+That Guy the guy who voices the advent speaker is also the one who voiced Garrus Vakarian(Mass Effect), which is apparent if you compare the speaker voice at 0:30 and garrus vakarian's voice
1: This ending would have been extra dark if when the timer hit zero, it started a pseudo-mission that pits you in the Avenger against forces you had basically no chance of defeating. But you're still forced to attempt to fight them off, and you're forced to watch them all die by the perfect Avatar. Or at least be given the option to start a playable bad ending or just skip to this cutscene. Basically when it hits zero, you are asked this: "You have not succeeded in eliminating the Avatar project in time. You have a slim chance of surviving ADVENT's raid. Will you resign to your fate, or attempt to continue to fight to the end?" 2: This is why ADVENT won; The Speaker made sure their guns were calibrated.
Welp,than would happen meme about that Avatar,which would replace 95% hit chance meme And actually im sure some hardcore people would be able to stand against it(if it wouldn't be invincible ofcourse) and it would be like Base Defence from XCOM Enemy Unknown,but harder
It's not that the developers wanted to spoil anything, it was ADVENT that didn't. What would you expect them to say at the defeat of XCOM? That the "resistance group bent on stopping the project that was melting humans to create psionic bodies for the Elders has finally been killed." No one outside of ADVENT knows about the Avatar project, no one even knows that the ADVENT soldiers are alien hybrids.
+Theodore Hodbor Still, it would have been fine if once you learn enough of the project, the game over would've been a bit different, like avatar popping in the bridge and capturing you, or killing all the crew. Still, this ending makes sense, and avoids spoiling the story, so it's ok.
escopeteroce Yeah, like if you lose in the beginning it'd show this ending, while if it was near the end (or on the last mission) it'd show Earth basically a automated ADVENT production facility due to all of humanity being processed to make ADVENT slave soldiers with the Ethereals overseeing everything as Avatars.
I don't think that's much of an excuse, because the developers made the choice of making the bad end cutscene an Advent News Broadcast. If they reasoned "Well, ADVENT wouldn't make their broadcast too creepy", then they ought to have picked a different format. Or put in their own omniscient creepy stuff after this cutscene.
Also you would long be dead to know anyway since the pronouncement was made after the destruction of the avenger. Also let's be realist here, they wouldn't tell about the AVATAR in an open broadcast to the entire human race
I liked it, from a story perspective it makes sense, that the death of xcom would be shown via advent's news cast to gloat and to warn anyone else to think twice of trying to defy them. A more dreaded ending is likely to lurk when it comes to the crunch of the advent project.
World Of Thought It would, but I doubt X-Com would be the only form of official resistance. If anything, I think there are other power players that wish to just replace Advent.
I considered that idea on the webcomic script actually, and i think to an extent it is slightly implied xcom has some shady backers keeping it going given the dealings with the black market.
Makes you wonder what became of Exalt and their agenda. As i recall they wanted to kick the aliens off the planet and use their tech to rule the world or something like that.
Some randomly-generated soldiers can come with Exalt accessories with the Resistance Warrior DLC. The Striped Bandanna in the base game is also the exact one worn by Exalt troops. My theory is since Advent canonically won the last game, Exalt's plans went up in smoke, and they've had to ally with Xcom just to survive.
The only bad thing I have against this ending is how abruptly it was. You don’t see the Avenger go down, you don’t see the resistance fall. You just get footage of the aftermath. What would’ve been cool is that when the Avatar Project finishes, then it forces the player into a Avenger defense mission and have it literally be impossible to win. Have multiple waves of enemies, numerous Avatars, show the destruction of XCOM as it happens and not just the aftermath.
And you could use everyone, literally, not 10 or 12 soldiers like the avenger defense, but 50, 60 or whatever amount you had in the barracks, you know you gonna lose, but you're surely will take hundreds with you, a last stand, quite literally. Someone make a mod of this...
You know what I think would've made this ending? At the end of the Speaker's speech when it displays the ADVENT symbol, it will cut to static and zoom out, you'll see the static on a monitor (like the ones used in the Avenger) and around the monitor you'll see the corpses of Shen, Bradford, Tygan, and maybe a few ADVENT soldiers searching them, for added effect.
that's pretty dark, but I like it. in fact Xcom EU concepts and early cgi demos showed a soldier and his partner investigate an abandoned barn in the dark, only to have one of them get mind controlled by a sectoid, who ends up shooting his colleague and then commit suicide.
XCOM2 DLC: Vengeance Hour With the remains of XCOM shattered, what little is left must try to salvage the world. There are... A few, endings. The first and most obvious path is failure. A few weeks, months, a year of resistance. But eventually, all is lost. The second, together in death. As VCOM dies, so too does ADVENT, buried under the light of a million stars bursting. The third is a pseudo victory. The science of Psionics develops into memetic warfare. A lethal idea spreads through the consciousness of the Elders... And remains a hazard for decades on Earth. The fourth is... Well, a grand victory. With the appropriate workings, you hijack ADVENT. You supersede the Elders with your own metamind, and take to the stars with grand battlegroups of spacecraft, brimming with missiles and guns.
Imagine a last-stand type situation, where the Avenger is shot down immediately after that cutscene. Every soldier you have is in the battle as wave after wave of ADVENT soldiers, including Avatars, are thrown at you. The Avatars would have double health, regeneration, 5 armour, every Psi ability in the game, and can take an action after every soldier action. This is to emphasize how utterly powerful the completed Avatar is, and how utterly fucked XCOM is. You get to see your base being torn apart, every soldier being killed in battle, and finally, Central meeting his end. You have lost
Long war mod go brrrrrr Its time to take action,lol I just seen some video about XCOM Enemy Unknown Long War mod and... 5 Mutons one by one in one turn ? Easy,lol
I understand them not wanting to spoil, but you really just can't skip to "Avenger has been destroyed" without saying why. I think they should've had the Avatar teleport into the Avenger's bridge, with the camera only showing a hand/rifle or part of the leg. Central and the people on the bridge turn to face it, shocked beyond belief. Then the credits roll.
Yeah i agree, XCOM 3 will be based on terror from the deep. So it's pretty possible that the good ending is gonna be the cannon one, also fuck ADVENT, EXALT where more annoying than them from a difficulty point of view...
Josh Arts Yeah. Advent rushed you on day 1. I have never even got to the point in Xcom 2 where I was struggling badly. I got to the first next month, like, twice? And then stopped? It is bullshit. I know I have only beaten Xcom Enemy Unknown once, in Enemy Within with Xcom Hero cheats, but still, just the difficulty is annoying. By itself. I always rush forwards with things. But the lack of continental buffs and struggles through and through, it is very annoying. It's nice, but it just, ugh, very tough.
