XCOM 2 – Ending Discussion

To clarify, for those who click without reading: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE! Turn back if you haven’t completed XCOM 2 yet!

Spoilers!

The story in X2 was actually pretty darn cool, learning about all the steps in the avatar project, seeing the Ethereals dying off, which is why they didn’t appear as in-game units. The ending was pretty awesome too.

There seemed to be 2 points of interest during the ending cutscene to me, first: the Avatar, second: the Ethereal’s warning.

At the end of the mission we see the Commander’s Avatar fighting with the Ethereals at the same time as Bradford, Shen, and Tygan are all trying to disconnect the commander before the Ethereals eat his brain. Unknown to those three it seems the Commander is winning, but it is unclear if he destroys the Ethereals before being ‘ejected’ or not. The final TFTD scene at the end suggests not, alternately when the commander was removed from the Avatar the supposedly ‘lifeless’ Avatar became sentient (or was possessed by one of the Ethereals, which is what they wanted all along, lol). I’m very curious to see what is going on with that.
The Ethereals warnings start off the mission sounding like they are just trying to convince you to stop so they can finish their own Avatars and survive. However, near the end, especially when battling the Commander’s Avatar, it seems like their warnings change from formless ‘You are not ready!’ to more specific warnings that something is coming for us the same as it did for them (something caused their condition? Maybe a battle with other aliens forced them to use so much psy power it crippled their bodies?). I don’t have the cutscene handy so I don’t have the exact words, but it seemed to me like they were warning about an actual enemy that would be attracted by our Psy power? Maybe I was misreading it and they are just trying to convince us to submit, but I think (and hope) there is something darker waiting in the shadows of space.

Also: I loved the throwback to TFTD with the final mission! As soon as I scrolled over to the edge of the map while exploring on turn 1 and saw the sharks and jellyfish I laughed. Nice job Firaxis.

Original Link – Continuation of discussion

GTAmes