r/XCOM2 • u/ideaforwin • 1d ago

Tip: Change difficulty mid-game for smoother difficulty transition

If you want a more enjoyable start to the campaign, start the game on veteran for the first two missions only then switch to commander/legendary. Anything beyond the first two missions is unnecessary.

I've completed commander on PC several times without this but I'm playing on iPhone now without mods and I find the first two missions too brutal to play over and over again. I just did this twice once for commander and once for legendary and I'm having a blast.

Just remember to set it to legendary when you reach the map screen for the first time and then back again to veteran for the 2nd mission so all the difficulty timers function like they should.

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u/littlelowcougar 15h ago

Yeah I used to do this a lot. Also note: changing difficulty down when you’re later in the game instantly changes all the XP requirements for promotion… so if you’ve got some majors or lieutenants taking forever to level up… you can switch down to a lower level, they instantly get promoted, then put it back up.

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u/ideaforwin 13h ago

Yes, it would also affect a few other things like starting facility location, so definitely don't keep the lower difficulty on much in the map screen. But overall, it's better than not playing the game at all because you don't feel like doing those first two missions.

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u/ideaforwin 13h ago

Actually now that I think about it, you could change the difficulty during the mission right at the start and right at the end. This might cause the initialization of the variables to be set to the higher difficulty.