Late reply but that’s actually because he isn’t a human, he’s a Thin Man. If you look at the scales on his neck and the fact that he wears sunglasses to cover his eyes, he’s 100% a Thin Man. Neat to see that Advent kept one around after the initial invasion.
Tho its more possible that he is a modified thin man, i think it would be even cool if he was just a regular human collaborator Wallace Breen style that pursuit his own goals
@@Nechay. My headcanon has always been that he was at one point purely human, but is a willingly collaborator and has received augmentations as a "reward" for his loyal service.
It would be extra dark if they put your costume soldiers like a photo one after the other marking eliminated, like Mr incredible whatching all other super who get kill on the scream, with a dramatical music and the Advent spokesman tellong the people that xcom is ded, and puting Bradford, Tygan and Shen as the last 3 eliminated and turning off the scream leting you ser the Advent red logo
I wish there would be some sort of "last stand" mission when you fail Just imagine: the avenger can't fly anymore and you are attacked by countless enemys while you have ALL of your troops on the ground
@@alduintheanti-dragonborn Maybe it would be good if u create equipment for ALL your soldiers,lol I mean-those meat shields would be more useful with it actually and would have chance to fight back
I think the ending could've been improved if, after the cutscene, the Avenger would be immediately shot down and an Avenger defense would begin, but with one pod being led by an Avatar. From there, if you were to beat the defense, Avatars would become regular enemies, Retaliation missions would be weekly and you'd be swarmed with UFOs. *Along with civilians slowly starting to disappear from non-retaliation missions, for a nice touch
All things considered all it would take is one completed Avatar to wipe you out. The Avatars in game are incomplete. Tygan mentions this and that a complete Avatar would likely be unstoppable. It's also evidenced by the Avatars having only three psionic abilities while fully decked out psi ops have over a dozen active and passive abilities. So a final mission after that cutscene with a completed avatar would be interesting. And by interesting I mean a complete and total slaughter. After all, the achievement for killing an Avatar is called "A God Falls."
McDenis09 So instead of an ending, you get no ending? The Avatar Project is probably unbeatable. You only beat those things at the end of the game in the final mission cause the Commander is controlling an Avatar himself. Fight fire with Fire.
@@AlphaOmega1237 I'd like to imagine that if you we're to *somehow* kill the complete avatar you'd get an achievement called something like 'god amongst men' or 'DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE HUMAN RACE' something to show that you did something near impossible that you're solders are god's amongst men
Operation Quiet Scalpel. A daring, bold raid against the heart of ADVENT. Many civilians, do not cause excessive collateral damage. Should you succeed... Suffice it to say, the boost will be... Significant. But should you fail, you are in the middle of ADVENT territory... And seeing them again... Well.
What? That ending isn't scary as hell, knowing what you do? It's the triumphant gloating and celebration of the death of humanity's only hope against ADVENT. Seeing the genocide ensuing would have less of an impact than just showing you what the public knows: Nothing. And all of this delivered by an almost-human propaganda puppet, an enslaved perversion of humanity that symbolizes humanity's fate in the wake of XCOM's defeat. That's far from lame, if you ask me.
In fact I like the concept of a bad ending. Was also very well done in STAR WARS EMPIRE AT WAR and the first version of TOTAL WAR SHOGUN. It had a narrative about the way the modern Japan. Also interesting the author comments at the end of AXIS&ALLIES ( HASBORO ) To often good games end in a simple screen shot or a box with some comments as in DRAGON AGE ORIGINS or the first FAR CRY
ProbeVoyages Would you expect the evil politicians to just outright do the exact opposite of what they are and tell the truth and NOT lie? No! This is also the Bad Ending, not the Scary Ending!
I get that some might find the ending lame. But i think it's actually perfect. And that is because of the last 10 seconds of the clip. For those who have not completed the story, they are still left in a mystery of what ADVENTs true intentions are, and for all they know they could still be actually wanting peace. No plot points revealed. For those who HAVE completed the story or knows what it leads to, suddently see the deeper meaning of that "long live the elders" line, and the gloating smirk of the speaker st the end. Just like it is in game.it is presented as innocent propoganda, those who don't know the inner meaning don't see anything of it. But those who DO know it, can suddently see it very clearly. I find it to be a brilliant ending, satisfactionary to both those who know and those who do not know the full plot of the game.
I like that since XCOM is no more, Advent really doesn't bother with showing footage that kinda incriminates them - it's the same footage used in broadcast of XCOM pushing civilians to fight, like Advent Soldiers literally executing already arrested unarmed civilians When XCOM is no more, this footage is a threat to anyone who will want to follow up XCOM
Unfortunately for us it looks the elders subjugate their captives. Vipers, archons, humans, aliens. I think it’s meant to be like a halo. Ie multiple home worlds.
@@ericgrimes341 The archons are redesigned and upgraded floaters from EU. And floaters are failed muton experiments. They are not a species of their own.
How about the bad ending varies depending on how many story missions Xcom completed, essentially how much did Xcom uncover about the Avatar project? Bad Ending 1: Xcom has made no progress at all. With the Elders' objectives reached, humanity is of no further concern to them. They disband Advent, gather their forces and simply depart Earth, destination unknown. Humanity will eventually discover how many of their kin were sacrificed, but they will never know why. Without the Elders or Advent to rage against, humans inevitably turn on each other in a bloody civil war. Perhaps Xcom can turn things around, though they aren't exactly popular for their failure. The Elders care not. Bad Ending 2: Xcom knows enough about the Avatar project to catch the Elders' attention. Even though neither humanity nor Xcom poses any threat, in hundreds or thousands of years, humanity could threaten the Elders' interests under Xcom's banner. So the Elders offer Xcom a sadistic choice: join them. Xcom will bury the truth, and fully endorse the Elders and their aims. In return the Elders will uplift humanity even further with their technology, enabling them to leap forward by hundreds of years. They even agree to let Xcom keep the Avenger. But they demand that the Commander be plugged back into their Psi-net. If Xcom rejects the choice, the Elders will destroy all of Earth's infrastructure, putting humanity back to the stone-age. Billions will die from starvation and exposure. The scene ends with Bradford in his office. He's deleting from the Avenger's database, all their hard-won intel on Avatar. A clip of himself endorsing the Elders plays in the background. He drains an entire bottle of whisky, and sets it down next to a loaded pistol. Fade to black. Gunshot.
in Bad Ending 2 a twist that's good is making a new mode where it happened before the bradford scene where you again as the commander find out that ADVENT and the elders and nothing good for and tells Bradford to buckle their seatbelts and fight against them with their own project A FUCKING BIOALIEN MASS BOMB where the objective is no more to defend earth and stop the elders (avatars will be a common ennemy) its to nuke THE FUCKING UNIVERSE with they own boss ship with a project dr richard had the idea A POWERFUL NUKE that could destroy all non-alien life in the universe (making so human and animal DNA is not harmed because the point of the nuke is to destroy alien dna) the only problem is the energy so the crew with commander's avatar will storm the boss ship arm the nuke since their ship is able to get dyson sphere levels of energy and get the bombing ready BAD ENDING 2 became GOOD FUC[REDACTED BY XCOM] ENDING
Nah if the other races are to go off of the aliens wouldn't just leave Earth, the entire elder race needs the avatar bodies so that's all humanity getting liquidated
This is how XCOM 3 starts. But then you realize there's a universe spanning resistance group of an Alien coalition who's homes were destroyed by the Thin Men aliens and they're hunting them down planet by planet and they're arriving on Earth.
