[Top 25] XCOM 2 Best Mods Right Now

Updated:

11 Dec 2023

1.) A Better ADVENT: War of the Chosen

Part of a collection of mods that overhaul major aspects of the game, A Better ADVENT (ABA) is a mod primarily concerned with adding an extra challenge to the game by introducing increased enemy variety as well as improved AI and improved enemy types. The other two mods related are A Better Barracks and A Better Campaign. For the sake of brevity, I will only speak on A Better ADVENT so that you can get a grasp of what the mods by creator DerBK have to offer and decide if you would like to check those out as well.

The enemy variety here introduces improved Lost with different abilities, suped-up Mutons, and Vipers, renegade Skirmishers, as well as units known as Primes that function somewhat similarly to Rulers. Overall this is aimed at creating a much more difficult late-game for the player where XCOM2 tends to snowball if you have managed to not suffer significant loss up until that point. New units will often have support abilities for their allies which tend to create more tactical gameplay.

Highlights:

New and Unique Enemies
Improved AI and Enemy Strategies/Abilities
Greater Enemy Variety
Improved Late Game Experience

2.) Augmentations

Similar to Mutations that existed in Firaxis’ first XCOM game, Augmentations allows you to take your soldiers and supe them up with mechanical parts to give them an extra edge against their enemies. This also provided new wound mechanics across the entirety of the game with a chance for soldiers that are Gravely Wounded to require an augmentation replacement before they can return to the field. Like Mutations, augmentations provide the soldier with various bonuses such as the ability to leap onto levels in terrain without the use of a ladder or provide the soldier with a stunning punch ability amongst other Deux Ex Machina-esque improvements.

Highlights:

Introduced Special Soldier Modding Abilities
Introduces New Factor Into The Wound System
Sick Cybernetic Warriors!

3.) [WotC] Ballistic Shields

Ballistic Shields adds a new secondary item that provides soldiers with a significant defense boost against oncoming damage and allows that soldier to serve as a tank option, something that can prove invaluable where tank options are limited otherwise. There are three tiers to the shield which you will be able to upgrade similarly to the other options available to the Commander on the Avenger. Players will also notice that they have new abilities to separate these new shield-wielding soldiers and help them be a nuisance to enemy forces on the battlefield.

Highlights:

Tank-like Functionality For Any With The Equipment
New Abilities
Early Options For Dealing With Particularly Painful Enemies

4.) [WotC] Civilians Revamped

This is a simple quality of life (QoL) mod that I think is well worth the mention. If you’re like me, you are frustrated with how civilians seem to be brain dead while under attack from ADVENT and alien forces, this mod makes it so that all civilians (friendly, hostile, and even hidden Faceless) respond to combat happening around them. Instead of standing in one spot gawking like morons, the civilians will attempt to move to cover and flee. This greatly increased their survivability instead of slapping the responsibility entirely on XCOM. The mod increases some of the stats of civilians to give them a better chance at not being nuked by ADVENT on sight.

I find Civilians Revamped most helpful during Retaliation Missions, where you might be coaxed into recklessly pushing your soldiers forward to have a chance at rescuing any civilians in the area. Something that comes in handy later in the game as enemies become much much more devastating.

Highlights:

No More “Deer In The Headlights” Civilians
Civilian Stats Slightly Increased
Disguised Faceless Can Potentially Be Attacked By ADVENT

5.) [WotC] Gene Mods

Another mod for those familiar with the mechanics and upgrades from the first XCOM game, Gene Mods reimagines and implements that concept and brings it to XCOM 2. In the second game, gene mods were replaced by Personal Combat Sims (PCSs) which can be applied to soldiers for bonuses but pales in comparison to loading up your soldier with superhuman abilities such as Viper Reflex to greatly increase a soldier’s dodge rate or Beserker Genes causing a soldier to automatically attack enemies in a rage when taking damage. These mods can be applied in the Infirmary and any soldier is available to undergo them.

Highlights:

Some mods from the original game, some new ones created from scratch
Open Source Allowing For Others To Add Custom Mods

6.) [WotC] Gotcha Again

A plethora of QoL changes

Based on the original mod, Gotcha (Flank Preview Evolved), Gotcha Again focuses on adding a variety of tactical icons to the gameplay while controlling your troops. This as a whole allows for greater tactical awareness where it could be sometimes lacking or confusing in the base game. No more will you have to guess whether or not an enemy's overwatch has enough line of sight to be activated by your sniper. No longer will you have to guess whether your soldier has LOS on a hacking point to hack from afar. All types of new icons have been added for convenience including but not limited to squad sight indicators, flanking indicators, and destruction indicators.

