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It did get slightly comical when one of them died (or you started another game from the beginning) and you had the second or third guy with the exact same name
by Delk 6y ago
It did get slightly comical when one of them died (or you started another game from the beginning) and you had the second or third guy with the exact same name down the road, though.
But it's true, you did grow attached.
Since in some sense the nature of the game is also that your soldiers will die -- and sometimes a lot of them -- because of a small mistake or just due bad luck, that creates a weird dichotomy where you're tempted to care on one hand and to see them as expendable and replaceable on the other hand at the same time.
Also, the atmosphere of night missions in particular where shots might come out of the dark at any point, and you might not really even see where they came from, made for a surprisingly engaging and even scary experience.
The weird, ominous music was probably a part of that.
I've heard others not find it that way, though, so maybe it's a matter of imagination and how prone to getting immersed you are.
- appleiigs 6y agoI remember it was a big enough of a dilemma to me that I had to decide at the beginning of the game whether I was going to frequently save or not for that entire run. Now I figure it's most fun not to re-do and deal with the drama, but I do bring some red-shirts with me now.
- JohnBooty 6y agoThe reboots are a bit of a different beast, but they really lean into the soldier attachment thing. You can deeply customize your soldiers, and in XCOM2 they even gain visible scars (!) and emotional wounds (!!) and form bonds with other soldiers based on their experiences. It's all bait, of course. Because they are gonna die. A lot. A rather deliciously sadistic design choice, encouraging you to form attachments like that. =) My general rule of thumb in XCOM is that rookies are lower than dog crap. Not even human. You do not rename rookies because rookies don't even deserve a name in the first place, much less a new name. If there was an in-game mess hall I wouldn't even let them eat with the other soldiers. If they somehow survive a few drops... well, then we can talk lol.