I know it’s a common feeling but it feels kind of underwhelming because as you progress in the story you get to know what they where planning and how scary the idea of them winning would be. At the same time, this ending can’t reveal too much, and should be an incentive for the players who lost the game, to try again… if it spoiled the whole story it wouldn’t make sense to start a new save file. The idea of a final impossible mission people suggested sounds cool as hell though…
People here are mentioning how good it would be if we saw the corpses of Bradford and co, but personally this ending is great as it is, it shows you all you need to know.
they all had better endings but you could tell they did this because of the story and this is more story driven zoom than the rest still wish we could see the avenger destroyed and everyone die 1 by 1 or something that makes you feel bad lol.
I kinda got the impression that he was a 'perfected' thin man. Ok, maybe not 'perfected' but at least 'more human-like than the prototypes deployed during the first war.
(in Garrus's Voice) the truth was........... commander i never turned, it was rigged from the start! i had been calibrating Advents guns from the moment Xcom revived you!
He's not a Thin Man. I don't know why so many people think so. Thin Men are genetically re-engineered Vipers, why would the Speaker be a Viper? He's probably a human that has been altered in some way.
@@The_Real_Alpharius maybe we think so because it says he could be on the xcom wiki? the resemblance is striking even if you don't want to believe the wiki, plus the splotches on his neck also appear on the viper AND the thin men, i feel like that's substantial evidence
I personally find it much more unsettling with the knowledge of what ADVENT is doing. But, I agree that without that (or even with it), there's not as much bite as the original game over.
Its interesting that they again kind of show a way that canonically xcom fails. No way they pull that card again for xcom 3 but still interesting. And by that I mean you get the credits and the end of campaign stats screen. You didn't fail, per say, it just didn't end the way you wanted it to.
It's not so lame, actually. Because, when evil doesn't look as evil - that's really scary. And when good is declared evil and destroyed, and everyone ok with it, because authorities on TV said, this is ok - that's scary. We do not see end of mankind - we see mankind's turning from independent civilizaton to being just a part, resouse, material, of some other civilization - that's scary. We do not know, for sure, is this bad or good - but all we know for sure - we lose our ability to make decisions and control our destiny - from now, it under control of someone else, who is not one of us - thats really scary. And most scary thing - that's exactly how it happens in real life. Just some shitty-looking guy in expensive suit says on TV - "Congratulations! We have won!" - and that's all, we see. We just live and watch TV. Maybe we a part of good team. And maybe we just a lifestock - we do not have opportunity to know a truth. We do not have power to decide our future. We are resources for some political forces. They can be good, they can be bad, and thay can be very bad - and they fighting for own us all. Some will win, some will lose. And we, all of us - is just a prize for the winner. Nothing more. We live. We work. We die. For those, who own us. That's all, folks! This bad ending is far from being lame - it's scary as hell. And it's a slap to your face - attempt to wake your up. Futile, most likely. It's not lame. At least...
Really surprised those advent troopers were able to kill those civs they can’t shoot also I’m not the only person that stops seeing advent late game and just see mutons
i used to be a fan of xcom but after playing on harder difficulties i realized the only thing different is that 90% of your shots miss the target. Which ends up feeling not like a harder difficulty as much as a faulty game mechanics. when your full squad misses their shots on the same target standing out in the open two turns in a row you cant help but say bullshit no fucking way any military trained squad would suck that much balls.
Guessing from the harder difficulty complaint you played normal first which gets way too easy fast but either way harder difficulty does not make you miss more it's just they removed the hidden Aim assist at higher difficulty. Also there is hidden fail stack in the game where if you been doing too well or always hitting your target the game slowly lowers your accuracy behind the scenes so a 90% hit is not turely 90%. So if you complain about missing more you probably been shooting at low chance when you should have missed but ya aim assist or the stacks piled up
This GAME OVER is the litteraly the one that can be replaced quickly because it does not show XCOM's base getting shot down but if we restart the ship has been shot down reactor got off they all awaited a bit to deliver you... Once more to help XCOM triomph And now the avatar project is not proof of that since its core componants might have been hacked/took away in the ocean what im saying is this can be replaced quickly
when they make Xcom3, it will be just like in the start of 2. no matter how completely you slaughter the aliens in the previous game, they'll say you abandoned the planet... bioware and ea must have been involved in these games too...
I don't understand why this happens when the Avatar project is finished. IMO they should have done a bit more fleshing out like turning all their troops into Avatars, then like maybe mind control or something. It would have been cool to see why the Avenger got downed, or how it makes all the team's efforts moot. Like mass effect with too few war assets. You still reach the end but see why things don't work out.
Nothing beats the original xcom:ufo defense the world leaders signing a contract with a thin men and then commiting suicide pretty crazy to see if you are a kid
This is the only XCOM I have played, but after viewing the game over for Enemy Unknown, it definitely looks more intimidating. The aliens mind controlling the spokesman while he disbands the XCOM project is 100% more terrifying.
DON'T READ THIS COMMENT IF YOU CARE ABOUT XCOM2 SPOILERS!!! I am still not totally convinced that humanity is totally boned if XCOM loses again. Yeah, human juice is bad. Yeah, the Elders were using us, but hey, they were desperate. REALLY desperate. Being faced with annihilation will do that to you. Heck, isn't that why XCOM stood up to begin with? "A cornered rat will bite the cat." Granted, a planetwide police state isn't splendid, but for all we know, those were emergency measures set in place to avoid total panic. Hey, forcible annexation will piss anybody off, no matter how overall noble your long-term goals may be. After terrorist attacks, countries tend to hunker down, add more law enforcement patrols, checkpoints, etc. When tensions ease, so do restrictions. It doesn't seem impossible to me that once the Avatar project is complete and the Elders' future assured that they'd be willing to leave humanity more or less capable of living as they see fit, letting them keep the advanced technology and going off to do whatever. Could they still decide to psionically hive mind everyone? Perhaps. But I'll take my chances for another ADVENT Burger.
