After more than three years, Julian Gollop, the father of XCOM, has brought everyone his new work Phoenix Point. As a strategy game of the same type as XCOM, Phoenix Point reflects a strong “XCOM style” in all aspects – a sci-fi background story, hardcore resource management and development, a very deep strategy game, a random encounter experience, and compact and atmospheric strategic elements. However, this new game has made certain innovations in several important aspects of the gameplay mechanism, and even old players of XCOM can feel the different taste.
There are no aliens, but it’s still their fault
“Phoenix Point” still uses a sci-fi background story. This time, players no longer have to face ugly alien monsters, but instead ugly mutant monsters. The protagonist of the game is the Phoenix Force. In the story, this is a secret military organization established through the “Phoenix Project” in 1945, but its strength was greatly damaged because it was discovered by the United Nations. Decades later, the alien Pandora virus began to spread from Antarctica, producing a large number of mutated creatures that attacked humans and caused many humans to be infected and mutated. At the critical moment, the “Phoenix Project” was revived, and the only remaining Phoenix Force will use the Phoenix Point base as a base to launch an operation to save mankind.
However, saving the world is not that easy, because in the game players not only have to face the pressure of external virus spread, but also have to make choices between the infighting among the three major factions on the earth.
Strategic planning in a race against time
Similar to XCOM 2, the game creates an open map with a strong randomness based on the Earth. The player’s initial base, Phoenix Point, is randomly generated on the map, and players need to use it as the center to explore unknown locations, or receive and complete some random exploration tasks.
The explorable points are displayed on the map in the form of question marks. After exploration, players may be asked to perform some tasks, or they may be shelters or abandoned Phoenix bases in the past. Everything is unknown, which greatly mobilizes players’ desire to explore. Of course, there are only a few exploration points at the beginning, and players need to discover new exploration points by scanning. There is a time control icon on the map interface, which can be paused, started, accelerated, and decelerated. Let time pass normally or speed up, and new exploration points will be scanned out quickly. Because various situations may occur, you must be prepared before exploring, check the equipment of personnel or save them first.
However, as time goes by, the virus spreads. Just like the alien invasion in XCOM 2, the mutants brought by the virus that is generated and spreads in random locations will attack the human base. At the same time, the spread of the virus will also cause the delirium index to rise, and when the progress bar is full, the game will fail.
Phoenix Point interprets this mechanism by spreading red fog on the map, which more intuitively enhances the players’ sense of urgency than XCOM 2. Players need to make full use of their time to explore and manage bases more efficiently, especially in the middle and late stages. After owning multiple Phoenix bases, the strategic overall view becomes more important. It is necessary to dispatch troops from different bases to put out fires everywhere and promote the development of the main line, just like a commander who is truly saving the world.
Technology development routes for multiple factions
Life is already so difficult, but foolish people still do not forget to fight among themselves. After the doomsday crisis, humans on Earth are mainly divided into three factions – New Jericho, the Church of Anu and the Council of Balance. These three factions have completely different philosophies and often have frictions with each other.
Although these three factions are confused about the general direction and do not understand the principle of unity and externalization, they each have their own unique technology trees, arms and equipment, so the Phoenix troops controlled by the players need to establish a good relationship with them. However, the three major factions have too many conflicts in their ideas, and it is difficult for the Phoenix troops to get along with both sides and be like a fish in water. Generally, they can only form an alliance with one or two of them. Favorability is mainly improved by exchanging resources and completing faction tasks. When the favorability is high enough, you can buy special arms and equipment in the shelter of this faction and learn more new skills. If you have a bad relationship with a faction but want to use their technology, you can also get it by starting a war and robbing it openly-Phoenix troops, you are also corrupt.
The setting of three major technology factions has greatly increased the freedom of choice for players and changed the original fixed construction upgrade and combat methods of the “XCOM” series. Because it is difficult for players to experience the gameplay of all three factions in one week, players can still get new experiences in multiple rounds, which improves the game’s playability.
Comprehensive and balanced resource management and development
External pressure and internal fighting are real situations, and what we need to do is to manage our own development. There are not many types of resources in the game, only technology, food and materials, but there are many things to do in the base using these resources. Players need to build buildings with different functions, such as medical rooms that can treat soldiers’ injuries, dormitories to expand the number of troops, etc. Conduct scientific research, research new weapons and advance the plot. Train soldiers so that they can upgrade without fighting. Make equipment to replace soldiers’ damaged equipment in battle or upgrade to higher-level equipment, and make vehicles for special purposes. In addition, there are also skill points allocated to soldiers, etc.
These gameplay mechanisms constitute a relatively complete development system, which seems to be easy to operate. However, due to the threat of the continuous spread of the virus and the time required for construction and research, how to effectively utilize the resources obtained through exploration, combat and trade exchanges, and manage and distribute them across multiple bases is an issue that players need to consider in a comprehensive and balanced manner, which also makes this SLG game have a lot of fun in terms of business management.
Highly strategic core gameplay
Next, let’s talk about the main part of the game – the combat system. In general, chess and card games, you use your own units to eliminate all enemy units on a specific map to win. The richness of strategy requires several key points, including a variety of arms and enemies, simple but highly controllable skills, a precisely designed map, and balance. Phoenix Point naturally has all of these, and has made many improvements while inheriting the successful experience of XCOM.
