In the game of the same name, XCOM is the global military organization working to free the world from the grips of a hostile alien invasion. Back in the days of the first XCOM game, aliens pretty much landed wherever they liked, so you had to take the fight to them. Because of this, XCOM has always been about fighting the alien enemy in all sorts of environments including urban, rural, and wilderness. The difference in XCOM 2 is that the aliens have taken up a new strategy and built large, technologically-advanced cities of their own. They started their relationship with humans as purely terrorists and agents of destruction. Now, they attempt to lure humanity in with promises of safety, freedom from disease and injury, and prosperity. In the cities, their promises are literally glowing in neon lights and shining towers.
Because of this change in dynamics, the look of XCOM changes with it. You have an entirely new class of human fighters that need to be less about military strength and uniformity and more about infiltrating and getting the job done by any means necessary. Soldiers can have mixed and matched uniforms, punk haircuts, aviator glasses, anything in between. The aliens have their own military group, ADVENT. In the same way as XCOM has become rough and patched together, the aliens have become sleek and polished.
Greg Foertsch, XCOM 2’s art director, provides the book’s introduction. There are nice little insights from the get-go here, including describing the art style of XCOM 2 as a vision that is "clearly based in reality yet is inspired by the feel of action figures and miniatures." Statements by directors with such insights can really set off an "I get it now" spark, and that kind of thing is what fans like me just love. There is also a lot of reference to Physically Based Rendering (PBR) by other artists in the book, and they describe how it had some effect on the game’s art and design. This is another bit of art-focused insight that you might not get from other sources.
A word of warning, the art in this book is pretty spoilerific. Even if you've hid under a rock, you will at the least expect that you'll see new Sectoid aliens, a variety of soldier classes such as Sharpshooter (Snipers) or Psionic Operatives, and the updated transport vehicle called the Skyranger. You'll expect to see a lot of environments such as snow, desert, city, and rural towns. And yes, that's all there in full detail and concept sketches. But even so, you might learn enemy and XCOM 2 secrets before you want to know about them, if you haven’t yet played the game. There are tons of enemy and location reveals in this book. Some picture captions are spoilers. There are characters that have names that are, by themselves, spoilers. Since XCOM has been a game about big enemy reveals and shadowy secrets, this is kind of a big deal. But since one probably owns or plays the game before buying the artbook, this probably isn’t a problem for most people. Either way, here’s a final warning: the book contains spoilers.
As we saw in the The Art of Halo 5: Guardians book also published by Insight Editions, there are plenty of examples of lineart and clean images that you might otherwise find difficult to get a clean shot of, even in the game itself. For XCOM 2, one of these images include the anti-alien graffiti, presented in crisp black and white. And the propaganda images from ADVENT are also in full, glorious, uncropped format. As always, this book serves as a great resource if you’re a fan who likes creating fanart and cosplay costumes and props. Environments, uniforms, weapons, and tons of other things are presented from several viewing angles at a very high resolution. Even if you have the entire internet at your fingertips, some of these images are simply going to be hard to find without the help of such a book.
I should also say that for XCOM in particular, flat, clean images of in-game props and art are especially valuable because it’s the type of game where you can’t just point your camera at a particular wall or even person. The game only allows you fleeting glances at some objects as your character runs by. You might get a closeup of a character or weapon during an action such as firing a weapon, but these are only seen by a random chance determined by the game engine. And, of course, there are enemies that are only seen towards the end of the game, which can take quite a while to get to for many players. Seeing the rare end-of-game characters in full detail is especially nice.
The Art of XCOM 2 is simply another great artbook from Insight Editions. It's about the images and the artists both speaking for themselves. The only problem with this book is that you'll probably end up wanting even more.
