That’s because this time around the team at Firaxis is leaning into the pain and the hardship inherent in its game. Not only is that the wrong way to play War of the Chosen, but it very nearly spoiled the game for me. So in reviewing XCOM 2 two years ago, I resorted to save-scumming - meticulously saving my game before every battle and painstakingly retracing my steps when something went wrong on a mission. But you want to make sure that you follow the game around all its twists and turns, scooping all of those nutty experiences out of the bottom of the jar. Not in a completionist sort of way, mind you. You see, when you’re playing a game for review there’s an urge to see everything. It was around the 20-hour mark that I realized I had been playing XCOM 2: War of the Chosen completely wrong.