The Angelis is the overseer of the Avatar Project, and is also the leader of the Ethereals tasked with governing Earth. We know that there are. XCOM 2 - XCOM 2 is the sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the award-winning strategy game of the year. Earth has changed. Twenty years have passed since. Alternately, the Angelis Ethereal was simply replicating the Speaker's voice with their psionic communication since the turn before the Speaker starts goading. STICKING DOTS METHOD FOREX

The Resistance is defeating your occupying armies. The Andromedon takes cover in a doorway of the UFO. The ghost of 'nikink' then calls upon the Spirits of the Beyond to explode much of the front of the UFO. It was a Proximity Mine, but 'Spirits of the Beyond' sounded spookier. The Andromedon has had enough, so it retreats deeper into the UFO's interior.

Units suddenly laying down their arms mid battle or turning on one another. Tygan: With the tower disrupted [and the backup on the UFO shut down], it could be that the Elders are attempting to maintain the network on their own.

The strain on them must be Angelis Ethereal: Our power does not waver. You will find our forces here loyal. They require no coercion, for they know failure here mains the end for all. Speaker: Consider all those who have sacrificed for your cause, Commander.

So many friends For freedom! You still do not understand one of humanity's driving forces, and that is why your invasion has failed. Their cautious advance is interrupted by Because I spawned several branches of the game from the same save point, every branch has its own Berserker Queen. Captain 'ranson': Gah!

I thought we took that thing out -- twice over. Among other personal things Vegas has decided to stop processing for me so for the last two videos I had to do as much work on my end as I could and then send everything to Lunethex who actually compiled the videos and sent it back. This added a lot of extra time on top of me already dragging my feet on things.

Sorry for the wait, glad you stuck around for it, and thank you for waiting. A lot of what there is to be said for the final mission is covered in the ample time Guava and I have to talk about it. There isn't a rush here, there's no timer so if you want you can very slowly creep through the map or just come to a stop reload and sit still for a few turns to let abilities and cool downs refresh before moving on.

I thought that would make for poor sport and boring video with out several editing cuts, and given the above technical issues I was having the less editing I needed to do the better. But, that all said, you absolutely can just dump all your cooldown abilities onto each and every alien pod you encounter and then catch a breather if you really need to.

Really though unless you get unlucky or activate multiple pods on top of each other like I somehow did than most of the missions fights aren't anything you haven't seen before and handled up to this point. The enemies may be tough but you've dealt with them before and now you have the Avatar on your side as well, giving you an extra man on your team who comes with regen, mind control, and a huge radius psi explosion.

I think attrition might have been the idea behind the long approach, to wear down a player's team or resources before the big final chamber. The problem with that is that the fights don't really require many resources or loss of HP if you play smart like you've probably done the whole game.

The real difficulty of the mission is the final chamber. Kill Three Avatars is a tough goal, but they sort of hand you the first one. No matter how powerful an enemy it might be, if it's unsupported than it's going to be fairly easy to kill. We've seen that proven through out the LP.

Once you kill the first Avatar though, that is when things get real. The portals will be throwing multiple pods at you a turn and eventually you will get swamped and over run. The second Avatar comes in at about the 4th or 5th pod through the gate and that is the first big gut check. There are going to be a lot of aliens around, and an avatar behind them all you need to kill. Suddenly their ability to teleport and heal 5HP every turn is going to matter a lot more when there is a wall of mutons between you and the avatar.

DIFFERENCE SPREAD BETTING AND CFD INVESTMENTS

Human Resources media, such as Soylent Green , is a bad thing to have in a society where people regularly go missing There will be an epilogue DLC about taking the fight to the alien's planets It fits the audacity of XCOM expansions and Bradford has a line saying "maybe when this is over we can take this ship and go colonize one of [the alien's] planets". Assuming Firaxis doesn't take up on that nod with an outright sequel.

The Speaker is the very same Thin Man that put the implant in the Commander That smirk wasn't just him being sadistic. He was well aware he's doing his last grunt work before getting a cushy job. The Speaker was indeed killed during the start of the riots. Alternately, the Angelis Ethereal was simply replicating the Speaker's voice with their psionic communication since the turn before the Speaker starts goading XCOM, the Ethereal ends their speech by commenting to herself about how the Commander was unwilling to listen to her words or voice, ending it in a way as if musing that a voice that's usually viewed with trust and respect by humanity would allow her to convey her message.

Unfortunately, she didn't consider that the voice she picked wasn't so popular with humanity anymore and was never trusted by XCOM to begin with. Alternatively, The Speaker survived. Remember how Thin Men could use poison spit? The Speaker might have used this ability while he was being mobbed. This, unfortunately, means that whoever attacked him suffered agonizing deaths by poison. It would mostly capitalize on stuff like this.

The Commander is merged with Asaru from The Bureau. An unparalleled tactical and strategic genius with enough mental strength to control an avatar body and hold off three hostile ethereals at the same time The Aliens were using the commander at the start of the game to run battle simulations and war games in his head, every single game of Xcom Enemy Unknown or Within was one of those war games.

It was a duel purpose test and data mining effort by the aliens to determine the most likely outcome of the war in different scenarios and to determine the potential worth of humanity as well as a way to build a tactical response system that would counter human warfare if they ever revolted. Expansions like Enemy Within were to add more variables to the scenario and test the human resolve to fight and willingness to permanently alter themselves in the name of survival and independence.

As for what she's doing coming from Enemy Unknown? Well, it's been confirmed by Word of God that The Volunteer, be it Annette or another XCOM member, managed to survive to cancel the black hole caused by the Uber Ethereal's ship, with the implication they went somewhere else instead of dying. Vahlen is still alive, but leading her own resistance faction She might have taken extreme measures to hide herself, because she was personally responsible for the painful torture captured aliens had to endure.

If they were still psionically linked, the Ethereals would probably want payback for making them feel all that pain. However, she's still helping out XCOM in her own way, and might even be leading her own rebel organization but in a more subtle fashion. In missions where XCOM is raiding sabotaged supply vehicles, we never see any trace of the resistance fighters; maybe Vahlen's really good at hit and run. There will be story DLC involving a search for Dr.

In the Alien Rulers DLC, she creates three units that are empowered versions of the viper, berserker, and archon enemies. These empowered aliens end up getting loose and serve as random boss encounters. There's just no reason for the aliens to waste good Human Resources on food when they're working hard on the Avatar Project. Rather, the "meat" in ADVENT burgers is a genetically engineered and "vat-grown" meat substance, designed by the aliens for maximum flavor.

All the best tastes humans generally agree on, combined with a few choice chemicals that directly stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain, making them psychologically addictive. It's just another means of controlling the human populace. Gene Therapy clinics to cure disease and increase health and longevity, clean and shiny city centers with unlimited power and high-tech luxury devices, sexy snake ladies, and the best food you've ever had and as much of it as you can eat.

On the other hand, there may be rejected candidates that don't have the juice for Avatar Project, or just a handy way to dispose of the bodies of slaughtered dissidents and XCOM members without mass graves or furnaces. There is also consistency to think about. And given how many of them must go around, there just shouldn't be enough rejects in the Avatar Project to put into every burger.

That is not to say that humans aren't being eaten. We don't know what the aliens themselves eat We found out in the Enemy Unknown. Besides all the obvious logistical issues of feeding a population with itself, the Ethereals probably designed them under the assumption they themselves will be eating ADVENT burgers or some less "Crass" form of the same meat, like steak once the Avatar project is finished.

Vahlen is working for Advent Hear me out here: Dr. Vahlen is probably the most knowledgeable person about alien biology on the planet pre-invasion. In addition, depending on how long one waited to assault the base, the species encountered up to that point can range from Mutons and Chrysalids to Cyberdisks and Floaters. When XCOM fell, Vahlen was most likely captured or killed- since her body was never found, and Bradford is confident she's still alive, we can assume "captured". In an ironic twist given both her nationality and her reputation among the aliens, she's given asylum, provided she uses her research to further their cause.

Essentially, "Join us, or become them". Possibly the evolution of mechanical units- Archons are probably hers, but the new Sectopods seem like they'd be more in line with Shen's work. The creation of the Speaker, having been made more human from his original Thin Man form, though not perfect-both as a visual cue to the audience, and a way of Vahlen staying defiant to the Elders.

Gene therapy clinic development- the orange color associated with the "therapy beds" seems to suggest use of Meld. The creation of Advent Burgers- a cheap way to keep the population in check with quality food.

And then, come , she finds out a few interesting tidbits of information: Shen's daughter is alive, and she's commandeered an alien ship. Bradford is alive, and he's with Lily Shen. The Commander is still alive, and he has been used to ensure alien victory by way of his wargame simulation. Acting on all this information, she decides to leak some intel.

It's never specified where Bradford got the intel as to the Commander's location, just that he acted on it as soon as he got it. It could have come from anywhere- a file sent in an unencrypted e-mail, a direct line to the Informant, or even rumors spread around the globe, piecing together a message. Now, one of two things happens here, both equally likely: Vahlen is not found out and continues working with the aliens, who fast-track the Avatar project after their key strategic asset is removed.

Vahlen, a trustworthy asset, is put in charge of it, and she keeps leaking details about Avatar to the Informant- things like where their next facility will be built- but doesn't have full access to the data, which is why you need to find the location of The Blacksite, the Forge, and the Psionic Gate via hacking into various things. Vahlen, paranoid of being found out, flees her center of research with files pertaining to the Avatar project. Advent doesn't catch onto her presence for a good while- she's a priority asset, she can be trusted and probably did this prior to the Commander being rescued.

She traveled to some far-off country of little strategic significance- probably living in slums of a city center in a third-world country- but eventually, has to pack up and leave, and, through various assumed names, travels the globe, taking revenge on aliens in rather Jossed: As of Alien Hunters, we find out that Vahlen has been conducting genetic experiments in a hidden lab with three alien subjects so dangerous that the Etherals had them frozen to prevent them from running amok.

The Commander is one of the Missing Primarchs from Warhammer 40k. It would explain his military ability and the surprising lack of muscle atrophy from being immobile for 20 years. The reason no one notices anything is because of his Warp mutation - instead of growing wings or being a cyclops, he's of normal size and proportion. He did this to find some modicum of internal forgiveness by altering history just enough to be accepting of psykers the Psi Lab actually creating them on relative command and genetic alterations the Commander's Avatar -thus, starving the Chaos Gods of trillions of worshipers drove to their side and leading to a less grimdark future.

Of course, Tzeentch knew about this, but decided to let it happen-a humanity more accepting of psykers and change means more fruitful ground for his own cult In Enemy Within, if you rush for it specifically, Dr. Shen can roll out the first MEC Trooper in less than two months. He probably had detailed notes on his own personal project robot suit before the invasion started, and it only became viable so quickly once XCOM studied MELD in the Enemy Within timeline to provide the appropriate cybernetic interface with the pilot.

Since this timeline had the original base get attacked and overrun, Shen had to go on the run with his daughter. Who knows what personal notes he left behind in his haste? Fast forward to when Advent needs a heavy mechanized unit for situations that don't call for a Sectopod, they modified Shen's original notes to make it an entirely robotic unit and integrated it into their forces. Julian states that he helped the aliens with,"perfecting their designs," and mentions that Dr.