Highlights:

Tactical Icons For All Manner of Strategizing

7.) [WotC] Grimy's Loot Mod

Grimy’s Loot Mod is an interesting one that introduces a random loot mechanic to the game that rewards the player with loot boxes after completed missions. These boxes are hulled away to the Laboratory where they must be researched to unlock them. The unlocking process is relatively short but if you are familiar with the game you know that this time in the early-game can be precious. Once researched, the box will be opened and provide you with any variety of weapons or armor sporting randomized upgrades that provide all manner of bonuses much like how you would see item drops in Diablo or Borderlands.

This can do a lot to skew the game's difficulty either by providing the player with insanely powerful equipment early on, or at any point really, or by causing the player to waste time but receive very little in return.

Highlights:

Random Lootboxes With Randomized Gear
Hundreds Of Potential Upgrades
Focuses On Weapons

8.) [WotC] I'm the Commander here

An array of devastating skills at your discretion

XCOM 2 introduced being able to train your soldiers with tertiary abilities as they progress, but the headache comes in that those abilities are randomly rolled for the soldier as soon as the Training Center becomes available. What happens then is that you will often have selections for abilities that are virtually useless for the class that rolled them. I'm the Commander here eliminates that randomness and frustration by allowing players to choose what Training Center ability that their soldier will get when that soldier is eligible.

Highlight:

Take Full Control Of Your Soldiers Training
Min-max To Your Heart’s Content

9.) Iridar's Autopistol Overhaul

In the base game, Autopistols were the Templars version of the pistol which worked just the same as the Sharpshooters pistol with little difference in stats. Autopistols Overhaul alters the autopistol stats and allows them to be equipped by other classes to take advantage of these altered stats. This weapon now does a bit more damage and has increased range bonuses from closer rangers. These weapons now have a high crit chance and seem more reasonable as secondaries available to most classes (depending on your mod choices). Most importantly, the mod adds weapon upgrade support to the autopistols further increasing their viability where they have simply connected to the Templar and frankly not a great weapon for them in the first place.

Highlights:

Improved Autopistols
Altered Stats
Weapon Upgrade Support Added For Weapon
Weapon Available To Any Able To Wield Pistols

10.) Long War 2

Easily the largest and most intricate mod that existed for XCOM 2, Long War 2 completely overhauls the XCOM experience by greatly extending the campaign of the game to incorporate more conflicts, greater management opportunities, improved tactical depth, and much more. There is so much to talk about here that I can hardly do it justice but among adding new enemies, missions, and functions for several XCOM facilities, this mod adds new classes, weapons, items, abilities, upgrades, and more.

One of the major changes in the gameplay is that whereas in the base game the player is only ever technically overseeing one operation/mission at a time, in Long War 2 the player is allowed to send several squads on various missions. Teams are deployed from the Avenger and are tasked with infiltrating a hostile site which takes some time before the player is taken into the familiar XCOM gameplay to control their team. This mod also places more control in the player’s hands regarding Resistance forces allowing them to be managed and advised on tactical situations.

Notoriously, fans of Long War 2 have been dying for it to get an update that allows it to work with the War of The Chosen DLC. Due to the number of changes the DLC brings to the game, a concerted effort has been made to bring this dream to reality. You can check out their progress here.

Highlights:

Completely Game-Changing Overhaul
Brand New Enemies/Items/Missions/Abilities and More
Increased Campaign Length With New Challenges

11.) Long War Alien Pack

All shapes and sizes

In correlation with Long War 2’s goal of ramping up the difficulty and variety of XCOM 2, Long War Alien Pack introduces a large assortment of new alien enemies for the player to encounter and pit their skills against. Variations of enemy types and classes that you may be familiar with, this game expands upon those often daunting enemies and pushes their devastating abilities even further. From ADVENT to the aliens themselves, players will be faced with greater opposition such as the immensely destructive ADVENT Rocketeer or the extremely nimble skirmisher known as the Sidewinder.

Highlights:

Increased Enemy Pool
New Variations To Familiar Enemy Types
New Abilities for Enemies

12.) Long War Leader Pack

If you have ever thought of any of your XCOM soldiers as team leaders rather than the entire squad comprised of variable lone wolves then this mod is for you. Long War Leader Packs adds to the game a development path available to any soldier of appropriate rank which allows them to be trained as squad leaders and attain perks that benefit the entire squad. These bonuses range from a 20% bonus to crit for soldiers near the leader, to +1 damage bonuses to all allies within range of the leader. Leader skills are trained at the Guerilla Training School and a leader can go through training multiple times to gain more perks up to five bonuses.

Something to be aware of is that only one leader can go on a mission at a time meaning you should be mindful of who you promote with this skill or else risk splitting soldiers you would rather have teamed together.

