.

The great predecessors

There was always a bit of awkwardness about Firaxis’s XCOM , excellent games though they have been. Not knowing whether you’d have a shot from a given position in the original, or the percentage chance of hitting in the sequel. Inconsistent pod activations and such. The extremely frontloaded difficulty also put me in a bind: Classic Ironman was too easy even for my first-time campaigns where every new enemy unit was a genuine surprise, and Legendary I couldn’t crack in either game no matter how much I tried, such little is your room for error in the early game.

Too constricting. Image via Firaxis

Looking back, I have somewhat sour memories of XCOM 2 .…