First of all, the several types of soldiers that can be used in “Phoenix Point” not only have health and armor, but also have willpower attributes. Willpower can be regarded as a blue bar, which is mainly used to use skills. It is also related to action points, but this attribute will increase or decrease with the battle situation. For example, the willpower will decrease when a teammate dies, so it needs to be used well. In addition, each soldier has his own active or passive skills and specializations. Although these skills are relatively simple, how to use them and the order of use require players to think and control. What is more interesting about the game is the addition of an inventory system and a weight mechanism. Under limited weight, players can choose the weapons and items they carry, whether to bring a medical kit or a grenade. On some maps, soldiers can also take equipment from the item box on the ground, and can also pick up and inherit his legacy after the death of a teammate.
Phoenix Point continues the three-dimensional map design of the XCOM series, with complex multi-story buildings, bunkers and high ground, as well as scene elements that can be destroyed by weapons, which greatly enhances the strategic depth of the battle. At the same time, the mission goal of each battle is not just to eliminate the target, but also to protect the transported items, search for files, etc., which requires players to make reasonable arrangements according to the map.
The game has also made some changes to the action point mechanism. Soldiers’ movements and shootings are naturally limited by action points, but compared to the previous fixed number of movements, in this game, players can intersperse shooting and other actions within the moving distance, such as moving and attacking before moving again, etc. In addition, the game has a humanized display of the shooting range of each soldier’s prepared moving position, allowing soldiers to arrange their actions more freely.
In “XCOM 2”, there is a well-known hit rate stalk – “95% hit rate face-to-face MISS”. The most important change in the combat system of “Phoenix Point” this time is to make this stalk almost non-existent through manual aiming and separate calculation of trajectory. Compared with the previous automatic shooting, the game has added a manual aiming gameplay. After turning on the shooting, players can aim at different parts of the target at will, and then the game will show the total blood consumption that can be caused, as well as the effect of damage to this part, such as hitting the feet to reduce the opponent’s moving distance, knocking off the upper limbs to destroy the opponent’s handheld weapons, etc. In many cases, it is more important to knock out the key parts of the monster first when it cannot be killed with one shot. For example, destroying the abdomen of the bombing monster to launch a powerful skill first will make the battle more advantageous.
In the previous XCOM 2, cover mainly combined with the height of the terrain, gun properties and other factors to determine the hit rate. The manual aiming of Phoenix Point makes the role of cover more realistic. In a specific position, soldiers can only aim at the part of the monster exposed in the cover. In addition, this game also adopts the setting of calculating the trajectory of the 1994 version of XCOM. Each bullet will calculate the trajectory independently and realistically. Of course, the hit rate still exists, but it is impossible for every bullet to miss. There will no longer be a huge gap between 95% hit rate and miss.
Phoenix Point has a very deep strategic gameplay, which requires players to continuously study according to the actual situation to optimize their battle plans. In contrast, the IQ of the computer AI is also very high. In many chess games, the weak computer AI is an issue that cannot be ignored, and the challenge comes more from the abundance of various initial resources on the AI side. However, in Phoenix Point, which insists on the idea of hardcore chess games, the computer AI will use various tactics such as sneak attacks and detours. Even in the simplest difficulty, if you don’t manage and formulate a battle plan properly, you may not win. The game currently has four difficulty levels to adapt to the improvement of players’ levels.
Details still need to be polished
Without the support of 2K, Julian Gollop and his new studio can only raise funds through crowdfunding. It is said that they also received investment from EPIC, so some details show the “poverty” of insufficient budget. For example, the overall viewing of the game created by Unreal Engine 4 is good, full of science fiction, but the details of the characters and scenes are still a bit rough and not refined enough. In addition, the game UI is a bit rudimentary, with duplicated characters, and the scientific research interface is not fully translated into Chinese.
The number of soldiers and monsters is not rich enough. When the situation is tense in the middle and late stages, you often have to fight multiple battles in succession. However, the lack of rich content will give people a certain sense of repetition and boredom. The level of progression is not obvious, so the surprise and shock are not strong enough. Seeing that players asked for MOD shortly after the game was launched, the MOD of “XCOM 2” is indeed a big surprise, but “Phoenix Point” should release the DLC first. After all, for a work with a relatively stable foundation, adding some content elements of new soldiers and new enemies can greatly improve the playability.
Finally, there is the issue of game optimization. I encountered many bugs when I tried it, such as not being able to select exploration after clicking on an unknown location, and monsters not moving during the Pandora action phase. In addition, the scene loading is too slow, and sometimes there is a slight lag, which is also a problem. At first, I thought it was a problem with my computer, but later I found that many players were loading very slowly. These problems that affect the player experience need to be carefully handled by the producers in the future.
Conclusion: An excellent SLG with minor flaws
In general, while absorbing the successful experience of the XCOM series, Phoenix Point did not stand still, but made improvements and innovations in all aspects, integrating multiple gameplays such as business management, exploration and discovery, and chess strategy, especially the correction of the hit rate mechanism, making the combat system more perfect. Although it may be due to limited budget, the details are not perfect and the content is not rich enough, as long as the bugs that affect the user experience are fixed and the content is appropriately expanded in the future, it will definitely be a wonderful gift for all players who like hardcore chess strategy games.