SPOILERS FOLLOW If i'm not mistaken the Avatar Project was trying to dissolve the entire human race for its genetic material - every possible genotype. Not exactly scientific because - as it stands - humanity has already mapped its own genome quite substantially, but suspension of disbelief because science fiction?
@@TheUhhoh I mean, it's not clear exactly what they're doing, but here's what we know for sure: 1) the Elders suffer from a degenerative condition that, given their obsession with psionics, is most certainly psionics-related. 2) Humans have both decent Psionics and physical genes. 3) Soldiers who come out of the Psi Chambers come out white-haired. The most likely inference we can make is that psionics does Weird Stuff to DNA and/or metabolism. Then it's likely they throw a lot psionic energy at humans as possible, and what's left over is the "tougher" human biomaterial, the one most psionics resistant. So they gather it and analyze it. In effect, they're not "melting us for genetic material". They're just separating the wheat from the chaff, when it comes to letting the body and psionics get along best. It just so happens to be an... Incredibly deadly selection process.
@@nutsandcast Yeah, they deliberately select for psionics. And from then, my guess is they select further, and that further selection process is... Deadly. Then, once they brute-force cracked the genetic combination that produces bodies that resist whatever degenerative disorder psionics are apparently capable of causing... Well, they have no need for us anymore. They might refine the process further, and it won't be pretty for us, but that's about it.
Only reason Advent was victorious was because their guns were calibrated
lol
They had mor balaten than XCOM did, they used their superior reserves of balaten to secure victory.
@@thisisaname5589 lolololol
they put in their soldiers pcs superior perception and superior scope at once
They got aim bot
Losing isn't bad enough. Having Garrus Vakarian announce your defeat is just too much.
+That Guy the guy who voices the advent speaker is also the one who voiced Garrus Vakarian(Mass Effect), which is apparent if you compare the speaker voice at 0:30 and garrus vakarian's voice
+jones averino I knew the speaker sounded familiar
.... Oh my CHRIST, I NEVER REALIZED!!! NNNOOOO!!!
Thank the Elders and our calibrated guns.
It's even funnier if you have the Garrus voice mod on one of your soldiers
1: This ending would have been extra dark if when the timer hit zero, it started a pseudo-mission that pits you in the Avenger against forces you had basically no chance of defeating. But you're still forced to attempt to fight them off, and you're forced to watch them all die by the perfect Avatar. Or at least be given the option to start a playable bad ending or just skip to this cutscene. Basically when it hits zero, you are asked this: "You have not succeeded in eliminating the Avatar project in time. You have a slim chance of surviving ADVENT's raid. Will you resign to your fate, or attempt to continue to fight to the end?"
2: This is why ADVENT won; The Speaker made sure their guns were calibrated.
Welp,than would happen meme about that Avatar,which would replace 95% hit chance meme
And actually im sure some hardcore people would be able to stand against it(if it wouldn't be invincible ofcourse) and it would be like Base Defence from XCOM Enemy Unknown,but harder
@@skell6134 They could just make endless reinforcements for aliens.
@@haykmelikyan7796 Developers mail would be destroyed then
Remember Reach
What happend next ?
the commander get slaughtered by the three chosen
They could have added some scenes of Bradford, Shen, etc. getting killed by Advent, that's all I would have needed to consider this a creepy ending.
seeing central die woudl make this a good ending for me to be fair.
but you. wouldn't actually show murders or executions on a news show on TV, where families and kids are watching
but you. wouldn't actually show murders or executions on a news show on TV, where families and kids are watching
only if its Central who dies.
but the Advent soldier on the left is executing prisoners in 0:44
"Dammit Jacobs! It was a 95% shot, how did you fuck this up!?"
😂
I actually felt that hard....fuck🤣
I had a play through on Iron Man and watched a soldier miss a 97% chance to hit with a SHOTGUN and than get killed by a Stunlancer, that pain is real
the "random" number generator is broken as fuck. the new xcom RNG is used in casinos...
It's not that the developers wanted to spoil anything, it was ADVENT that didn't. What would you expect them to say at the defeat of XCOM? That the "resistance group bent on stopping the project that was melting humans to create psionic bodies for the Elders has finally been killed." No one outside of ADVENT knows about the Avatar project, no one even knows that the ADVENT soldiers are alien hybrids.
+Theodore Hodbor Still, it would have been fine if once you learn enough of the project, the game over would've been a bit different, like avatar popping in the bridge and capturing you, or killing all the crew.
Still, this ending makes sense, and avoids spoiling the story, so it's ok.
escopeteroce Yeah, like if you lose in the beginning it'd show this ending, while if it was near the end (or on the last mission) it'd show Earth basically a automated ADVENT production facility due to all of humanity being processed to make ADVENT slave soldiers with the Ethereals overseeing everything as Avatars.
I expected it to be some super wepon not just them hunting down Xcom
I don't think that's much of an excuse, because the developers made the choice of making the bad end cutscene an Advent News Broadcast. If they reasoned "Well, ADVENT wouldn't make their broadcast too creepy", then they ought to have picked a different format. Or put in their own omniscient creepy stuff after this cutscene.
Also you would long be dead to know anyway since the pronouncement was made after the destruction of the avenger.
Also let's be realist here, they wouldn't tell about the AVATAR in an open broadcast to the entire human race
I liked it, from a story perspective it makes sense, that the death of xcom would be shown via advent's news cast to gloat and to warn anyone else to think twice of trying to defy them. A more dreaded ending is likely to lurk when it comes to the crunch of the advent project.
World Of Thought It would, but I doubt X-Com would be the only form of official resistance.
If anything, I think there are other power players that wish to just replace Advent.
I considered that idea on the webcomic script actually, and i think to an extent it is slightly implied xcom has some shady backers keeping it going given the dealings with the black market.
Makes you wonder what became of Exalt and their agenda. As i recall they wanted to kick the aliens off the planet and use their tech to rule the world or something like that.
TheMjohann New resistance faction for dlc probably
Some randomly-generated soldiers can come with Exalt accessories with the Resistance Warrior DLC. The Striped Bandanna in the base game is also the exact one worn by Exalt troops.
My theory is since Advent canonically won the last game, Exalt's plans went up in smoke, and they've had to ally with Xcom just to survive.
When Garrus is calibrating the aliens' guns instead of yours.
Well, he is an alien after all.
The only bad thing I have against this ending is how abruptly it was. You don’t see the Avenger go down, you don’t see the resistance fall. You just get footage of the aftermath. What would’ve been cool is that when the Avatar Project finishes, then it forces the player into a Avenger defense mission and have it literally be impossible to win. Have multiple waves of enemies, numerous Avatars, show the destruction of XCOM as it happens and not just the aftermath.