Shen's work was helpful. The final threat the Ethereals warned us about has already been revealed A combination of theories posited so far - Somewhere in time and space, an unknown "evil" race dominates not only their universe, but also spill out into alternative dimensions, where they encounter pre-XCOM 1 Ethereals.

Some of the members of this "evil" race try to encourage the Ethereals to ascend by sharing their superior technology with them, while others bear a grudge against the Ethereals for reasons that will be made clear shortly and try to eliminate the Ethereals with a degenerative virus instead.

The Ethereals' degenerating bodies makes them desperate and they ultimately search for dimensions not dominated by the "evil" race. In at least two of these alternative dimensions, they find the freedom to experiment on lesser races in an effort to save themselves and ultimately ascend. However, in every single one of these dimensions, humans adapt and adopt the Ethereal's borrowed technology and use it to defeat the Ethereals.

What's more, the humans evolve beyond the capabilities and technology possessed by the Ethereals, and eventually conquer them and go on to dominate the universe. The humans ultimately spill out into alternative dimensions, where they find Ethereals that have never encountered humans before and have no degenerative virus. The humans are the "evil" race that create their own worst enemy.

The Commander is a Time Lord. The Commander is being helped by a renegade Ethereal At several points during the game, we see an Ethereal silhouette doing hand waves in the camera's direction - when the Commander flatlines as the brain chip is being removed, and when the connection to the Avatar is established. My theory is that there is an Ethereal alongside the Commander's own mind within his brain. Initially, it was placed there to keep him under control, but it realized that Mankind had better chances of defeating the great menace that its own people.

So it decided to help the Commander by keeping him alive and helping the connection with the Avatar. This explains why the other Ethereals call the Commander a 'betrayer' in the final cutscene - also it could just be them being hypocrites since they forced the Commander to work for them in the past. Building off of this, the renegade Ethereal in question may be Asaru , considering the bright blue psionic aura the Commander's Avatar has in the final mission.

What better time to do that than in the inevitable power vacuum after XCOM defeats the ruling aliens? Denman Williams or his counterpart serving the Councilman's role as a go-between for the privatized XCOM and their EXALT paymasters, with the two working together barely to fight against whatever force destroyed the home planet of the Ethereals. We will have control of some of the aliens in X-com 3. Advent is a decapitated army at this point, and the ethereals actually admit that much of the army would not serve without psychic domination.

With possibly their entire army stranded on earth, who's to say some of the alien races can't be reasoned with? The sectoids at least are of proven human level intelligence, as are the vipers. Its also possible that after being freed from Ethereal control some of the aliens would simply willingly join up with X-com to defend against the upcoming threat Confirmed, technically, with the spin-off game XCOM: Chimera Squad ; three of the squad's members are aliens Verge the Sectoid, Torque the Viper, and Axiom the Muton , while two are former advent clones Hybrids.

In the end the aliens lost because that did not understand Intoxication Over the course of the final mission the etherials or elders which ever you want to call them repeatedly appeal to the commander to stop the war because of all the years he spent "with" them presumably in the alien psy network before he was saved. They expected it to work, legitimately and without irony, which is why they tried talking so many times. The reason it didn't however wasn't human ingenuity or the will to survive, it was how the human body reacts to intoxication of any kind, drugs, alcohol, anything that alters the state of mind to a certain degree.

See thanks to human physiology memory formation can be effected by an altered state of mind, for example being blackout drunk or so fucking high you don't remember anything you did while under the influence until the next time your in the same state. The actual name for it Alcoholic Memory Syndrome, posits that because a person is under the influence the way there memories are recorded is slightly altered from normal making it very difficult if not impossible to remember when sober but when next intoxicated to roughly the same level those memories become accessible again because your mind is functioning the same way.

The result of this is that the commander experienced a roughly decade long blackout because of the high he was experiencing off all that psonic energy flowing through his body. He legitimately couldn't remember the entire decade he'd spent in the network as a result. There IS no greater threat All of the posturing, pathetically-transparent excuses are just that; excuses to mask their hypocrisy and justify the cold-blooded genocide of humanity and dozens of other alien civilizations.

If this is the case, then what are the weird purplish tendrils crawling out of the wreckage of the ethereal underwater base? The greater threat is the Kaiju from Pacific Rim The glowing trench shown at the end is the portal they come through.

And XCOM and the Jaeger program are both multinational organizations that have to deal with councils made up of the world governments who keep cutting their funding. Not all Advent Troopers are Vat Grown Some of them are genetically modified human volunteers as originally speculated. These used to be the majority of the Advent Army but as time went on they became a smaller and smaller section of Advent forces.

Now those that remain are assigned to non strategic areas and for PR reasons. Advent Forces are your brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, neighbors and friends. But don't take my word for it, here's Sergeant Jane Allison. Confirmed as of Chimaera Squad. One of your available agents, Zephyr, was snatched as a child and modified into a Hybrid. The only remnant of her original human persona is her accent. The sequel will involve the now liberated factions of humanity dragging each other to hell in a civil war Yay!

You defeated the aliens with mass-murder and terrorism, exposed their genocidal plans to the point of global paranoia, and ruthlessly shattered their leadership with a psionic nuke! Now billions of enlightened citizens across twenty different segregated sections of an entire planet whose original inhabitants belonged to hundreds of warmongering, rapist racists can use the advanced plasma-nuclear technology to make peace and live happily- Okay cut the crap, we all know that Humans Are Bastards and We ARE Struggling Together.

What do you THINK will happen the exact moment that the entire planet is completely deprived of its dominant government?! With some people staying in the hyper advanced cities and most flocking into the technology-deprived wilderness, the remnants of former extremist nations can now use those shiny new plasma terrorist weapons that Advent was constantly wiping them out for brandishing, AND the fact that you just destroyed Advent's greatest super-soldier project, the one that they probably broadcast to the entire world out of spite as the Milky Way Galaxy's last line of defense against a psionic eldritch planet-sized all-devourer that is going to eat the entire galaxy in less than five centuries, you can expect that the world isn't going to hold on to One World Order for a second long.

A lot of people are going to be VERY angry at XCOM, some are going to try and fill the power vacuum possibly Exalt , and a few of your own soldiers are going to defect out of loyalty to their original countries, horror at all the innocents you forced them to grenade, or disgust at how you have completely fucked up the world. Yes, because it's not like it's human nature to fall back into existing groups in response to a catastrophe or anything.

Or that the same program to create that soldier involves this thing called "eating people". Something tells me XCOM is the same leftover government-most people are going to listen to the guys who stopped a species-wide genocide, and the armed people are also the same ones who were helping XCOM. That kind of alliance is the sort of thing that, despite the best wishes of pessimists attempting to prove they are omniscient in their laziness , tends to last a couple generations. In summation, unlikely, and the Advent newscaster above me can go kiss a Chryssalid.

Sort of confirmed with XCOM: Chimera Squad where the main story is about stabilizing the troubled City 31 and showing that peace between humans and aliens is a viable path forward. Annette Durand never existed. A young, pretty, very powerful psyker with a unique superpower that every side wants working for them and does fine in combat without any proper training? Sounds rather like a fanfic character, or at least as close to one as you'll get from a Crapsack World like the one in the games.

That's because she was - There was no real Annette Durand. Instead, the character Annette was the Angelis Ethereal making an Author Avatar in the Commander's tactical simulations. Perhaps she was simply creating the character to see how the Commander handled powerful psi-operatives, thus creating tactics the Elders themselves could use, or perhaps she was just being a nerd because she's fond of the Commander traces of which sneak through in her interaction with him.

Either way, there was no real Annette Durand, and that's why she doesn't appear in the sequel. The ethereals are certainly conniving, ruthless bastards. However, humans were given rather preferential treatment because of their genetic predisposition for handling psionic energy. That same energy that has caused the near-extinction and wasting degeneration of the ethereals, which is what the avatar project had hoped to combat.

Unfettered though they are, I don't think the ethereals would be as ungrateful for having found what they were looking for in humanity as to purge them from existence. Hypothetical situation: XCOM and the resistance is quashed, the Avatar Project is completed, said avatars are now "rolled out" to the five or so ethereals that are left, who exert themselves as the dominant powers. As their rule and survival is all but assured, I see no reason why the ethereals and ADVENT wouldn't just leave the contented, docile population of the city centers alone.

ADVENT clearly has enough troops to keep the peace within the centers, the media is firmly under their control, hardly anything happens without their knowing within those centers, and the average person is genuinely happy and healthy. There's little reason to worry about what will happen if the grip on the reins is loosened a bit. While it may not be a particularly ideal future for humankind, it is a future, and I don't think it's nearly as dark or apocalyptic as the bad ending of UFO Defense EXALT was the Commander's subconscious attempts to rebel against the Ethereals.

It would integrate Enemy Within; initially, the Commander was 'running' Enemy Unknown, and as their subconscious picked up on the simulation and tried to rebel, they moved on to Enemy Within. My personal belief is the Skirmishers, since Exalt wanted to use alien technology and biology to improve themselves.

What actually happened is that people that were "improved" by the aliens realized that this was for the downfall of humanity, and instead rebelled against the Elders. Additionally they were all chosen by the Ethereals for their psionic potential.

Annette Durand is MIA, possibly the leader of the Templars or possibly killed during her rescue mission. Pretty thoroughly Jossed. While the Chosen are former humans, they aren't the furies. Instead, it's never mentioned at all. The Ethereals are not a species.

They are all one specific being with their numbers coming from across dimensions, and they're running from Humanity. The Elders or Ethereals are a series of ancient beings seemingly of identical body type and outfit, with one notable exception, who speak as a united group. This troper believes that the seeming universality of there abilities and decrepit build would not be conducive to a species proper, even if humans went the ascension route, it is virtually certain that at least a few million would choose to stay behind and continue having children naturally.

Rather, this troper suspects that the Ethereals are all variations of same being, coming from various alternate dimensions, with the most powerful variation among them becoming leader. Further more, they are waging war across the different dimensions and have been extremely successful.

With access to multiple dimensions they simply wage a direct war with each alien civilization, and regardless of victory of defeat, learn the civilization's weaknesses and exploit them with their alternate selves in every other dimension. No species could survive Save-Scumming, and the Elders would always triumph. That is, until humanity got into the mix with our perfect blend of brain, brawn, and psionic potential. The Ethereals saw in us something far greater then any other species they encountered had presented the chance at extending their dwindling lives.

The Ethereals, for all of their power and technology, had reached the absolute limit of what they could do to preserve their bodies. More and more of them failed leaving the inhabitants as bound wraiths, kept existent by the psionic power they wielded but also trapped by it, left unable to rule from beyond the mortal coil.

They can't be hacked, but they are vulnerable to "bluescreen" EMP weapons like mechanical units. They're also vulnerable to flashbangs, which mechanical units are normally immune to. In Chimera Squad it's revealed that each has a unique psionic signature Verge is familiar with them, of course but that they're probably just dumb Attack Drones that can be "refactored" - which is coding lingo for reworking something to be easier to read or cleaner to run without changing how it behaves.

