It occasionally teeters perilously closely to the heroic bombast of something like Independence Day - backed by a salute-worthy soundtrack that wouldn't sound out of place in that movie - but the more personal moments of human triumph and failure keep the story grounded and compelling. The story might sound like it's laden with sci-fi clichés, but the formulaic opening belies the intriguing tale that XCOM 2 morphs into.

After twenty years in an alien prison, you're broken out for one last job - to lead humanity into battle and kick the alien scourge off Earth for good. Some of humanity's brightest and best have seen through the facade and are working to bring about an end to the subjugation of the human race as part of an under-staffed and under-gunned resistance movement.

On the surface, humanity and alien-kind live side by side in a mutually prosperous coexistence, but the peace is just a veneer in order to hide the more sinister ulterior motives of our alien overlords. The game quickly establishes that two decades ago when XCOM fell, the aliens struck an accord with the human race and an alien/human coalition government was formed.

Perhaps it's a commentary on the unforgiving difficulty of that game that XCOM 2 canonically assumes that you were unsuccessful in your bid to repel the alien invaders last time around. When aliens landed on Earth in 2012 strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, it was up to you to unite the people of our planet against the invading extraterrestrial force. Republished on Wednesday 30th May 2018: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of June's PlayStation Plus lineup.

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