And you could use everyone, literally, not 10 or 12 soldiers like the avenger defense, but 50, 60 or whatever amount you had in the barracks, you know you gonna lose, but you're surely will take hundreds with you, a last stand, quite literally.
Someone make a mod of this...
You know what I think would've made this ending? At the end of the Speaker's speech when it displays the ADVENT symbol, it will cut to static and zoom out, you'll see the static on a monitor (like the ones used in the Avenger) and around the monitor you'll see the corpses of Shen, Bradford, Tygan, and maybe a few ADVENT soldiers searching them, for added effect.
that's pretty dark, but I like it.
in fact Xcom EU concepts and early cgi demos showed a soldier and his partner investigate an abandoned barn in the dark, only to have one of them get mind controlled by a sectoid, who ends up shooting his colleague and then commit suicide.
Shen, Bradford, Tygan, and you're top 6 soldiers from the game.
XCOM2 DLC:
Vengeance Hour
With the remains of XCOM shattered, what little is left must try to salvage the world.
There are... A few, endings.
The first and most obvious path is failure. A few weeks, months, a year of resistance. But eventually, all is lost.
The second, together in death. As VCOM dies, so too does ADVENT, buried under the light of a million stars bursting.
The third is a pseudo victory. The science of Psionics develops into memetic warfare. A lethal idea spreads through the consciousness of the Elders... And remains a hazard for decades on Earth.
The fourth is... Well, a grand victory. With the appropriate workings, you hijack ADVENT. You supersede the Elders with your own metamind, and take to the stars with grand battlegroups of spacecraft, brimming with missiles and guns.
@@mikewong2440 Making the third option to simply repel them, and the fourth option the Starship Troopers option; glorious liberation fleet, ho! :P
@@AdmiralBison That is the cutscene of the EU tutorial, in fact. Only it wasn't a barn but a warehouse. EU is just dark and gruesome and I love it.
0:45 was the soldier on the left executing civilians...? ON LIVE TV!!!!!!!???????
Logan McAuley WOAH, NICE EYE! Didn't even see that!
Not civilians, but known XCOM terrorists.
Would anyone have batted an eye if American soldiers executed Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Osama Bin Laden and Abu Bahkr Al-Bagdhadi on live TV?
Actually, I think they might...there's a reason that we don't do public executions otherwise.
I think It D one of the resistance people,so killing them isn t that bad
Imagine a last-stand type situation, where the Avenger is shot down immediately after that cutscene. Every soldier you have is in the battle as wave after wave of ADVENT soldiers, including Avatars, are thrown at you. The Avatars would have double health, regeneration, 5 armour, every Psi ability in the game, and can take an action after every soldier action. This is to emphasize how utterly powerful the completed Avatar is, and how utterly fucked XCOM is. You get to see your base being torn apart, every soldier being killed in battle, and finally, Central meeting his end. You have lost
At that point, watching every single one of your soldiers hopelessly gunned down would’ve turned the knife.
@@ericgrimes341 that’s the point
There would be people who would still be able to kick their arses. Don't underestimate the power of...whatever
Long war mod go brrrrrr
Its time to take action,lol
I just seen some video about XCOM Enemy Unknown Long War mod and... 5 Mutons one by one in one turn ? Easy,lol
Yeah that would actually be kinda cool
I understand them not wanting to spoil, but you really just can't skip to "Avenger has been destroyed" without saying why.
I think they should've had the Avatar teleport into the Avenger's bridge, with the camera only showing a hand/rifle or part of the leg. Central and the people on the bridge turn to face it, shocked beyond belief. Then the credits roll.
This will be the canon ending if XCOM 3 is made....
Or xcom 3 will be similar to terror from the deep. The ending where you win has psionic energy coming from a trench in the ocean.
Yeah i agree, XCOM 3 will be based on terror from the deep. So it's pretty possible that the good ending is gonna be the cannon one, also fuck ADVENT, EXALT where more annoying than them from a difficulty point of view...
no, XCOM 3 will be Pacific Rim. I want to see Jaegers dammit
They fucking lost again 😂
Josh Arts Yeah. Advent rushed you on day 1. I have never even got to the point in Xcom 2 where I was struggling badly. I got to the first next month, like, twice? And then stopped? It is bullshit. I know I have only beaten Xcom Enemy Unknown once, in Enemy Within with Xcom Hero cheats, but still, just the difficulty is annoying. By itself. I always rush forwards with things. But the lack of continental buffs and struggles through and through, it is very annoying. It's nice, but it just, ugh, very tough.
Moral of the story :
Never skip the aiming drill
The way he says "long live the elders" makes me think this guy is fully aware of their plans to farm humans for a way to become immortal.
Late reply but that’s actually because he isn’t a human, he’s a Thin Man.
If you look at the scales on his neck and the fact that he wears sunglasses to cover his eyes, he’s 100% a Thin Man.
Neat to see that Advent kept one around after the initial invasion.
@@mayoboi0120 I never understood why. He's clearly not as tall, and humans know what the thinmen are judging by that handshake scene.
Tho its more possible that he is a modified thin man, i think it would be even cool if he was just a regular human collaborator Wallace Breen style that pursuit his own goals
@@Nechay. My headcanon has always been that he was at one point purely human, but is a willingly collaborator and has received augmentations as a "reward" for his loyal service.
It would be extra dark if they put your costume soldiers like a photo one after the other marking eliminated, like Mr incredible whatching all other super who get kill on the scream, with a dramatical music and the Advent spokesman tellong the people that xcom is ded, and puting Bradford, Tygan and Shen as the last 3 eliminated and turning off the scream leting you ser the Advent red logo
I wish there would be some sort of "last stand" mission when you fail
Just imagine: the avenger can't fly anymore and you are attacked by countless enemys while you have ALL of your troops on the ground
Which is my A-Squad and B-Squad, supported by a shit ton of meat shields- I mean Rookies.
@@alduintheanti-dragonborn Maybe it would be good if u create equipment for ALL your soldiers,lol
I mean-those meat shields would be more useful with it actually and would have chance to fight back
@@skell6134 Long War 2?
@@alduintheanti-dragonborn Idk
Yeah pretty cool but I also think that there should be a win condition like if you hold out for let’s say 50 turns
I think the ending could've been improved if, after the cutscene, the Avenger would be immediately shot down and an Avenger defense would begin, but with one pod being led by an Avatar. From there, if you were to beat the defense, Avatars would become regular enemies, Retaliation missions would be weekly and you'd be swarmed with UFOs.