Essentially they have a foot in both worlds and eat some of the biggest weaknesses of both. Nigh-Invulnerable : In gameplay, they can be defeated, and it gets easier as you get more advanced technology. But hooking up the Codex Brain to the Shadow Chamber quickly reveals that it's still alive, even when it's only reduced to a brain, making all those brains you're mounting in the Armory a potential case of And I Must Scream. Party Scattering : Their entire combat style is dedicated to splitting up your squad.

The first attack they lead with is a psionic vortex that disables all weapons within an area of effect before collapsing in on itself in the next turn, damaging everyone inside it; all to discourage you from clumping your troops too tightly. The teleportation means cover is nearly useless. Since it copies itself every time it takes damage that means you're encouraged to use powerful attacks instead of whittling it down slowly.

Projected Man : The only solid part of them is their head. Self-Duplication : Codices can create duplicates of themselves on the battlefield, splitting their health between the copies. Teleport Spam : Can teleport nearly every turn and will teleport a fresh clone to another location every time she is damaged.

Villain Teleportation : She has the ability to teleport around the battlefield. It's possible every single Codex you fight is actually just a different facet of the same entity existing in multiple points throughout our reality. Spectre Introduced in War of the Chosen, Spectres are mechanical humanoids capable of creating "dark copies" of entrapped enemies. Achilles' Heel : Similar to the Codex, Spectres can't be hacked but still count as mechanical units for the purpose of the extra damage from Bluescreen Rounds.

Dodge the Bullet : They have Lightning Reflexes, so the first Overwatch shot against them automatically misses. If a mission has the Automated Defenses sitrep mechanical units only , Spectres are likely to show up, and they're just as susceptible to Bluescreen ammo as any other bot on the map. Mirror Boss : Spectres can copy a soldier with all their weapons and abilities with Shadowbind if they can get within melee range. The real one remains unconscious until the Shadow made out of them is destroyed, either by direct damage or killing the Spectre that created it.

Nanomachines : An odd example. They at first appeared to be swarms of these, given by how they seemingly dissove when moving and creating a Shadow, but they stay as a solid corpse when taken out, and dissecting one reveals that this isn't the case as far as Tygan and Shen can tell.

In fact, the Spectre Autopsy doesn't actually yield any answers as to exactly what it is other than having a possible relation to the Codex. No Ontological Inertia : Killing a Spectre causes any Shadows to disperse and the Shadowbound soldier to recover unless the Shadow Clone has some sort of Sustain-like ability which will kick in and save it at one hit point. One to Million to One : Whilst moving, Spectres turn into a swarm made up of their components which makes them immune to the first Overwatch shot and highly resistant to any follow-ups.

It also allows them to bypass otherwise impassable terrain like Bottomless Pits. Sorting Algorithm of Evil : In a sense, they're an upgrade to the Codex, being a durable biomechanical entity with highly unorthodox movement methods and powerful disabling abilities. They also take the same increased damage from Bluescreen rounds. Tron Lines : A handful of glowing green lines are the only parts on their bodies that aren't shiny black. Sectopod These hulking alien war machines return once again, and remain the heavyweight armored fist of the alien occupation.

Achilles' Heel : These are scary foes, but they're just as vulnerable to Bluescreen rounds and EMP bombs as any other robotic enemy, and a properly-outfitted squad can make short work of them. They are also vulnerable to getting hacked. Anti-Armor : Every hit from their main weapon shreds two armor pips. Defeat Equals Explosion : Explodes when killed, doing damage and ruining cover in its vicinity.

Destructive Savior : A rare villainous example. However, their total disregard for collateral and property damage during battles means they're also very likely to have destroyed much if not most of what they were supposed to protect in the process.

That goes double when it stands tall, as it can take out the floor above it as it marches. Giant Mook : The new model can stand at two or three stories tall, with equivalent height advantage boons. Heavily Armored Mook : With five armor pips on Normal, Sectopods are the second most heavily armored enemy you can run into, beaten out only by closed Gatekeepers and Julian's unique Sectopod in Shen's Last Gift with their six pips each.

Made especially poignant by XCOM's adamant belief that there must be a pilot inside hence the Non-Indicative Name , only to find out to their dismay that these hulking monstrosities are indeed fully automated. Shen in particular is disgusted by ADVENT's willingness to unleash heavily armed killer robots in densely populated city centers without any organic oversight. Lean and Mean : The new model of Sectopod is noticeably more slender and sleek than the squat, hulking design seen during the invasion.

It gets even leaner when it extends its legs. Lightning Bruiser : Sectopods are armed and armoured to their non-existent teeth, get three actions per round, don't end their turn by firing, aren't impeded in the slightest by terrain, buildings or cover thanks to their legs, can assume a high stance freely which gives them height advantage bonuses with no downsides, and have a nasty line-of-effect attack in Wrath Cannon.

It's not hard to believe Shen when she says Sectopods trounced Earth's armored units in the first war. Mechanical Monster : Much like their previous iteration, Sectopods are exceptionally nasty robotic mooks that should never be taken lightly. Specialists in particular have multiple abilities that can lock down a Sectopod for up to three turns, if not outright take control of them. AP Rounds make a mockery of their heavy armor while Bluescreen rounds deal massive bonus damage to them, to the point that a properly skilled and outfitted Grenadier can reduce a mint Sectopod to almost dead in a single attack.

There are numerous additional options available to effectively counter a Sectopod, and if you know what you're doing, chances are the ugly trash can won't even get to fire its weapons. Non-Indicative Name : Tygan says that the soldiers call them 'Sectopod' because they assumed there was a Sectoid piloting them. As the autopsy dialogue suggests, some people in the base insist that there should be armed guards protecting the scientists and engineers as they take it apart for fear there is something inside, which turns out to be untrue.

Shock and Awe : If an enemy attacks them at very close range or in melee, Sectopods unleash their Lightning Field attack, an AoE electric shock that extends outwards from their legs, dealing damage and potentially stunning what it hits. Even a Templar's Parry won't protect them from that. There Was a Door : They tend to crash through obstacles they can't simply step over.

As with Andromedons and Gatekeepers, they're not averse to wrecking buildings they're meant to protect by walking through them and sending their own units plummeting down by breaking the floor under them. They can even cause missions to fail for XCOM because they destroyed something they had to protect such as a workstation or secure container by accident.

Transforming Mecha : They have two stances, a taller, thinner form and a lower squatting stance. Tripod Terror : Technically bipedal, but they fit the spirit of the trope when in their "tall" mode: an elevated walking machine wielding deadly ray blasts. These things can take at least two shots per turn, as well. Wave-Motion Gun : One of their weapons, Wrath Cannon, deals massive damage to all targets in a straight line. It takes a full turn to charge, during which the Sectopod will have its front open and emitting red light beams.

Sectoids are now more physically robust, and have a wider psychic repertoire, allowing them to assault foes' minds or even re-animate their corpses as psionic zombies. Achilles' Heel : They have two. They take extra damage when hit by melee attacks. A Ranger's Slash is almost guaranteed to kill one if it connects. They practically lose their special abilities when dazed by a flashbang, which will also interrupt Mind Spin and dispel any status effects they had on your soldiers including mind control.

The psi zombies they revive will drop dead immediately as well. Arm Cannon : A plasma gun of the "attached-to-forearm" variety. They rarely use it, prefering to employ their psychic powers. Exposed Extraterrestrials : The only thing they wear is the plasma gauntlet on their right arm.

Averted by the time of XCOM: Chimera Squad where the remaining Sectoids have integrated into Earth society, wearing the same clothing as humans and leading to the "Verge defected to humanity for pants" The Greys : They are a lot less grey-like due to the infusions of human DNA, but they still retain many grey attributes, such as the shape of their heads, large eyes and lack of ears. Logical Weakness : They're naked psionicists, making them extra vulnerable to melee attacks or anything that disrupts their concentration.

Mind Rape : Mind Spin is a telepathic attack that can randomly panic a target, leave them disoriented, or result in full-on Mind Control. No Biochemical Barriers : Averted. Unfortunately for them, Sectoids tend to waste turns using these abilities when they are about to be killed the next turn, before they have any chance to do damage. Power Glows : Like the old Sectoids, parts of their body, especially their ribcage, glow from the inside when they use their psionic abilities.

Sorting Algorithm of Evil : Sectoids are the entry-level psionic enemies that introduce new players to the mechanics and threat level of psionics in general. Took a Level in Badass : Sectoids in the previous game were The Goomba , with comparatively little offensive power, low health and mostly dangerous only in groups. Here, they're more dangerous, even being capable of mind controlling your operatives from the very beginning. To compensate, there's no elite variant to them like the Sectoid Commander.

Products like eggs, hot dogs, and jam of all things. Viper The true form of the "Thin Men" seen in the intitial invasion, Vipers are female humanoid cobras that serve as one of the Elders' many servitor-species.

They wield plasma guns in combat, but can also spit clouds of poison or use their prehensile tongues to reel victims in to be crushed in their coils. Breakout Character : They were far and away the most popular enemies introduced in XCOM 2, primarily due to how attractive many fans found them. Come Chimera Squad, advertisements for a Viper hostess club can be found, and one of the titular team's squaddies is a Viper named Torque.

Vahlen hypothesizes that the Elders may have done their Gendercide as a form of population control. Friendly Fireproof : A variant. Also applies to the Lost if they target the soldier she's constricting. It goes both ways, though, as your soldiers can shoot a constricting Viper off an ally without any risk of hurting them.

Gendercide : Alien Hunters reveals that the Elders engineered out the male of the species, presumably to keep their population under control. Just one male escaping cryostasis is enough to cause it to cover a base with its spawn. When one sees how the Viper lair is filled with snakes who flocked to it despite the cold, and how the Vipers are willing to fight to death for the Viper King, another reason could be inferred: The Ethereals wouldn't want male Vipers who could have control and authority over the females and possibly go rogue.

Hartman Hips : Have a notably flared "pelvis" at the bottom of their humanoid torsos, which helps give them a more human-like silhouette. Multipurpose Tongue : The Viper's tongue is a prehensile appendage that it can use from quite a distance away, and which gives it a particularly dangerous option for combat: pulling enemies out of cover.

They're also the natural form of the genetically engineered Thin Men from the previous game. They have the Bind ability of the Seeker from the previous game , allowing them to catch hold of, immobilize, and eventually fatally crush an operative unless shot off. If you don't have the means to revive them, they're essentially dead until the mission ends. Non-Mammalian Mammaries : According to Dr. Tygan, they're actually venom glands that expel a cloud of poison when the Viper compresses its pectoral muscles.

The Viper King shows that even Viper males have them. One-Gender Race : The Vipers are all distinctly female, in contrast to their Thin Men disguises from the previous game. The Alien Hunters DLC shows that the species does have males, but given the trouble that just one male Viper caused, it's likely this trope was enforced by the Elders as a form of population control.

Personal Space Invader : Like the Seeker from the previous game, a Viper can coil her body around a soldier and Bind them, rendering both unable to move or attack with the soldier taking a little damage that can be mitigated by armor each turn they're constricted. Vipers can initiate it by either using their tongues to yank a soldier to their position or by moving to the soldier's position.

