Game Log XCOM2 – 001
I bought XCOM 2 for $15 when it went on sale on the Xbox One a month or two ago. This game, along with Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 are the only two games I've been playing for the past few months. Anyway what prompted the creation of this post was a traumatic in-game experience in XCOM 2.
I'm playing the game in “Normal” difficulty with Ironman mode turned on. Ironman mode for XCOM games means you only get one save file that is auto-saved. This means that if you made a mistake and the game already auto-saved, you cannot load back a previous save file to undo your mistake.
So I was playing this mission where I had to capture a VIP and then get everyone to the extraction point. There were 12 turns allowed before “Forced Retreat” happens. I did not know what “Forced Retreat” meant prior to playing this mission. I've played missions before where you could fail the objective and the game will still allow you to continue fighting until you get to extract the whole team. This was not the case with tonight's mission.
Apparently “Forced Retreat” means that once the countdown reaches 0 turns, the mission ends abruptly. This means that if you had the whole team out in the field when the mission ended, that means you lose the whole team! I lost 2 Sharpshooters, 1 Ranger, 1 Specialist and 1 Grenadier. The 2 Sharpshooters were high ranking officers too.
I now know what “Forced Retreat” means, but it's too late for my campaign. Having lost a lot of good soldiers this way hurts and I don't think I can recover. I actually only have 1 soldier ready for battle back at HQ. Yeah that's not gonna work. I'm going to have to start off a new campaign again. This is what makes Ironman mode such a pain. However if you beat the game in Ironman mode, the ending is glorious.