*Along with civilians slowly starting to disappear from non-retaliation missions, for a nice touch
All things considered all it would take is one completed Avatar to wipe you out. The Avatars in game are incomplete. Tygan mentions this and that a complete Avatar would likely be unstoppable. It's also evidenced by the Avatars having only three psionic abilities while fully decked out psi ops have over a dozen active and passive abilities. So a final mission after that cutscene with a completed avatar would be interesting. And by interesting I mean a complete and total slaughter. After all, the achievement for killing an Avatar is called "A God Falls."
yeah man, a full fledged avenger defense with your entire roster struggling against one super OP avatar
McDenis09 So instead of an ending, you get no ending?
The Avatar Project is probably unbeatable. You only beat those things at the end of the game in the final mission cause the Commander is controlling an Avatar himself. Fight fire with Fire.
I feel like a last stand mission would've be great
@@AlphaOmega1237 I'd like to imagine that if you we're to *somehow* kill the complete avatar you'd get an achievement called something like 'god amongst men' or 'DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE HUMAN RACE' something to show that you did something near impossible that you're solders are god's amongst men
Speaker: "Long live Advent!"
My modded Blood Ravens primaris marines: "I ain't sure about that, chief."
They need a mission where you can finally cap the speaker.
Put him on a stage my squad sight will pick him a KM away.
Operation Quiet Scalpel.
A daring, bold raid against the heart of ADVENT. Many civilians, do not cause excessive collateral damage.
Should you succeed... Suffice it to say, the boost will be... Significant.
But should you fail, you are in the middle of ADVENT territory... And seeing them again... Well.
"Long live the Elders." Long live the Elders indeed...
+Theodore Hodbor Someone's been to TvTropes :D
What? That ending isn't scary as hell, knowing what you do? It's the triumphant gloating and celebration of the death of humanity's only hope against ADVENT. Seeing the genocide ensuing would have less of an impact than just showing you what the public knows: Nothing.
And all of this delivered by an almost-human propaganda puppet, an enslaved perversion of humanity that symbolizes humanity's fate in the wake of XCOM's defeat.
That's far from lame, if you ask me.
In fact I like the concept of a bad ending. Was also very well done in STAR WARS EMPIRE AT WAR and the first version of TOTAL WAR SHOGUN. It had a narrative about the way the modern Japan. Also interesting the author comments at the end of AXIS&ALLIES ( HASBORO ) To often good games end in a simple screen shot or a box with some comments as in DRAGON AGE ORIGINS or the first FAR CRY
Or just put his last words in the right context and there you have your "bad ending" with full peversion and all details goin across the Brain
ProbeVoyages Would you expect the evil politicians to just outright do the exact opposite of what they are and tell the truth and NOT lie? No!
This is also the Bad Ending, not the Scary Ending!
I get that some might find the ending lame. But i think it's actually perfect. And that is because of the last 10 seconds of the clip.
For those who have not completed the story, they are still left in a mystery of what ADVENTs true intentions are, and for all they know they could still be actually wanting peace. No plot points revealed.
For those who HAVE completed the story or knows what it leads to, suddently see the deeper meaning of that "long live the elders" line, and the gloating smirk of the speaker st the end. Just like it is in game.it is presented as innocent propoganda, those who don't know the inner meaning don't see anything of it. But those who DO know it, can suddently see it very clearly.
I find it to be a brilliant ending, satisfactionary to both those who know and those who do not know the full plot of the game.
Thank the elders for our calibrated guns
I like that since XCOM is no more, Advent really doesn't bother with showing footage that kinda incriminates them - it's the same footage used in broadcast of XCOM pushing civilians to fight, like Advent Soldiers literally executing already arrested unarmed civilians
When XCOM is no more, this footage is a threat to anyone who will want to follow up XCOM
I really wish we're invading the alien homeworld in XCOM 3.
Unfortunately for us it looks the elders subjugate their captives. Vipers, archons, humans, aliens. I think it’s meant to be like a halo. Ie multiple home worlds.
Terror from the Deep
@@ericgrimes341 The archons are redesigned and upgraded floaters from EU. And floaters are failed muton experiments. They are not a species of their own.
How about the bad ending varies depending on how many story missions Xcom completed, essentially how much did Xcom uncover about the Avatar project?
Bad Ending 1: Xcom has made no progress at all. With the Elders' objectives reached, humanity is of no further concern to them. They disband Advent, gather their forces and simply depart Earth, destination unknown. Humanity will eventually discover how many of their kin were sacrificed, but they will never know why. Without the Elders or Advent to rage against, humans inevitably turn on each other in a bloody civil war. Perhaps Xcom can turn things around, though they aren't exactly popular for their failure. The Elders care not.
Bad Ending 2: Xcom knows enough about the Avatar project to catch the Elders' attention. Even though neither humanity nor Xcom poses any threat, in hundreds or thousands of years, humanity could threaten the Elders' interests under Xcom's banner. So the Elders offer Xcom a sadistic choice: join them. Xcom will bury the truth, and fully endorse the Elders and their aims. In return the Elders will uplift humanity even further with their technology, enabling them to leap forward by hundreds of years. They even agree to let Xcom keep the Avenger. But they demand that the Commander be plugged back into their Psi-net. If Xcom rejects the choice, the Elders will destroy all of Earth's infrastructure, putting humanity back to the stone-age. Billions will die from starvation and exposure. The scene ends with Bradford in his office. He's deleting from the Avenger's database, all their hard-won intel on Avatar. A clip of himself endorsing the Elders plays in the background. He drains an entire bottle of whisky, and sets it down next to a loaded pistol. Fade to black. Gunshot.
in Bad Ending 2 a twist that's good is making a new mode where it happened before the bradford scene where you again as the commander find out that ADVENT and the elders and nothing good for and tells Bradford to buckle their seatbelts and fight against them with their own project A FUCKING BIOALIEN MASS BOMB where the objective is no more to defend earth and stop the elders (avatars will be a common ennemy) its to nuke THE FUCKING UNIVERSE with they own boss ship with a project dr richard had the idea A POWERFUL NUKE that could destroy all non-alien life in the universe (making so human and animal DNA is not harmed because the point of the nuke is to destroy alien dna) the only problem is the energy so the crew with commander's avatar will storm the boss ship arm the nuke since their ship is able to get dyson sphere levels of energy and get the bombing ready BAD ENDING 2 became GOOD FUC[REDACTED BY XCOM] ENDING
That would be amazing. I think also showing soldiers from your squad bay getting shot in killed in a montage would also make the endings creepier.
Nah if the other races are to go off of the aliens wouldn't just leave Earth, the entire elder race needs the avatar bodies so that's all humanity getting liquidated
There was a 95% chance to miss this ending but I still got it and commented on it: "Oh come on!"