Ironically, despite the fact that their official concept art does depict them with unhinging, snake-like jaws, they are incapable of devouring a captured trooper whole , perhaps because such a One-Hit Kill ability would be unfair even by XCOM standards. Hell, despite having large and solid fangs, they can't even bite.

Snakes Are Sexy : They might be serpentine Beast Men , but many fans became appreciative of their looks. This has been embraced by the developers to subsequently become true In-Universe as well, as XCOM: Chimera Squad has implied that in the post-war world there are Vipers working in exclusive hostess and strip clubs among other things. Snake People : They resemble anthropomorphic female cobras, having the head and tail of a giant cobra connected by the upper torso and arms of a feminine humanoid.

Unlike Thin Men, they don't leave behind a poison cloud when they die, presumably since their poison glands are no longer being constantly compressed in a human disguise. Unblockable Attack : The tongue grab deals no damage, so it can bypass a Templar's Parry.

It is still blocked by a Ranger's Untouchable, the game treating it as a miss, but if the Ranger has Bladestorm , the Ranger will get the free attack as soon as they get pulled into range. You Will Not Evade Me : They can use their long tongues to drag humanoid targets out of cover and into melee range. It's a free action, but has a two-turn cooldown. Faceless A mysterious new alien menace, the Faceless are infiltrators that use their shapeshifting ability to walk amongst humans in order to root out "malcontents.

Since tracking them down one by one would be a chore with up to 20 civilians on the map, any remaining Faceless automatically reveal themselves once all other ADVENT forces have been dealt with. Barrier-Busting Blow : It's rare to see their clumsy claw strikes actually hit the intended target. What makes them dangerous regardless is their considerable environmental damage that often destroys all cover in a large area around the victim, leaving them exposed to follow-up shots by other ADVENT troops.

It can also trigger explosive objects like propane tanks and cars. Blob Monster : Or, more accurately, a blobfish monster. Body Horror : The texture of their body makes it look like their flesh is melting. That they leave trails of large puddles the color of their skin wherever they go only reinforces this impression. Brown Note : The sight of their transforming is horrific enough that low-Will soldiers can panic from seeing it happen.

The Brute : Their true form stands almost one story tall with the strength and reach to match. Paper-Thin Disguise : Normally they're very well hidden, but if a Dark Event causes shapeshifted Faceless to spawn on every mission, it spawns them literally everywhere, even in places civilians have no business being.

If you run an op in the sewers of an abandoned city and suddenly find civilians standing around at every corner, you know what to expect. Just don't be near anything explosive when one approaches. Red Eyes, Take Warning : They have pinkish-red eyes. Regenerating Health : They regen each turn, which means they're a pain to kill with low-tier weapons unless you concentrate fire on them.

If that civilian turns out to be a Faceless, they'll reveal themselves and probably be thinking, 'Damn, dude, you blew my cover! Shapeshifter Baggage : Somehow they disguise themselves as perfectly ordinary-looking humans, despite being simply huge in their true forms. There could be a case on their bodies' density, but Tygan never remarks on it. Stone Wall : They're slow and tough rather than particularly damaging. The danger is that you usually are close to them when they reveal themselves.

Voluntary Shapeshifting : Prior to revealing their true form, they are disguised as humans. Furthermore, XCOM cannot initially detect Faceless before they transform, meaning any civilian could secretly be one. One of the Specialist skills forces them into the open if they're within range, however, and a Battle Scanner thrown near them blows their cover. Muton Brutish alien shock troopers, the Mutons that serve with the ADVENT Administration are leaner than the generation that fought in the initial invasion, but have been enhanced with human cunning, making them even more dangerous.

Anti-Armor : Their plasma rifles destroy one armor pip per hit, similar to your own Grenadiers' Shredder ability, although thankfully it doesn't scale with tiers because Mutons themselves don't have an Elite version.

Barbarian Tribe : Despite all the genomic changes their race was put through since the first game, Mutons still maintain their tribal culture, as indicated in the flavor text of their corpses. Bayonet Ya : The new Mutons have Gears of War -style bayonets attached to their plasma rifles, making them capable of both ranged and melee combat in equal measure.

They do have a tendency to act more aggressively, but that also makes them that much more dangerous. Evil Counterpart : Seemingly to the Ranger class, being capable of both melee and ranged attacks as well as nullifying the Ranger's most potent abilities. They also possess their own grenades, like your units, and use them much more aggressively than other enemies with grenades. Four-Fingered Hands : Three fingers and one thumb.

Gas Mask Mooks : Whatever that thing over their mouth is supposed to be, it certainly looks like a gas mask. Half-Human Hybrid : Like the Sectoid, the Mutons have been enhanced with human DNA, although the focus was on using human genes to make them smarter rather than stronger.

Bradford notes that the new Mutons aren't quite as massive as the old crop, but possess increased agility and intelligence as a result of the genetic tampering and are equally as tough as their former selves. Jack of All Stats : Mutons are arguably the aliens' most versatile unit.

They have a decent amount of health, armor, a powerful gun that shreds armor, powerful grenades that shred armor, an even more powerful melee attack that can counter other melee attacks, and they certainly know how to make good use of all of these assets.

The only thing they don't have is psionics, for which we're all thankful. Mutons are also fielded in above-average numbers much of the time, with only the basic ADVENT trooper being more numerous overall. Late-game units tend to outclass Mutons especially in the health department, but the brutes in green remain a serious threat regardless. In turn, that counter-attack can itself be countered with Parry, or no-selled with Untouchable.

My Blood Runs Hot : Dr. Tygan notes that their corpses are abnormally warm, causing Thermal Dissonance while dissecting one. One-Hit Kill : They can use Execute on a stunned target, a death sentence where health doesn't matter. Pin-Pulling Teeth : Although their mouth is covered by a gas mask of sorts, they're the only grenade-tossing unit type to frequently arm their grenades this way.

Shout-Out : Their aggressive combat style, their oversized gun including a bayonet and their love of Stuff Blowing Up , but especially their redesigned armor, gives them more than a slight resemblance to Mass Effect 's Krogans. Throw Down the Bomblet : They still carry deadly plasma grenades and use them with reckless abandon. Weak-Willed : Their Will stat is an abysmal 50, even on the hardest difficulty, making them all but helpless in the face of psionic attacks.

Muton Berserker This alien variant returns as the strongest melee unit in the game. The new generation of Muton Berserkers are even larger than their predecessors, and no less dangerous despite forgoing conventional weapons and armor. Bare-Fisted Monk : They are "only" armed with something like knuckle dusters, everything else is bare hide.

The Berserker : Just like the name suggests, especially if they develop Blind Rage. Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism : Unlike the Berserkers from the first game, the new Berserkers barely resemble normal Mutons at all any more, being ridiculously muscular and twice the size of their counterparts, with completely covered eyes and a Flower Mouth.

However XCOM: Chimera Squad featured female Mutons that don't look like this, making it probably a result of extensive genetic tampering in selected specimens by the Elders. The Brute : Huge, evil, and can backhand a human several feet through the air. Cool Mask : Probably modeled after a hockey mask, like Jason's. Exposed Extraterrestrials : Unlike the heavily-armoured Berserkers from the previous game, the new Berserkers are naked apart from a their knuckledusters and some plugs implanted into their bodies.

Although they lack anything that might need to be covered up. As far as humans can tell, anyway. Flower Mouth : And full of teeth. It's especially visible when they first get Enraged. Whether they share this anatomy trait with Mutons is unknown although they don't resemble the unmasked ones seen in XCOM: Chimera Squad.

Four-Fingered Hands : As with regular Mutons. Ground Punch : Their default melee technique, usually with both fists simultaneously. It can stun or disorient whatever's caught by it. Light Is Not Good : Much of their bodies is coloured a bright white.

It's unclear if that's armor, leather or sinewy tissue over their muscles. Metal Slime : Their corpses are required for crafting the exceedingly powerful Overdrive Serum that buffs pretty much every stat your soldiers have, but is consumed in the process.

Unfortunately, Berserkers are among the rarest enemies in the game both generally and due to the fact they're only deployed for a month or two until ADVENT mothballs them again for reasons unknown. If you managed to create ten Overdrive injections by the time you launch the final mission, you can consider yourself quite lucky. They're much larger and more aggressive than their male counterparts, presumably due to lacking the human DNA infusions that made male Mutons smaller but smarter.

More Teeth than the Osmond Family : Not outwardly visible, but their roars reveal that their flower-like mouths are studded with rows upon rows of sharp teeth. Phlegmings : Thick strands of drool are visible when they roar during their activation animations.

Roar Before Beating : They usually roar when their pods are encountered, when they're attacked, and when they're enraged. Set a Mook to Kill a Mook : If you can hurt a Berserker without being seen such as Sting or Remote Start from a Reaper , sit back and watch as she lays waste to her podmates in blind rage. Smash Mook : A Berserker lives and dies smashing all perceived threats to paste under her enormous fists. Turns Red : Taking any amount of damage Enrages them, which increases their mobility.

However, landing two non-lethal hits in succession results in the Berserker going into a Blind Rage and attacking the nearest target, even if it's an ally. Chryssalid Chitinous horrors deployed as indiscriminate terror-weapons by the aliens, swarming in to rend their victims with poisonous talons. Anything killed by their toxin will be converted into a cocoon that will eventually spawn three new Chryssalids.

Attack Animal : The Ethereals never managed to give these monsters intelligence on par with their other servants, so they basically gave up and just deployed them as expendable attack crawlies to terrorize their enemies. Axe-Crazy : If the "Infestation" Dark Event puts Chryssalids on city or slum maps, and they aren't immediately aggroed by XCOM, the monsters will spend their first turn scuttling toward the nearest civilian to turn them into a monster factory. Big Creepy-Crawlies : They're an aggressive, six-limbed insect species whose warrior clade stands at least as tall as the average human.

Dig Attack : Chryssalids can burrow into the ground as a form of Overwatch, vanishing from sight until an enemy moves within their attack radius, at which point the Chryssalid interrupts their turn to burst out of hiding and attack. Explosive Breeder : Instead of zombifying a victim that will eventually become a newborn Chryssalid, now these monsters convert enemies into gestators that produce three Chryssalids per corpse.

Fortunately a given gestator can only spawn one Chryssalid per turn, giving you time to destroy them before they spawn anything. Or set up to farm Chryssalid corpses, if you wish to produce important items from them. Extremity Extremist : Although they do have quite capable-looking hands, everything they do on the battlefield including impregnating enemies with their spawn is done by kicking with their frontal pair of claw-like legs.

Gone Horribly Wrong : Although Chryssalids have found their niche in the Ethereals' armies, they're far from what the Ethereals had in mind when they began to uplift them. They were looking for an intelligent servant race with a keen psionic aptitude, but instead they just ended up making a lethal mindless predator even more lethal and uncontrollable.

Infernal Retaliation : A very strange indirect case. So Chryssalids hand you the perfect item to render them mostly harmless on a silver platter as soon as you manage to kill one for the first time and drag the corpse back to Tygan. Kill It with Fire : They cannot attack if they are burning, so Dragon rounds and incendiary grenades are a good way to make them harmless for a couple of turns if killing them is out of the question.

