The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

Carter shoots, takes cover, flanks enemies, and revives allies in real time, but the key mechanic is Battle Focus, a tactical slowdown that lets you pause the action and issue orders. You direct two agents toward cover, designate targets, deploy abilities, trigger healing, or set up crossfires before returning to the firefight. Missions send the team through military bases, rural towns, laboratories, and alien-controlled zones, where aggressive positioning matters more than simple reflexes.

Between operations, the Bureau's headquarters lets you recruit agents, select squad loadouts, research recovered alien technology, and shape specialized roles such as medic, engineer, recon, or heavy weapons expert; fallen agents can be permanently lost, so careless orders carry weight. In our playthrough, losing a leveled engineer to a careless flank stung more than we expected, which is exactly the tension the game is going for.

What separates it from the turn-based XCOM games is its hybrid pacing: it plays like a cover shooter while asking you to think like a field commander every few seconds. Enemy types demand different answers, from shielding drones and teleporting troops to stronger alien forces that punish squads caught in the open. The campaign is more linear and less strategically deep than XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but its command system makes even familiar firefights feel more deliberate than standard third-person shooting.

Fans of Mass Effect-style squad control or tactical shooters with a forgiving entry point should find plenty to enjoy, while longtime XCOM veterans should approach it as an alternate, action-focused interpretation rather than a replacement for the series' strategy roots. If you enjoy squad-driven alien warfare, you may also want to browse our Bureau of Contacts page for another take on the agency-versus-unknown formula.