The way he says "Coalition fall" and "Finally" and everything he says is just.... Worth it, Long live ADVENT! Long live The Elders!
>Project Avatar countdown hits 00:00
>Avatar suddenly teleports into the Avenger, blows out the engine, kills everyone in XCOM in one fell swoop
96% hit chance will prevent this from ever happening
0:30
GARRUS YOU TRAITOR!
This is how XCOM 3 starts. But then you realize there's a universe spanning resistance group of an Alien coalition who's homes were destroyed by the Thin Men aliens and they're hunting them down planet by planet and they're arriving on Earth.
They show ppl being executed on the camera, they no longer need to lie since they've won utterly.
I know it’s a common feeling but it feels kind of underwhelming because as you progress in the story you get to know what they where planning and how scary the idea of them winning would be. At the same time, this ending can’t reveal too much, and should be an incentive for the players who lost the game, to try again… if it spoiled the whole story it wouldn’t make sense to start a new save file. The idea of a final impossible mission people suggested sounds cool as hell though…
People here are mentioning how good it would be if we saw the corpses of Bradford and co, but personally this ending is great as it is, it shows you all you need to know.
I have seen this cinematic too many times
0:35 when the group chat gets leaked
Goddamnit Hitomi Tanaka, if only you didnt miss that 95% hit chance, flanking shot of yours thats 2 TILES AWAY!
"Adjusting sights."
Lily Shen could not keep up with Garrus Vakarians’ calibrations.
Sooooooo... good ending humanity becomes the Imperium of 40k, bad ending they become Tau/Drukari?
Think so, haven’t seen the good ending yet, nor have I played the game, just got this vid in my feed lol.
Really? Cause the next, xcom game, we have alien team mates. Soooo......
No, bad end they become food
@@okie1011 Genetic experiment fodder, but details.
Becoming the Imperium is a bad ending in its own right.
Tho XCOM does have the Great Commandy One...
is it all?
sorry but... xcom Ufo defend had a realy creepy bad end
they all had better endings but you could tell they did this because of the story and this is more story driven zoom than the rest still wish we could see the avenger destroyed and everyone die 1 by 1 or something that makes you feel bad lol.
+Game Hunter Maybe that will happen if you lose the avenger defense mission
+Game Hunter the funny thing they had a cut scene were the avenger is shutdown by a ship in the demo reveal
+Yatolcharles That's for the first xcom base defense mission not the bad ending.
FeelFreetoDie yea found out i bit later
For some reason I fell like the ADVENT speaker is a Thin Man, like, look at his neck.
I kinda got the impression that he was a 'perfected' thin man. Ok, maybe not 'perfected' but at least 'more human-like than the prototypes deployed during the first war.
I saw the dots and said “he’s a thin man why tf don’t the civilians see it”
Thank you for this. I find I usually lack the patience to endure the several missions of a losing campaign to see this in-game.
This ending is somehow weaker than the first xcom's bad ending... At least to me it is.
+doggone12ify That's because you don't know the "plan".
Once you understand it's chillingly eerie.
Long live the elders indeed >:)
IT'S MADE OF PEOPLE!!!!
Advent peacekeepers
*cuts to scenes of massacres and fires*
Would be cool seeing the characters you've created fighting to the last stand desperate to win against all advent troops cutting them down one by one
0:40 door bridge BADASS..
Oh no, Garrus (Mass Effect) has turned evil. ;)
+That Guy The speaker for the aliens is the same guy that voiced Garrus in the Mass Effect series ;)
(in Garrus's Voice) the truth was........... commander i never turned, it was rigged from the start! i had been calibrating Advents guns from the moment Xcom revived you!
Plot twist: ADVENT are a client of the Turian Hierarchy and the Battle of Shanxi went really badly.
Now this is the good ending.
0:29 Glory to Advent!
If only i had my colonel troops from xcom enemy unknown this would not hav happened
I came here to watch this because I would never have seen it otherwise.
Guys we are unlocking this ending irl💀☠️💀
0:37 Terminator 2
An ending you don’t have to experience should you watch The Spiffing Brit’s explore video.
and thus XCOM Chimera was born
it blows my mind the announcement trailer for this game came out like 6 years ago...
is it ever revealed what exactly the speaker is?
is he just a thin man that's been properly designed, only having small spots on his neck?
You might have a solid point there
He's not a Thin Man. I don't know why so many people think so.
Thin Men are genetically re-engineered Vipers, why would the Speaker be a Viper?
He's probably a human that has been altered in some way.
@@The_Real_Alpharius maybe we think so because it says he could be on the xcom wiki? the resemblance is striking even if you don't want to believe the wiki, plus the splotches on his neck also appear on the viper AND the thin men, i feel like that's substantial evidence
Wait. The spokesperson = Garrus Vakarian?
The Speaker, you mean. The Spokesman is "EpicVoiceGuy."
No, he is a thin man
I like the Enemy Unknown bad ending better, it was more ominous and left it up to your imagination.
I personally find it much more unsettling with the knowledge of what ADVENT is doing. But, I agree that without that (or even with it), there's not as much bite as the original game over.
My masters shall always prevail...
What will you do with this world?
Thanks. I never saw that. Always finished properly
Hail Dark Helmet!
Hail Skroob!
I feel like they should've added an alternate game over cutscene for if you learn the truth of the Avatar Proect and don't expose it on time.
Its interesting that they again kind of show a way that canonically xcom fails. No way they pull that card again for xcom 3 but still interesting. And by that I mean you get the credits and the end of campaign stats screen. You didn't fail, per say, it just didn't end the way you wanted it to.
"Well at least grenades cant miss"
"indicator twitches"
"fuck"
Canon ending for XCOM and XCOM 2…
That's xcom baby
That's the only ending I ever get because I suck at Xcom
I feel like it should have zoomed out of the holotable, and showed advent raiding the avenger and killing tygan bradford etc
It's not so lame, actually. Because, when evil doesn't look as evil - that's really scary. And when good is declared evil and destroyed, and everyone ok with it, because authorities on TV said, this is ok - that's scary.
We do not see end of mankind - we see mankind's turning from independent civilizaton to being just a part, resouse, material, of some other civilization - that's scary.
We do not know, for sure, is this bad or good - but all we know for sure - we lose our ability to make decisions and control our destiny - from now, it under control of someone else, who is not one of us - thats really scary.
And most scary thing - that's exactly how it happens in real life. Just some shitty-looking guy in expensive suit says on TV - "Congratulations! We have won!" - and that's all, we see. We just live and watch TV. Maybe we a part of good team. And maybe we just a lifestock - we do not have opportunity to know a truth. We do not have power to decide our future. We are resources for some political forces. They can be good, they can be bad, and thay can be very bad - and they fighting for own us all.