Lightning Bruiser : They can cover great distances very quickly to deliver venomous, highly dangerous melee attacks. They also have armor and a good amount of health, making them quite resilient for an enemy that likes to attack in considerable numbers.

Logical Weakness : If you mind control a Chryssalid and it creates a cocoon out of a dead enemy, the chryssalids spawned from it don't magically become yours; you aren't controlling them, only their parent. Man of Kryptonite : A Ranger with Bladestorm can assuming they don't miss completely shut down Chryssalids with a Fusion Blade, since any bug that attacks them will either get chopped down or set on fire and rendered helpless. A Ranger with the Assassin's Katana will annihilate any Chryssalid that moves in range.

Poisonous Person : As most of the fluff likes to remark, Chryssalids are exceptionally toxic to the point of their corpses having to be sealed off individually. All of their attacks can inflict the Chryssalid Poison status on victims, and said poison doesn't wear off unless treated. Anything that dies from their poison turns into a cocoon that'll spawn up to 3 hatchlings.

Another kicker is that even poison-immune organic targets will still be poisoned, though they won't take damage. Uplifted Animal : The Chryssalids were deadly, relentlessly aggressive animals when the Ethereals found and uplifted them, which turned the critters into Zerg Rush : Not as bad as the Lost , but Chryssalids never come alone. Their pods always consist of at least three units, and there's usually more than one pod in any mission they appear in.

Archon Observing the horrified reactions humanity had to the Floater and its grotesque melding of cybernetics and flesh, the aliens redesigned their aerial troopers into the Archons, regal and elegant figures deliberately sculpted to have an angelic mien. Not that this has changed their personality. And I Must Scream : Chimera Squad reveals the Archons were kept in line through constant psionic torture, their minds locked into psychic cages inside their biomechanical chassis.

The pain only lessened when they performed to the satisfaction of the Elders. It certainly goes a long way to explaining why they always seem absolutely psychotic. Angry Fist-Shake : If you hit them, they recoil, then do this at the attacker while howling in rage. Airborne Mook : Naturally, given that they're an evolution of the Floater. Our Archons Are Different : Even ignoring the whole "alien cyborgs designed to resemble angels so humanity would accept them better" thing, Archons are unusual.

They appear as perfect male human upper torsos, with their forearms replaced by elegantly crafted golden gauntlets, a bullet-shaped golden helmet covering their upper face, and mechanical "wings" consisting of two struts on their back that house multiple burning jet-thrusters. Their look is also very reminiscent of classical depictions of Egyptian gods. They're also one of the most powerful enemies in the game now, rather than the Cannon Fodder Floaters used to be.

Body Horror : The Archon's torso has visible "panel seams" on it, implying that the aliens created it by extracting the organs and nerves from a Floater and embedding them in a completely mechanical shell. The description of their corpses notes that despite the Archon's refined appearance, inside they're "a surprisingly haphazard combination of flesh and metal.

Crosshair Aware : The Blazing Pinions ability creates glowy columns of light on the squares that they are going to hit. Their organic and mechanical components seem to be so tightly intertwined that nobody can really tell one from the other. Death from Above : In addition to the Floater's ability to fly across the battlefield and shoot from the air, the Archon has access to the Blazing Pinions ability, where it bombards several targets in an area beneath it with multiple missiles.

It takes a full turn between the missiles being launched and them hitting the targets, and they have enough splash effect to explode volatile cover like gas tanks. Eyeless Face : An Archon's "helmet" covers its eyes completely. Presumably, they see through cybernetic sensory apparatus integrated into the helmet instead. Jet Pack : Built into their bodies and stylized to resemble mechanical angel wings, or a godlike halo.

Light Is Not Good : Just because Archons look angelic doesn't mean they not still the same bloodthirsty, calculating killing machines that they always were as Floaters. Lightning Bruiser : They move faster and farther than any other enemy type, and can deal incredible damage if not put down quickly. They also have over 20 health on Legend. Macross Missile Massacre : The Blazing Pinions attack fires a barrage of missiles skyward, that then one turn later turn around and bombard the ground where the Archon designates.

This absolutely wrecks cover and anything caught inside of it, can destroy the floor under the target, and can even trigger explosives. Fanservice : The Elders attempted to make their aerial combat unit more visually appealing and approachable to humans, and they did a really bang-up job. Shout-Out : Their weapon looks suspiciously like a somewhat smaller and more elegant Necron warscythe.

Starfish Aliens : Freed of the control of the Elders, the Archons prefer to exist in a sort of 'mindscape' within a sanctuary. They're mostly formless and communicate by what's described as "alien whale song", but sometimes choose to represent themselves to visitors as elephant-like creatures.

Archons are by no means cannon fodder, serving a role closer to that of a captain or squad commander, and they have the skills and gear to fit that role. Turns Red : When an Archon is wounded, it howls, shakes their fist at their aggressor, and goes into a Battle Frenzy that grants additional actions and starts lashing out in melee range, even when a Blazing Pinions attack would be more advantageous. To boot, the fire on its jet thrusters literally turn red when Battle Frenzy activates.

Walking Shirtless Scene : They appear to be like this, but on closer inspection their chest is actually made of metal plates; most of their organic components are buried within. Andromedon Combining the strength of machinery with the intelligence of organics, Andromedons are a new alien threat wearing environmentally-sealed battlesuits. Even killing the suits' wearer doesn't remove the danger, as the suits are capable of operating themselves in combat.

Achilles' Heel : While the suit's wearer is alive, Andromedons have massive armor and health, but very little resistance to psionics, making them easy to Dominate. When the suits is running around on its own, it's just as vulnerable to hacking and EMP attacks as any other robotic unit. A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read : In Chimera Squad, Verge describes them as "spiteful creatures" and their thoughts as having "the consistency of regurgitated glass".

Which might also explain the breathers the old Floaters wore. Animated Armor : Once you kill the pilot, the armor will start attacking on its own, mostly by punching stuff but also by using the rifle it's carrying. Anti-Armor : Their plasma cannon shreds two armor pips per hit. Strangely, it only does so while the pilot is alive. The gun loses its shred stat and one point of damage when the battlesuit's autopilot takes over, but most players probably won't notice because the Animated Armor prefers melee strikes over everything else in its arsenal.

At least he has the decency to lampshade how unusual and unlikely it is for such a gas to be turned into a Hollywood Acid capable of turning military-grade armor into slag in moments. The Berserker : The battlesuit's autonomous AI has one battle tactic — charge in and punch the closest enemy.

The Brute : As brutishly hulking as the Mutons, with the strength to match. Dynamic Entry : When you're fighting on a city map, it's not uncommon for newly revealed Andromedons to introduce themselves by smashing straight through the nearest wall. They also simply drop down from any height if they're above their intended target, which can have the same nasty surprise effect if you didn't know the damn thing was up there. Enclosed Extraterrestrials : Because they can't breathe Earth's atmosphere, and whatever they do breathe is toxic to humans, they are completely sealed inside their Powered Armor.

Both are faceless enemies in armored suits with powerful melee attacks. The autopsy report on them is even codenamed "Levine". Mechanics-wise, they're similar to the old Muton Elites as well. The Faceless : The Battlesuit has a translucent dome that reveals the position and shape of the head without revealing details. Even when you kill the pilot, the body hanging out of the suit doesn't really betray a lot of information about what the alien looked like. Heavily Armored Mook : The most heavily armored infantry unit in the game, with an impressive four pips on Normal.

Hoist by Their Own Petard : Their battlesuits aren't immune to the acid grenades XCOM can reverse-engineer from salvaged Andromedon wrecks, so you can turn their own Hollywood Acid against them to remove their entire armor bar in one blast. Hollywood Acid : The internal coolant of the Battlesuit is corrosive to organics.

Andromedons can opt to shoot this coolant as a projectile, complete with literal Splash Damage. When it becomes Animated Armor , it leaves a trail of the stuff everywhere it goes. Lightning Bruiser : They pack a good turn of speed, tough armor, and are capable of flattening basically everything in their path, with both melee and ranged weaponry. Unlike every other alien in the series, these things were adapted to a totally different environment from Earth's and can't breathe our atmosphere.

Conversely, whatever the pilot species is breathing in there is extremely toxic to Terran lifeforms and materials once it gets out. There Was a Door : Zig-zagged. Silly things like walls and trees will not stop an Andromedon: it'll walk though stuff during combat and even in idle patrol. It can get a bit silly on Alien Facility missions, where its idle patrolling can demolish half the very-important-to-ADVENT building before you even get there.

Amusingly enough, they will still hop over smaller obstacles and can climb drain pipes. Poisonous Person : When its pilot is dead and the faceplate is broken, the battlesuit starts leaking acid all over the place as it runs around. Powered Armor : The Battlesuits that Andromedons wear are the source of the power, and enemies in their own right. Reviving Enemy : Andromedons must be killed twice, every time, and overkilling it in its first form doesn't count towards damage in its second form.

Sorting Algorithm of Evil : They're essentially the late-game upgrade to the Muton, with even more punch both at range and in close combat, much more health, much heavier armor, and a few additional nasty tricks up their sleeves. Unskilled, but Strong : Their punches lack finesse and are inaccurate, but they hit hard and destroy cover just like Faceless do. Gatekeeper Reminiscent of the Cyberdiscs of old, Gatekeepers are floating metallic spheres which encase a mass of tentacled flesh.

In sphere form they can fire powerful lasers, or they can open up and employ devastating psionic abilities. Bring My Brown Pants : If forcibly panicked, the Gatekeeper nervously shifts in place and begins to drip yellow fluid. It's possible it's leaking blood or coolant, but it's definitely evocative of this trope. Combat Tentacles : It can flail its tentacles into enemies to Mind Control them, or use them as a life-draining melee attack.

Its autopsy report notes that the tentacled mound of flesh inside the armored shell relies completely on said shell's sensors to perceive its surroundings. Removing it would probably leave the pilot organism blind, deaf and mostly helpless, if it even survived the separation. Defeat Equals Explosion : Gatekeepers explode when destroyed. Degraded Boss : A lone Gatekeeper provides the boss battle for the Codex Brain Coordinates mission, the op that officially introduces these creatures to the player.

Afterwards they appear as part of regular pods. If you postponed that mission long enough, you'll start fighting Gatekeepers before they're properly introduced, downgrading them from Degraded Bosses to powerful but otherwise normal enemies from the get-go.

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This can get very painful, given their accuracy, height advantage and infinite ammunition. Sentry Gun : Turrets are immobile, making it possible to bypass them by simply going around their attack radius, and you don't need to kill turrets to complete "kill all enemies in the AO" objective.

To balance this out, turrets have heavy armor for when they absolutely must be faced. Sigil Spam : Look at the shrouds and heatsink around the barrel. Weak Turret Gun : At least the early-game variants, which have little health, very little armor, rather terrible accuracy, and take just a few shots to kill, as well as do even less damage than a standard ADVENT magnetic rifle.

Codex A mysterious new enemy, seemingly an improved version of the Outsider. It has several strange abilities that force foes to scatter and improvise. Achilles' Heel : The humble flashbang will disable several of their abilities, not least the splitting when hit, making them much less of a bother.

