'XCOM: Enemy Within' Pits You Against New Aliens

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By Chelsea Stark2013-08-21 14:43:16 UTC

Good morning, Commander: Firaxis Games is releasing an expansion to the critically acclaimed strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown later this year.

The expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within, adds new abilities, upgrades and weapons as players face new alien foes. Players will be able to upgrade their soldiers with genetic modifications from a new Gene Lab, which can be added to their base. One of these mods, as we noted from the screenshots, is Neural Damping; this gives soldiers the will to stand up to aliens. In a new Cybernetics Lab, players can bold mechanical exoskeletons for their soldiers. New weapons will be available as well.

But with these soldier upgrades comes new, challenging enemies. Firaxis Games said two new alien classes will appear on the battlefield, including the metal-bodied Mechtoid, shown below in game artwork.

Mechtoid-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown

The expansion also features 47 new maps for single-player, as well as new multiplayer maps and units.

XCOM: Enemy Within is due to arrive on Nov. 12 in North America for PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The PC and Mac versions will be add-ons to XCOM: Enemy Unknown and can be downloaded for $29.99. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions will be bundled as a separate retail disc titled XCOM: Enemy Within — Commander Edition, which will also include previous add-on content for the game. Those versions will cost $39.99.

You can watch the creepy trailer for Enemy Within above. The video and the game's title imply alien infiltration to the XCOM organization, but we'll find out for sure in three months.

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