I'm glad I watched the 2nd video! :) The opening video reminded me a LOT of "ShadowWatch", another turn-based strategy game from the 90s/00s. But even the gameplay seemed to remind me of SW, such as multiple entry points, needing to boost your downed allies, etc.

But did I miss... "research"? This seemed like it was almost a staple of the early X-Com games (haven't yet played the newer XCOM games). Still it looks worth a shot! Instabuy for me.

pro and cons to this game?.looks interesting but sitting on the fence..

What a brilliant timing! I just finished XCOM 1 & 2 marathon and I was going to wait for Chimera Squad to show up here.

Thanks for the late XMAS gift GOG! Keep it up.

I have only dipped in a couple of missions last night. If you expect a full-blown XCOM you are going to be disappointed. Look at it more like a tactical puzzle game with mechanics known from XCOM in the XCOM universe.

Research is in, although it's not modeled as finding something new no one else knew about before, it's just trying to get the sub-par fabber you got to print out the more interesting equipment.

I would not have paid full asking price for it but it seems okay to me with the discount. It's unlikely to end up as my all-time favorite game but it's not truly horrible. Where exactly it lands on this spectrum is going to be a matter of personal taste.

The writing is much lighter and more akin to a GI Joe or other SATAM compared to the other games in the franchise.
For some reason, they gave the previously agender Snakemen race a big titted snake girl.
You can actually play as the aliens for once.

Make of these three random points as you will.

Reddit is the worse place to ask anything it's filled with BOOTLICKERS. They keep talking about this "social credit system" that's in china, unfortunately it's already here via REDDIT! Stay very far away from reddit. But as for AAA games on GOG, see I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't my primary store and the fact that as soon as a store pops up they have all the publishers and developers, just look at EPIC Fail Game store. But i understand them, all being afraid of DRM-Free but the math just doesn't add up especially when it comes to 2k games here They have all the mafias here but they re-released the same games and they are not here plus the New Mafia One game. The math just doesn't add up. They pirate the games ANYWAYS so i don't buy that "being afraid of DRM-FREE" anymore. Personally I think it's all about protecting steams ecosystem or anywhere that they can Data Capture. Steam is one giant Data mine.

Snakemen were female only in the new continuity ever since XCOM 2. I believe XCOM 2 DLC had a mission where you had to kill last surviving male of the species or something, but otherwise they are exclusively female race.

In the original X-COM, the Snakemen were probably asexual. Each member carried 50ish eggs. Aside from essentially being the Clone Troopers of the X-COM universe, they were also paired up with a certain species - the Chrysallids. Considering how those propagate, it suggests a very unfortunate function for the Snakemen.

I'm seeing people on the game's steam forum and GOG forum mention spyware/telemetry in XCOM: Chimera Squad.

It seems the game's launcher sends information to: (I'm just repeating what I've read, haven't confirmed this personally)
Google Analytics
Amazon
Steam
2K
Xsolla
Fireaxis
Microsoft

They are also saying it does all of this before you accept the EULA.

Can anyone confirm if the GOG version of XCOM: Chimera Squad contains this?

Everything I'm reading suggests the telemetry may be tied to a launcher program that is present on the steam version of the game when it is run.

Maybe GOG's release of XCOM: Chimera Squad has shipped without this launcher, I'm reading posts on the steam forum that mention the game could be run directly from the game's .exe without causing the launcher program to run.

Perhaps GOG didn't want the additional launcher running as it appears to have been unrequired to actually run the game. There are a few other games that GOG has customized before releasing by installing fixes/etc, maybe they did that with Chimera Squad.

Did you happen to detect any unusual outbound network activity when you ran the game?

(And thank you for mentioning that it is functioning via Wine, that is always good news.)

I did not really check anything. Your initial post explicitly mentioned the launcher and since I did not see any I decided to pipe up. Galaxy points directly to Program Files (x86)/GOG Galaxy/Games/XCOM Chimera Squad/Binaries/Win64/xcom.exe and DXVK generated several cache files and log files for that specifically, so it seems to be the executable doing all the heavy lifting.

If they carried eggs, that seems to support that original Snakemen were female as well, hence female Vipers or whatever the hell they are called from 2016.

Well, not exactly. None of the aliens in X-Com were capable of sexual reproduction.

Sectoids were cloned stock, Mutons had been given organic armor, Floaters were heavily butchered, Snakemen are specifically asexual, Etherials were floating brains with bodies attached, and the rest were unintellegent or remote controlled terror units.

Watch some "let's plays" or something.

There's a strategic layer (simpler -- gets you resources, up-gradable). There's no ant farm building like in original xcom. There's research for team gear (weapon/armor) upgrades.

The breach mechanic they introduce is fun. Each race has different skills or combat mechanics you can use which makes it interesting too.

Maps are smaller and fights are shorter overall. More "clear all the enemies" and not as many varied missions like xcom.

It's very much an xcom-lite budget but it's well worth the $7 IMHO. YMMV though. :)

And there were quite a few bugs (mostly around gear & Spark units) when I played it (bought it when it came out on steam -- good despite the bugs -- not sure if they've been fixed).