Despite not being eligible for hacking, Codices are considered mechanical enemies and thus take additional damage from Bluescreen rounds. Animated Armor : They appear to be an upgraded form of the Outsider, being a central component their skulls in this case that animates a hard light-like form around it. Asteroids Monster : Summons a clones of itself upon taking damage, splitting all remaining health between both clones. Attack Drone : Chimera Squad implies they're more like this than actual intelligent beings - a lot of really funky programming wrapped up in some kind of hardlight-emitting braincase.

Why a feminine form was chosen for them is a mystery. A Codex appears and, if you're still stuck on Tier 1 ballistic weaponry, you're effectively in a mini-boss fight against a surprise enemy with a lot of abilities you may not be ready for.

Breast Plate : Codices have a distinctly feminine physique, unlike the Outsiders before them. Possibly indicative that they're not simply machines like it was thought of Outsiders. Cyborg : Downplayed. They're mentioned to have biological components, but unlike the Archons and Gatekeepers, there's never even a glimpse of them.

It can only be assumed that their squishy part is some brain matter inside their artificial skull. Degraded Boss : The first Codex you fight is a unique enemy triggered by your own actions. Subsequent Codices start appearing in alien pods as the game progresses.

Early-Bird Cameo : The cutscene after Operation Gatecrasher shows a Codex teleporting in to see the ruins of the Commander's cell, long before you get to fight one. Fragile Speedster : Rather frail compared to other later game aliens, but very fast and capable of teleporting around the battlefield.

Hard Light : They appear to be entities made of pure data held together as a sort of living hard light hologram. Magitek : They're psionic robots. Metal Slime : Played with. They fight back, but actually encountering one is difficult early on, they have a potent defense, and killing one reveals a valuable resource, screwing up the Avatar Project and giving you more time to counter it.

Mix-and-Match Critter : It's complicated, but from the top; they're mechanical-looking braincases with a Hard Light body. They can't be hacked, but they are vulnerable to "bluescreen" EMP weapons like mechanical units. They're also vulnerable to flashbangs, which mechanical units are normally immune to. In Chimera Squad it's revealed that each has a unique psionic signature Verge is familiar with them, of course but that they're probably just dumb Attack Drones that can be "refactored" - which is coding lingo for reworking something to be easier to read or cleaner to run without changing how it behaves.

Essentially they have a foot in both worlds and eat some of the biggest weaknesses of both. Nigh-Invulnerable : In gameplay, they can be defeated, and it gets easier as you get more advanced technology. But hooking up the Codex Brain to the Shadow Chamber quickly reveals that it's still alive, even when it's only reduced to a brain, making all those brains you're mounting in the Armory a potential case of And I Must Scream. Party Scattering : Their entire combat style is dedicated to splitting up your squad.

The first attack they lead with is a psionic vortex that disables all weapons within an area of effect before collapsing in on itself in the next turn, damaging everyone inside it; all to discourage you from clumping your troops too tightly. The teleportation means cover is nearly useless.

Since it copies itself every time it takes damage that means you're encouraged to use powerful attacks instead of whittling it down slowly. Projected Man : The only solid part of them is their head. Self-Duplication : Codices can create duplicates of themselves on the battlefield, splitting their health between the copies. Teleport Spam : Can teleport nearly every turn and will teleport a fresh clone to another location every time she is damaged.

Villain Teleportation : She has the ability to teleport around the battlefield. It's possible every single Codex you fight is actually just a different facet of the same entity existing in multiple points throughout our reality.

Spectre Introduced in War of the Chosen, Spectres are mechanical humanoids capable of creating "dark copies" of entrapped enemies. Achilles' Heel : Similar to the Codex, Spectres can't be hacked but still count as mechanical units for the purpose of the extra damage from Bluescreen Rounds. Dodge the Bullet : They have Lightning Reflexes, so the first Overwatch shot against them automatically misses. If a mission has the Automated Defenses sitrep mechanical units only , Spectres are likely to show up, and they're just as susceptible to Bluescreen ammo as any other bot on the map.

Mirror Boss : Spectres can copy a soldier with all their weapons and abilities with Shadowbind if they can get within melee range. The real one remains unconscious until the Shadow made out of them is destroyed, either by direct damage or killing the Spectre that created it. Nanomachines : An odd example. They at first appeared to be swarms of these, given by how they seemingly dissove when moving and creating a Shadow, but they stay as a solid corpse when taken out, and dissecting one reveals that this isn't the case as far as Tygan and Shen can tell.

In fact, the Spectre Autopsy doesn't actually yield any answers as to exactly what it is other than having a possible relation to the Codex. No Ontological Inertia : Killing a Spectre causes any Shadows to disperse and the Shadowbound soldier to recover unless the Shadow Clone has some sort of Sustain-like ability which will kick in and save it at one hit point. One to Million to One : Whilst moving, Spectres turn into a swarm made up of their components which makes them immune to the first Overwatch shot and highly resistant to any follow-ups.

It also allows them to bypass otherwise impassable terrain like Bottomless Pits. Sorting Algorithm of Evil : In a sense, they're an upgrade to the Codex, being a durable biomechanical entity with highly unorthodox movement methods and powerful disabling abilities. They also take the same increased damage from Bluescreen rounds. Tron Lines : A handful of glowing green lines are the only parts on their bodies that aren't shiny black.

Sectopod These hulking alien war machines return once again, and remain the heavyweight armored fist of the alien occupation. Achilles' Heel : These are scary foes, but they're just as vulnerable to Bluescreen rounds and EMP bombs as any other robotic enemy, and a properly-outfitted squad can make short work of them. They are also vulnerable to getting hacked. Anti-Armor : Every hit from their main weapon shreds two armor pips. Defeat Equals Explosion : Explodes when killed, doing damage and ruining cover in its vicinity.

Destructive Savior : A rare villainous example. However, their total disregard for collateral and property damage during battles means they're also very likely to have destroyed much if not most of what they were supposed to protect in the process. That goes double when it stands tall, as it can take out the floor above it as it marches.

Giant Mook : The new model can stand at two or three stories tall, with equivalent height advantage boons. Heavily Armored Mook : With five armor pips on Normal, Sectopods are the second most heavily armored enemy you can run into, beaten out only by closed Gatekeepers and Julian's unique Sectopod in Shen's Last Gift with their six pips each.

Made especially poignant by XCOM's adamant belief that there must be a pilot inside hence the Non-Indicative Name , only to find out to their dismay that these hulking monstrosities are indeed fully automated. Shen in particular is disgusted by ADVENT's willingness to unleash heavily armed killer robots in densely populated city centers without any organic oversight.

Lean and Mean : The new model of Sectopod is noticeably more slender and sleek than the squat, hulking design seen during the invasion. It gets even leaner when it extends its legs. Lightning Bruiser : Sectopods are armed and armoured to their non-existent teeth, get three actions per round, don't end their turn by firing, aren't impeded in the slightest by terrain, buildings or cover thanks to their legs, can assume a high stance freely which gives them height advantage bonuses with no downsides, and have a nasty line-of-effect attack in Wrath Cannon.

It's not hard to believe Shen when she says Sectopods trounced Earth's armored units in the first war. Mechanical Monster : Much like their previous iteration, Sectopods are exceptionally nasty robotic mooks that should never be taken lightly. Specialists in particular have multiple abilities that can lock down a Sectopod for up to three turns, if not outright take control of them.

AP Rounds make a mockery of their heavy armor while Bluescreen rounds deal massive bonus damage to them, to the point that a properly skilled and outfitted Grenadier can reduce a mint Sectopod to almost dead in a single attack. There are numerous additional options available to effectively counter a Sectopod, and if you know what you're doing, chances are the ugly trash can won't even get to fire its weapons.

Non-Indicative Name : Tygan says that the soldiers call them 'Sectopod' because they assumed there was a Sectoid piloting them. As the autopsy dialogue suggests, some people in the base insist that there should be armed guards protecting the scientists and engineers as they take it apart for fear there is something inside, which turns out to be untrue.

Shock and Awe : If an enemy attacks them at very close range or in melee, Sectopods unleash their Lightning Field attack, an AoE electric shock that extends outwards from their legs, dealing damage and potentially stunning what it hits. Even a Templar's Parry won't protect them from that.

There Was a Door : They tend to crash through obstacles they can't simply step over. As with Andromedons and Gatekeepers, they're not averse to wrecking buildings they're meant to protect by walking through them and sending their own units plummeting down by breaking the floor under them.

They can even cause missions to fail for XCOM because they destroyed something they had to protect such as a workstation or secure container by accident. Transforming Mecha : They have two stances, a taller, thinner form and a lower squatting stance. Tripod Terror : Technically bipedal, but they fit the spirit of the trope when in their "tall" mode: an elevated walking machine wielding deadly ray blasts.

These things can take at least two shots per turn, as well. Wave-Motion Gun : One of their weapons, Wrath Cannon, deals massive damage to all targets in a straight line. It takes a full turn to charge, during which the Sectopod will have its front open and emitting red light beams. Sectoids are now more physically robust, and have a wider psychic repertoire, allowing them to assault foes' minds or even re-animate their corpses as psionic zombies.

Achilles' Heel : They have two. They take extra damage when hit by melee attacks. A Ranger's Slash is almost guaranteed to kill one if it connects. They practically lose their special abilities when dazed by a flashbang, which will also interrupt Mind Spin and dispel any status effects they had on your soldiers including mind control.

The psi zombies they revive will drop dead immediately as well. Arm Cannon : A plasma gun of the "attached-to-forearm" variety. They rarely use it, prefering to employ their psychic powers. Exposed Extraterrestrials : The only thing they wear is the plasma gauntlet on their right arm. Averted by the time of XCOM: Chimera Squad where the remaining Sectoids have integrated into Earth society, wearing the same clothing as humans and leading to the "Verge defected to humanity for pants" The Greys : They are a lot less grey-like due to the infusions of human DNA, but they still retain many grey attributes, such as the shape of their heads, large eyes and lack of ears.

Logical Weakness : They're naked psionicists, making them extra vulnerable to melee attacks or anything that disrupts their concentration. Mind Rape : Mind Spin is a telepathic attack that can randomly panic a target, leave them disoriented, or result in full-on Mind Control. No Biochemical Barriers : Averted. Unfortunately for them, Sectoids tend to waste turns using these abilities when they are about to be killed the next turn, before they have any chance to do damage. Power Glows : Like the old Sectoids, parts of their body, especially their ribcage, glow from the inside when they use their psionic abilities.

Sorting Algorithm of Evil : Sectoids are the entry-level psionic enemies that introduce new players to the mechanics and threat level of psionics in general. Took a Level in Badass : Sectoids in the previous game were The Goomba , with comparatively little offensive power, low health and mostly dangerous only in groups.

Here, they're more dangerous, even being capable of mind controlling your operatives from the very beginning. To compensate, there's no elite variant to them like the Sectoid Commander. Products like eggs, hot dogs, and jam of all things. Viper The true form of the "Thin Men" seen in the intitial invasion, Vipers are female humanoid cobras that serve as one of the Elders' many servitor-species.