This mod also comes with a WoTC variation so look out for that.

Highlights:

New Perks
Extra feature for Guerilla Training School

13.) [WotC] LW2 Classes and Perks

Another one that comes to us while we await the completion of the Long War of the Chosen mod, LW2 Classes and Perks works to implement what shall be and alters the classes and perks of the DLC to reflect that which would have been in Long War 2. I prefer the classes and their depth added by Long War 2 so this is a must for me. The basics are that the mod replaces the base classes and provides eight new classes that are a combination of the base classes and a handful of unique mechanics and gear that make them much more specialized units. The overall feel is that your squad relies on each other more often to fill critical roles. That said, this is not a perfect conversion of what you would have found in Long War 2 as some things such as Officer abilities and changes to the faction classes have been left out.

As a side note: the mod allows you to configure and tweak many of the abilities to your liking to get whatever result you want out of it.

Highlights:

Introducing Long War 2 Classes to WotC
Customizable Abilities through ini file.
Adds Some New Abilities Entirely

14.) [WotC] LW2 Secondary Weapons 2

Whatever, whatever, I'll use what I want!

In keeping with bringing Long War’s features to War of the Chosen, Secondary Weapons 2 introduces increased accessibility to classes regarding secondary weapons such as the sawed-off shotgun and the combat knife. Whereas the base game only provides five secondary weapons including swords, GREMLINs, pistols, grenade launchers, and PSI amps, this mod reintroduces some weapons like the Arc Thrower and provides every class with a specific secondary weapon unique to their abilities. An added aspect is that many weapons have been given altered stats and in some cases have had their tech tier increased making them more viable at all levels of play.

Highlights:

Expanded Weapons For Classes
Altered Weapon Stat Tables
New Weapons And Some Returning

15.) [WotC] Mod Everything Reloaded

Traditionally in the game, the only item that can be upgraded with mods would be primary weapons, Mod Everything Reloaded says pshaw to that and allows everything from secondary weapons to utility items to have weapons mods added to them which vastly alters the amount of customizability available to soldiers. While it does not add any new mods to the game itself, it serves as a base for other mods to add unique mods and it even comes with the added benefit of being able to increase or decrease the number of mod slots available to a weapon.

Highlights:

Complete Customization of Mod Slots
Alter Number of Mods Slots Available

16.) LW2 Utility Plating

Considering the hard-hitting nature that can often be present within XCOM 2, it becomes invaluable to mitigate damage as much as possible and it does wonders for keeping your soldiers not only alive but to give them a much greater chance of taking damage without being significantly wounded. Utility Plating adds items available to XCOM 2 to add to soldier’s loadout to add ablative (shield) HP which is essentially a one-time damage buffer for the soldier in question. As you progress through the game the player will be able to pump research into upgrading this armor to give greater bonuses. Players can also go in and alter the setting of the mod to increase or decrease this bonus.

Highlights:

More Durable Troops
Armor Slots Available To All Troops
Ablative HP Does Not Lead To Wounds Allowing Easier Excellent and Flawless Mission Completion

17.) Musashis RPG Overhaul

Another expansive overhaul of the game’s classes and features. The base game’s class system has been removed in favor of a single class that can be developed into various specializations by choosing abilities from any available specialization. This essentially allows players to multi-class their soldiers to achieve combinations such as snipers equipped with stealth abilities and a sword or specialists with grenade launchers. Furthermore, weapons and attachments have been altered as well for unique and more focused roles. True to its name, the mod also adds RPG elements such as randomly generated stats and the ability to train stats.

Musashis RPG Overhaul has spawned a slew of additional mods that can be added to bring in new specializations and abilities making this mod extremely customizable.

Highlights:

Massive Customization
Complete Overhaul of Classes and Abilities
Removes and Replaces Base Game Class System

18.) No Rank Up Throttling

A rather annoying aspect of the original game was that soldiers could only rank up once per mission no matter how effective they were. One soldier could take out fifteen enemy units and be restricted to only achieving one rank up in that mission in spite of their stellar performance. No Rank Up Throttling removes this entirely so that your budding soldiers can rapidly achieve greatness (a real lifesaver if you happen to lose a high-ranked soldier and need a replacement quicker than waiting upward of seven missions.)

A stellar mod to be sure, but apparently, it has some issues when attempting to use it with other mods such as Long War 2 or RPG Overhaul. Reportedly, the mod works fine with the WotC DLC.

