The DeanBeat: I’m surrendering to the aliens in XCOM 2. It’s too hard

I have put dozens of hours into playing a single game of XCOM 2, the turn-based tactical strategy game from Take-Two Interactive’s 2K Games label. I have tried to turn back the alien conquest of Earth in a last-ditch guerrilla war by humanity. And now I am surrendering. The game is too hard, and I’m in so deep that I can’t make more progress unless I start over.

I’m going to get a lot of flak for this from hardcore gamers who want their games to be difficult. But I started playing this game on the “normal” setting and had to ratchet it down to “rookie” in order to continue with the game. This raises a question about the wisdom behind the game industry’s spiraling quest to make games more engaging by making them harder to play for a smaller group of hardcore gamers. If a game is too hard, a lot of more casual gamers like me are just going to give up. I’m here to testify that it is possible to make a game too difficult.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.