It’s been an ambition of mine to write something for The Guardian for a long time now, and I finally fulfilled it this week. Hopefully it won’t be a one-off!

My review of XCOM: Chimera Squad has just been published, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing it this week. It’s definitely a spin-off rather than a main entry in the series, but it’s still around 30 hours long, and it has some fun ideas. I liked the way it introduces a permanent roster of characters with very different abilities, and playing as the aliens was highly enjoyable – Torque’s tongue grab is particularly fun to use.

But all this comes with the loss of permadeath, and it felt like there should be some stronger characterization to compensate for this. It’s great to hear the characters make quips between battles, but some deeper background and missions related to each of them would have helped to flesh out the world a bit more. Still, the fact that it made me interested enough in the characters to want to hear more of their stories is a success in itself. Check out the full review through the link below:

XCOM: Chimera Squad review – human-alien hybrids lay down the law

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