They wield plasma guns in combat, but can also spit clouds of poison or use their prehensile tongues to reel victims in to be crushed in their coils. Breakout Character : They were far and away the most popular enemies introduced in XCOM 2, primarily due to how attractive many fans found them. Come Chimera Squad, advertisements for a Viper hostess club can be found, and one of the titular team's squaddies is a Viper named Torque.

Vahlen hypothesizes that the Elders may have done their Gendercide as a form of population control. Friendly Fireproof : A variant. Also applies to the Lost if they target the soldier she's constricting. It goes both ways, though, as your soldiers can shoot a constricting Viper off an ally without any risk of hurting them. Gendercide : Alien Hunters reveals that the Elders engineered out the male of the species, presumably to keep their population under control.

Just one male escaping cryostasis is enough to cause it to cover a base with its spawn. When one sees how the Viper lair is filled with snakes who flocked to it despite the cold, and how the Vipers are willing to fight to death for the Viper King, another reason could be inferred: The Ethereals wouldn't want male Vipers who could have control and authority over the females and possibly go rogue. Hartman Hips : Have a notably flared "pelvis" at the bottom of their humanoid torsos, which helps give them a more human-like silhouette.

Multipurpose Tongue : The Viper's tongue is a prehensile appendage that it can use from quite a distance away, and which gives it a particularly dangerous option for combat: pulling enemies out of cover. They're also the natural form of the genetically engineered Thin Men from the previous game.

They have the Bind ability of the Seeker from the previous game , allowing them to catch hold of, immobilize, and eventually fatally crush an operative unless shot off. If you don't have the means to revive them, they're essentially dead until the mission ends. Non-Mammalian Mammaries : According to Dr. Tygan, they're actually venom glands that expel a cloud of poison when the Viper compresses its pectoral muscles. The Viper King shows that even Viper males have them.

One-Gender Race : The Vipers are all distinctly female, in contrast to their Thin Men disguises from the previous game. The Alien Hunters DLC shows that the species does have males, but given the trouble that just one male Viper caused, it's likely this trope was enforced by the Elders as a form of population control. Personal Space Invader : Like the Seeker from the previous game, a Viper can coil her body around a soldier and Bind them, rendering both unable to move or attack with the soldier taking a little damage that can be mitigated by armor each turn they're constricted.

Vipers can initiate it by either using their tongues to yank a soldier to their position or by moving to the soldier's position. Ironically, despite the fact that their official concept art does depict them with unhinging, snake-like jaws, they are incapable of devouring a captured trooper whole , perhaps because such a One-Hit Kill ability would be unfair even by XCOM standards.

Hell, despite having large and solid fangs, they can't even bite. Snakes Are Sexy : They might be serpentine Beast Men , but many fans became appreciative of their looks. This has been embraced by the developers to subsequently become true In-Universe as well, as XCOM: Chimera Squad has implied that in the post-war world there are Vipers working in exclusive hostess and strip clubs among other things. Snake People : They resemble anthropomorphic female cobras, having the head and tail of a giant cobra connected by the upper torso and arms of a feminine humanoid.

Unlike Thin Men, they don't leave behind a poison cloud when they die, presumably since their poison glands are no longer being constantly compressed in a human disguise. Unblockable Attack : The tongue grab deals no damage, so it can bypass a Templar's Parry. It is still blocked by a Ranger's Untouchable, the game treating it as a miss, but if the Ranger has Bladestorm , the Ranger will get the free attack as soon as they get pulled into range.

You Will Not Evade Me : They can use their long tongues to drag humanoid targets out of cover and into melee range. It's a free action, but has a two-turn cooldown. Faceless A mysterious new alien menace, the Faceless are infiltrators that use their shapeshifting ability to walk amongst humans in order to root out "malcontents.

Since tracking them down one by one would be a chore with up to 20 civilians on the map, any remaining Faceless automatically reveal themselves once all other ADVENT forces have been dealt with. Barrier-Busting Blow : It's rare to see their clumsy claw strikes actually hit the intended target. What makes them dangerous regardless is their considerable environmental damage that often destroys all cover in a large area around the victim, leaving them exposed to follow-up shots by other ADVENT troops.

It can also trigger explosive objects like propane tanks and cars. Blob Monster : Or, more accurately, a blobfish monster. Body Horror : The texture of their body makes it look like their flesh is melting. That they leave trails of large puddles the color of their skin wherever they go only reinforces this impression. Brown Note : The sight of their transforming is horrific enough that low-Will soldiers can panic from seeing it happen.

The Brute : Their true form stands almost one story tall with the strength and reach to match. Paper-Thin Disguise : Normally they're very well hidden, but if a Dark Event causes shapeshifted Faceless to spawn on every mission, it spawns them literally everywhere, even in places civilians have no business being.

If you run an op in the sewers of an abandoned city and suddenly find civilians standing around at every corner, you know what to expect. Just don't be near anything explosive when one approaches. Red Eyes, Take Warning : They have pinkish-red eyes.

Regenerating Health : They regen each turn, which means they're a pain to kill with low-tier weapons unless you concentrate fire on them. If that civilian turns out to be a Faceless, they'll reveal themselves and probably be thinking, 'Damn, dude, you blew my cover!

Shapeshifter Baggage : Somehow they disguise themselves as perfectly ordinary-looking humans, despite being simply huge in their true forms. There could be a case on their bodies' density, but Tygan never remarks on it. Stone Wall : They're slow and tough rather than particularly damaging.

The danger is that you usually are close to them when they reveal themselves. Voluntary Shapeshifting : Prior to revealing their true form, they are disguised as humans. Furthermore, XCOM cannot initially detect Faceless before they transform, meaning any civilian could secretly be one.

One of the Specialist skills forces them into the open if they're within range, however, and a Battle Scanner thrown near them blows their cover. Muton Brutish alien shock troopers, the Mutons that serve with the ADVENT Administration are leaner than the generation that fought in the initial invasion, but have been enhanced with human cunning, making them even more dangerous. Anti-Armor : Their plasma rifles destroy one armor pip per hit, similar to your own Grenadiers' Shredder ability, although thankfully it doesn't scale with tiers because Mutons themselves don't have an Elite version.

Barbarian Tribe : Despite all the genomic changes their race was put through since the first game, Mutons still maintain their tribal culture, as indicated in the flavor text of their corpses. Bayonet Ya : The new Mutons have Gears of War -style bayonets attached to their plasma rifles, making them capable of both ranged and melee combat in equal measure.

They do have a tendency to act more aggressively, but that also makes them that much more dangerous. Evil Counterpart : Seemingly to the Ranger class, being capable of both melee and ranged attacks as well as nullifying the Ranger's most potent abilities. They also possess their own grenades, like your units, and use them much more aggressively than other enemies with grenades. Four-Fingered Hands : Three fingers and one thumb. Gas Mask Mooks : Whatever that thing over their mouth is supposed to be, it certainly looks like a gas mask.

Half-Human Hybrid : Like the Sectoid, the Mutons have been enhanced with human DNA, although the focus was on using human genes to make them smarter rather than stronger. Bradford notes that the new Mutons aren't quite as massive as the old crop, but possess increased agility and intelligence as a result of the genetic tampering and are equally as tough as their former selves. Jack of All Stats : Mutons are arguably the aliens' most versatile unit. They have a decent amount of health, armor, a powerful gun that shreds armor, powerful grenades that shred armor, an even more powerful melee attack that can counter other melee attacks, and they certainly know how to make good use of all of these assets.

The only thing they don't have is psionics, for which we're all thankful. Mutons are also fielded in above-average numbers much of the time, with only the basic ADVENT trooper being more numerous overall. Late-game units tend to outclass Mutons especially in the health department, but the brutes in green remain a serious threat regardless. In turn, that counter-attack can itself be countered with Parry, or no-selled with Untouchable.

My Blood Runs Hot : Dr. Tygan notes that their corpses are abnormally warm, causing Thermal Dissonance while dissecting one. One-Hit Kill : They can use Execute on a stunned target, a death sentence where health doesn't matter. Pin-Pulling Teeth : Although their mouth is covered by a gas mask of sorts, they're the only grenade-tossing unit type to frequently arm their grenades this way. Shout-Out : Their aggressive combat style, their oversized gun including a bayonet and their love of Stuff Blowing Up , but especially their redesigned armor, gives them more than a slight resemblance to Mass Effect 's Krogans.

Throw Down the Bomblet : They still carry deadly plasma grenades and use them with reckless abandon. Weak-Willed : Their Will stat is an abysmal 50, even on the hardest difficulty, making them all but helpless in the face of psionic attacks. Muton Berserker This alien variant returns as the strongest melee unit in the game. The new generation of Muton Berserkers are even larger than their predecessors, and no less dangerous despite forgoing conventional weapons and armor.

Bare-Fisted Monk : They are "only" armed with something like knuckle dusters, everything else is bare hide. The Berserker : Just like the name suggests, especially if they develop Blind Rage. Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism : Unlike the Berserkers from the first game, the new Berserkers barely resemble normal Mutons at all any more, being ridiculously muscular and twice the size of their counterparts, with completely covered eyes and a Flower Mouth. However XCOM: Chimera Squad featured female Mutons that don't look like this, making it probably a result of extensive genetic tampering in selected specimens by the Elders.

The Brute : Huge, evil, and can backhand a human several feet through the air. Cool Mask : Probably modeled after a hockey mask, like Jason's. Exposed Extraterrestrials : Unlike the heavily-armoured Berserkers from the previous game, the new Berserkers are naked apart from a their knuckledusters and some plugs implanted into their bodies.

Although they lack anything that might need to be covered up. As far as humans can tell, anyway. Flower Mouth : And full of teeth. It's especially visible when they first get Enraged. Whether they share this anatomy trait with Mutons is unknown although they don't resemble the unmasked ones seen in XCOM: Chimera Squad.

Four-Fingered Hands : As with regular Mutons. Ground Punch : Their default melee technique, usually with both fists simultaneously. It can stun or disorient whatever's caught by it. Light Is Not Good : Much of their bodies is coloured a bright white. It's unclear if that's armor, leather or sinewy tissue over their muscles. Metal Slime : Their corpses are required for crafting the exceedingly powerful Overdrive Serum that buffs pretty much every stat your soldiers have, but is consumed in the process.

Unfortunately, Berserkers are among the rarest enemies in the game both generally and due to the fact they're only deployed for a month or two until ADVENT mothballs them again for reasons unknown. If you managed to create ten Overdrive injections by the time you launch the final mission, you can consider yourself quite lucky. They're much larger and more aggressive than their male counterparts, presumably due to lacking the human DNA infusions that made male Mutons smaller but smarter.

More Teeth than the Osmond Family : Not outwardly visible, but their roars reveal that their flower-like mouths are studded with rows upon rows of sharp teeth. Phlegmings : Thick strands of drool are visible when they roar during their activation animations. Roar Before Beating : They usually roar when their pods are encountered, when they're attacked, and when they're enraged. Set a Mook to Kill a Mook : If you can hurt a Berserker without being seen such as Sting or Remote Start from a Reaper , sit back and watch as she lays waste to her podmates in blind rage.

