XCOM 2 is eight years old, somehow, which was as offensive for me to write as it was for you to read. And if you ask me, it’s still Firaxis’ high point as a studio. That’s really saying something: Those guys made Sid Meier’s Pirates, after all, but I’ve never loved one of the studio’s games so much as I loved its endlessly inventive guerilla warfare sim.

Actually, I tell a lie. I liked base XCOM 2 well enough, but I only really fell in love with it when I got my hands on its War of the Chosen expansion. Released a year after XCOM 2, WOTC beefed up the original game’s offering by bolting on new factions, maps, heroes, and—most importantly—a kind of lite version of the Shadow of Mordor Nemesis system that saw you take on a trio of supervillains with a random assortment o…