Some will win, some will lose. And we, all of us - is just a prize for the winner. Nothing more. We live. We work. We die. For those, who own us. That's all, folks!
This bad ending is far from being lame - it's scary as hell. And it's a slap to your face - attempt to wake your up. Futile, most likely.
It's not lame. At least...
Nothing can top UFO Defense's game over, if you ask me.
Really surprised those advent troopers were able to kill those civs they can’t shoot also I’m not the only person that stops seeing advent late game and just see mutons
I still see advent late game mostly shield troopers, but I still see them.
i used to be a fan of xcom but after playing on harder difficulties i realized the only thing different is that 90% of your shots miss the target. Which ends up feeling not like a harder difficulty as much as a faulty game mechanics. when your full squad misses their shots on the same target standing out in the open two turns in a row you cant help but say bullshit no fucking way any military trained squad would suck that much balls.
Guessing from the harder difficulty complaint you played normal first which gets way too easy fast but either way harder difficulty does not make you miss more it's just they removed the hidden Aim assist at higher difficulty. Also there is hidden fail stack in the game where if you been doing too well or always hitting your target the game slowly lowers your accuracy behind the scenes so a 90% hit is not turely 90%. So if you complain about missing more you probably been shooting at low chance when you should have missed but ya aim assist or the stacks piled up
You're leading a resistance, not an army.
Wait, wait, wait, wait... is that Garrus' voice? O.O
OMG he is!!
Who's here in Nov 2024?
This GAME OVER is the litteraly the one that can be replaced quickly because it does not show XCOM's base getting shot down but if we restart the ship has been shot down reactor got off they all awaited a bit to deliver you... Once more to help XCOM triomph
And now the avatar project is not proof of that since its core componants might have been hacked/took away in the ocean what im saying is this can be replaced quickly
I've lost to this what... 20 times now?
I hated how this game forces you to rush through it constantly and the constant annoyance of all the disruptions
when they make Xcom3, it will be just like in the start of 2. no matter how completely you slaughter the aliens in the previous game, they'll say you abandoned the planet...
bioware and ea must have been involved in these games too...
That's the game over sequence... It only shows when you get destroyed.
Someone can't read!
I guess it’s time for the Commander to play XCOM 1 again…
Honestly I’d like a game like this but you pick the side and it’s ambiguous weather the Aliens are bad for earth
XCOM 3 will take place after XCOM 2's bad ending kek
Randy Lin I don't think they can pull the same thing twice.
@@bobplays5365 Not only that, but it's kinda hard to play humans after we've been... Purged.
I didn't know these games had a bad ending that pretty cool.
I don't understand why this happens when the Avatar project is finished. IMO they should have done a bit more fleshing out like turning all their troops into Avatars, then like maybe mind control or something. It would have been cool to see why the Avenger got downed, or how it makes all the team's efforts moot. Like mass effect with too few war assets. You still reach the end but see why things don't work out.
it needed more blood and ...... BLOOD!
You don't know the purpose of the Avatar Project, do you?
I’ve never seen this before. Which was the whole idea...
XCOM:2 War of Chosen in ironman mode is impossible to finish, because have a bug in your autosave. I lost a lot of games and give up on finishing it.
Nothing beats the original xcom:ufo defense
the world leaders signing a contract with a thin men and then commiting suicide
pretty crazy to see if you are a kid
This is the true ending for me, because I will probably never reach the ending lol.
Did you beat it and get the good ending yet?
This may possibly be also somewhat cannon for XCom 3.
Xcom is essentially about struggle and loss....which has never been so much fun.
The good ending sets up a cliffhanger for a sequel though, so its possible
This is the only XCOM I have played, but after viewing the game over for Enemy Unknown, it definitely looks more intimidating. The aliens mind controlling the spokesman while he disbands the XCOM project is 100% more terrifying.
What happend next ?
the commander get slaughtered by the three chosen
00:39 easter egg of Terminator?
DON'T READ THIS COMMENT IF YOU CARE ABOUT XCOM2 SPOILERS!!!
I am still not totally convinced that humanity is totally boned if XCOM loses again. Yeah, human juice is bad. Yeah, the Elders were using us, but hey, they were desperate. REALLY desperate. Being faced with annihilation will do that to you. Heck, isn't that why XCOM stood up to begin with? "A cornered rat will bite the cat."
Granted, a planetwide police state isn't splendid, but for all we know, those were emergency measures set in place to avoid total panic. Hey, forcible annexation will piss anybody off, no matter how overall noble your long-term goals may be. After terrorist attacks, countries tend to hunker down, add more law enforcement patrols, checkpoints, etc. When tensions ease, so do restrictions. It doesn't seem impossible to me that once the Avatar project is complete and the Elders' future assured that they'd be willing to leave humanity more or less capable of living as they see fit, letting them keep the advanced technology and going off to do whatever.
Could they still decide to psionically hive mind everyone? Perhaps. But I'll take my chances for another ADVENT Burger.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
If i'm not mistaken the Avatar Project was trying to dissolve the entire human race for its genetic material - every possible genotype.
Not exactly scientific because - as it stands - humanity has already mapped its own genome quite substantially, but suspension of disbelief because science fiction?
@@TheUhhoh Im pretty sure they only wanted specific people as they had gene therapy clinics built to select people
The implication is that once the avatar project is complete, humanity will simply be liquidated as the ethereals have no more use for us.
@@TheUhhoh
I mean, it's not clear exactly what they're doing, but here's what we know for sure:
1) the Elders suffer from a degenerative condition that, given their obsession with psionics, is most certainly psionics-related.
2) Humans have both decent Psionics and physical genes.
3) Soldiers who come out of the Psi Chambers come out white-haired.
The most likely inference we can make is that psionics does Weird Stuff to DNA and/or metabolism.
Then it's likely they throw a lot psionic energy at humans as possible, and what's left over is the "tougher" human biomaterial, the one most psionics resistant. So they gather it and analyze it.
In effect, they're not "melting us for genetic material". They're just separating the wheat from the chaff, when it comes to letting the body and psionics get along best. It just so happens to be an... Incredibly deadly selection process.
@@nutsandcast Yeah, they deliberately select for psionics. And from then, my guess is they select further, and that further selection process is... Deadly. Then, once they brute-force cracked the genetic combination that produces bodies that resist whatever degenerative disorder psionics are apparently capable of causing...
Well, they have no need for us anymore. They might refine the process further, and it won't be pretty for us, but that's about it.
...Garrus??? 😲😲
Because I have no idea what happens in this game. What's bad about this?
XCOM is destroyed, the resistance falls without their protection and are now far too weak to contest the aliens ultimate project.