Smash Mook : A Berserker lives and dies smashing all perceived threats to paste under her enormous fists. Turns Red : Taking any amount of damage Enrages them, which increases their mobility. However, landing two non-lethal hits in succession results in the Berserker going into a Blind Rage and attacking the nearest target, even if it's an ally.

Chryssalid Chitinous horrors deployed as indiscriminate terror-weapons by the aliens, swarming in to rend their victims with poisonous talons. Anything killed by their toxin will be converted into a cocoon that will eventually spawn three new Chryssalids. Attack Animal : The Ethereals never managed to give these monsters intelligence on par with their other servants, so they basically gave up and just deployed them as expendable attack crawlies to terrorize their enemies.

Axe-Crazy : If the "Infestation" Dark Event puts Chryssalids on city or slum maps, and they aren't immediately aggroed by XCOM, the monsters will spend their first turn scuttling toward the nearest civilian to turn them into a monster factory. Big Creepy-Crawlies : They're an aggressive, six-limbed insect species whose warrior clade stands at least as tall as the average human.

Dig Attack : Chryssalids can burrow into the ground as a form of Overwatch, vanishing from sight until an enemy moves within their attack radius, at which point the Chryssalid interrupts their turn to burst out of hiding and attack. Explosive Breeder : Instead of zombifying a victim that will eventually become a newborn Chryssalid, now these monsters convert enemies into gestators that produce three Chryssalids per corpse. Fortunately a given gestator can only spawn one Chryssalid per turn, giving you time to destroy them before they spawn anything.

Or set up to farm Chryssalid corpses, if you wish to produce important items from them. Extremity Extremist : Although they do have quite capable-looking hands, everything they do on the battlefield including impregnating enemies with their spawn is done by kicking with their frontal pair of claw-like legs. Gone Horribly Wrong : Although Chryssalids have found their niche in the Ethereals' armies, they're far from what the Ethereals had in mind when they began to uplift them.

They were looking for an intelligent servant race with a keen psionic aptitude, but instead they just ended up making a lethal mindless predator even more lethal and uncontrollable. Infernal Retaliation : A very strange indirect case.

So Chryssalids hand you the perfect item to render them mostly harmless on a silver platter as soon as you manage to kill one for the first time and drag the corpse back to Tygan. Kill It with Fire : They cannot attack if they are burning, so Dragon rounds and incendiary grenades are a good way to make them harmless for a couple of turns if killing them is out of the question. Lightning Bruiser : They can cover great distances very quickly to deliver venomous, highly dangerous melee attacks.

They also have armor and a good amount of health, making them quite resilient for an enemy that likes to attack in considerable numbers. Logical Weakness : If you mind control a Chryssalid and it creates a cocoon out of a dead enemy, the chryssalids spawned from it don't magically become yours; you aren't controlling them, only their parent.

Man of Kryptonite : A Ranger with Bladestorm can assuming they don't miss completely shut down Chryssalids with a Fusion Blade, since any bug that attacks them will either get chopped down or set on fire and rendered helpless. A Ranger with the Assassin's Katana will annihilate any Chryssalid that moves in range.

Poisonous Person : As most of the fluff likes to remark, Chryssalids are exceptionally toxic to the point of their corpses having to be sealed off individually. All of their attacks can inflict the Chryssalid Poison status on victims, and said poison doesn't wear off unless treated. Anything that dies from their poison turns into a cocoon that'll spawn up to 3 hatchlings.

Another kicker is that even poison-immune organic targets will still be poisoned, though they won't take damage. Uplifted Animal : The Chryssalids were deadly, relentlessly aggressive animals when the Ethereals found and uplifted them, which turned the critters into Zerg Rush : Not as bad as the Lost , but Chryssalids never come alone.

Their pods always consist of at least three units, and there's usually more than one pod in any mission they appear in. Archon Observing the horrified reactions humanity had to the Floater and its grotesque melding of cybernetics and flesh, the aliens redesigned their aerial troopers into the Archons, regal and elegant figures deliberately sculpted to have an angelic mien.

Not that this has changed their personality. And I Must Scream : Chimera Squad reveals the Archons were kept in line through constant psionic torture, their minds locked into psychic cages inside their biomechanical chassis. The pain only lessened when they performed to the satisfaction of the Elders. It certainly goes a long way to explaining why they always seem absolutely psychotic.

Angry Fist-Shake : If you hit them, they recoil, then do this at the attacker while howling in rage. Airborne Mook : Naturally, given that they're an evolution of the Floater. Our Archons Are Different : Even ignoring the whole "alien cyborgs designed to resemble angels so humanity would accept them better" thing, Archons are unusual. They appear as perfect male human upper torsos, with their forearms replaced by elegantly crafted golden gauntlets, a bullet-shaped golden helmet covering their upper face, and mechanical "wings" consisting of two struts on their back that house multiple burning jet-thrusters.

Their look is also very reminiscent of classical depictions of Egyptian gods. They're also one of the most powerful enemies in the game now, rather than the Cannon Fodder Floaters used to be. Body Horror : The Archon's torso has visible "panel seams" on it, implying that the aliens created it by extracting the organs and nerves from a Floater and embedding them in a completely mechanical shell. The description of their corpses notes that despite the Archon's refined appearance, inside they're "a surprisingly haphazard combination of flesh and metal.

Crosshair Aware : The Blazing Pinions ability creates glowy columns of light on the squares that they are going to hit. Their organic and mechanical components seem to be so tightly intertwined that nobody can really tell one from the other. Death from Above : In addition to the Floater's ability to fly across the battlefield and shoot from the air, the Archon has access to the Blazing Pinions ability, where it bombards several targets in an area beneath it with multiple missiles.

It takes a full turn between the missiles being launched and them hitting the targets, and they have enough splash effect to explode volatile cover like gas tanks. Eyeless Face : An Archon's "helmet" covers its eyes completely. Presumably, they see through cybernetic sensory apparatus integrated into the helmet instead. Jet Pack : Built into their bodies and stylized to resemble mechanical angel wings, or a godlike halo. Light Is Not Good : Just because Archons look angelic doesn't mean they not still the same bloodthirsty, calculating killing machines that they always were as Floaters.

Lightning Bruiser : They move faster and farther than any other enemy type, and can deal incredible damage if not put down quickly. They also have over 20 health on Legend. Macross Missile Massacre : The Blazing Pinions attack fires a barrage of missiles skyward, that then one turn later turn around and bombard the ground where the Archon designates.

This absolutely wrecks cover and anything caught inside of it, can destroy the floor under the target, and can even trigger explosives. Fanservice : The Elders attempted to make their aerial combat unit more visually appealing and approachable to humans, and they did a really bang-up job.

Shout-Out : Their weapon looks suspiciously like a somewhat smaller and more elegant Necron warscythe. Starfish Aliens : Freed of the control of the Elders, the Archons prefer to exist in a sort of 'mindscape' within a sanctuary. They're mostly formless and communicate by what's described as "alien whale song", but sometimes choose to represent themselves to visitors as elephant-like creatures.

Archons are by no means cannon fodder, serving a role closer to that of a captain or squad commander, and they have the skills and gear to fit that role. Turns Red : When an Archon is wounded, it howls, shakes their fist at their aggressor, and goes into a Battle Frenzy that grants additional actions and starts lashing out in melee range, even when a Blazing Pinions attack would be more advantageous. To boot, the fire on its jet thrusters literally turn red when Battle Frenzy activates.

Walking Shirtless Scene : They appear to be like this, but on closer inspection their chest is actually made of metal plates; most of their organic components are buried within. Andromedon Combining the strength of machinery with the intelligence of organics, Andromedons are a new alien threat wearing environmentally-sealed battlesuits.

Even killing the suits' wearer doesn't remove the danger, as the suits are capable of operating themselves in combat. Achilles' Heel : While the suit's wearer is alive, Andromedons have massive armor and health, but very little resistance to psionics, making them easy to Dominate. When the suits is running around on its own, it's just as vulnerable to hacking and EMP attacks as any other robotic unit.

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read : In Chimera Squad, Verge describes them as "spiteful creatures" and their thoughts as having "the consistency of regurgitated glass". Which might also explain the breathers the old Floaters wore. Animated Armor : Once you kill the pilot, the armor will start attacking on its own, mostly by punching stuff but also by using the rifle it's carrying.

Anti-Armor : Their plasma cannon shreds two armor pips per hit. Strangely, it only does so while the pilot is alive. The gun loses its shred stat and one point of damage when the battlesuit's autopilot takes over, but most players probably won't notice because the Animated Armor prefers melee strikes over everything else in its arsenal.

At least he has the decency to lampshade how unusual and unlikely it is for such a gas to be turned into a Hollywood Acid capable of turning military-grade armor into slag in moments. The Berserker : The battlesuit's autonomous AI has one battle tactic — charge in and punch the closest enemy. The Brute : As brutishly hulking as the Mutons, with the strength to match. Dynamic Entry : When you're fighting on a city map, it's not uncommon for newly revealed Andromedons to introduce themselves by smashing straight through the nearest wall.

They also simply drop down from any height if they're above their intended target, which can have the same nasty surprise effect if you didn't know the damn thing was up there. Enclosed Extraterrestrials : Because they can't breathe Earth's atmosphere, and whatever they do breathe is toxic to humans, they are completely sealed inside their Powered Armor. Both are faceless enemies in armored suits with powerful melee attacks.

The autopsy report on them is even codenamed "Levine". Mechanics-wise, they're similar to the old Muton Elites as well. The Faceless : The Battlesuit has a translucent dome that reveals the position and shape of the head without revealing details. Even when you kill the pilot, the body hanging out of the suit doesn't really betray a lot of information about what the alien looked like.

Ethereals have a standard movement range but their ability to float while moving gives them slightly more mobility than one might expect. Above all, it is an Ethereal's psionic powers and high Will that makes them most dangerous. Ethereals can easily Mind Control most soldiers especially ones that ranked up without the benefit of Iron Will training , although they generally seem to prefer the use of Psi Lance or Mind Fray to inflict damage instead.

Ethereals also have the ability to drain health from allied units, using it to heal themselves at the expense of their support troops. This ability extends to your XCOM soldiers when mind controlled, so exercise caution when selecting abilities. Their final ability is Rift, which summons a vicious maelstrom of psionic power with a large blast range 5 squares and high damage potential up to 20 for units with 0 will ; be wary of grouping soldiers too tightly unless they are close enough to the Ethereal that it would risk damaging itself with this ability.

Even in death Ethereals pose a threat, as they release a withering flare of psionic energy upon dying, dealing 4 damage to all units within a small radius and potentially damaging ship components. Although an Ethereal's high Will grants it superior resistance to psionic attacks, attacking an Ethereal with Psi abilities isn't impossible. In order to psionically attack an Ethereal, your Psionic soldier will need a Mind Shield , high amounts of Will e.

Psi Armor , and a squad right behind them in case something goes wrong. Fighting an Ethereal at its own game is tough, but if you do manage to Mind Control it you will get the "Xavier" achievement as well as knowledge of the Ethereal's abilities, movement range, and defenses in single player mode.

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