Highlights:

Unshackled Rank Potential

19.) Psionics Overhaul V3

Unmitigated psionic potential

In XCOM 2 there were major changes made to the Psionics class, wherein in XCOM 1 any soldier with psionic potential could be trained in order to harness their abilities; in XCOM 2 this was changed so that soldiers must be trained to be Psionic Operatives as rookies. Psionics Overhaul aims to return the original XCOM 1 mechanics as authentically as possible so that any soldier could potentially have psionic abilities available to them after the Psi lab is unlocked on the Avenger. Furthermore, this allows for psions to level up regularly alongside being able to be trained with their psionic powers. This is a great boon because it makes it so that psionics are a supplementary tree along with your soldier’s general class abilities and strengths.

Highlights:

Return to XCOM 1 Psions Mechanics
Making Psions Out of Previously Ranked Soldiers Grants Much Improved Survivability
No Long Waiting A Month For A Psionic Operative To Be Viable On The Field

20.) [WotC] robojumper's Squad Select

Why take a squad when you could take an army

Squad Selection allows the player access to larger squad sizes much quicker in the game. The high customizability of this mod allows players to alter squad sizes to crazy limits just as nine and above with some other mod support added in. Traditionally, XCOM will only have access to squads of four until unlocking the GTS and allowing them to send squads of five and then six. Robojumper’s Squad Select adds support for these increased squad limits with changes to the UI and allowing players to drag and drop soldiers quickly from one menu to the next. Furthermore, the squad selection menu will provide more information about the soldiers including specifics about their equipment.

It should be noted when increasing the squad size it is common for the mod to botch the spawn points of the squad and this requires another mod to fix this minor issue.

Highlights:

Greater Squad Size Ranging From Vanilla To Nine
Improved UI

21.) Simple True Concealment

Mission timers can prove to be a great pain as they often force you to make poor choices or simply cause you to rush ahead on the field to try and beat out expiration timers on items/objectives. Simple True Concealment takes previous functionality available through the Infiltrate Resistance Order and provides the benefit from the beginning of gameplay. Now you soldiers will always enter a mission in concealment and mission timers will not begin to tick away until you have broken concealment. Moreover, this mod alters mission timers to provide more length on many of them which were irritatingly quick more often than not.

Highlights:

Tactical Choices Reflected By A Stealth Approach
Improved/Altered Mission Timers

22.) [WotC] Soldier Development

Practice makes perfect

If you have ever thought that soldiers’ skills should increase along with their combat experience then this mod is for you. Soldier Development adds the chance for soldiers to increase their stats such as hack, or aim, through the actions they take on a mission. Along with Hack, Aim, and Mobility, it is also possible to increase soldiers Ability Points, Will, and Combat Intelligence when missions are successfully completed at a rate of Excellent and Flawless. These increases can be tweaked to the player’s preferences so that harder shots can provide greater or smaller bonuses depending on the difficulty of the shot. Overall, this adds to the progression and further increases a soldier’s continued excellence and relevance as the game progresses.

Highlights:

Improved Progression
Semi-random Stat Increases Based on Performance

23.) [WotC] Stealth Overhaul

Stealth Overhaul adds mechanics to the game to provide the entire squad a similar concealment function as shown by the Reapers. At the start of every mission, each soldier has a concealment percentage and their actions have a chance to break concealments just like the Reapers. Notable changes would be that other soldiers do not share in the Reaper’s extremely reduced retention range linked to their shadow concealment ability. Also, it is worth noting that all but the Reaper still become concealed simultaneously when one of them fails and actions or does something similar that would regularly reveal the squad.

Highlights:

Full Support For Squad Reaper-like Stealth
Works Well With Other Stealth Abilities

24.) [WotC] Use My Class

Such a simple mod seems like it should have been something included in the game in the first place. Use My Class fixes the issue with players spending a load of time customizing their Character Pool only to have the game completely ignore the class selections one may have had. In the base game, when characters load from the pool they have their class randomized just like randomly generated soldiers. If you are a big customizer like myself and feel that my created soldiers are linked to a certain class by design, then this mod is a must. This mod even works on Psi Operatives though the class will be officially locked until the Psi Lab becomes available meaning these operatives will remain Rookies until they are assigned to train.

Highlights:

Choose Classes For Character Pool
Soldiers Always Spawn As Their Chosen Class
Works On Classes Added By Mods

25.) World Expansion Project: ADVENT

Something that will stand out to long time players of XCOM 2, the World Expansion Project adds several parcels (like houses and large map pieces/structures) and PCPs (connects between parcels like dirt roads, rivers, and so on) to the random map generator to create more varied maps. After putting in hundreds of hours, it becomes quite obvious about the repeat nature of the maps and this mod helps a lot with bringing diversity. There are planned expansions for the mod to cover more than just ADVENT areas and items. Though the project has not been worked on in some time, it appears to function correctly with WotC and its base works well for other mods that aim to do something similar for maps.