The best XCOM 2 mods
Tweak, change, and enhance one of the best strategy games out there.
Character customization
Free the Hood
This mod allows for several face customizations at the same time, so our soldiers' cigars don't vanish while wearing a hood and eye patches and masks don't disappear when you equip a helmet. You can also add jewelry to both the upper and lower face at the same time. Not every combination works perfectly, but you've still got a lot more options than you had before.
Full Character Customization From Start
No more leveling up your soldiers before you can fully customize their looks. This mod makes it so the full customization menu is available to you from the jump. All attitudes, hairstyles, and armor patterns are at your disposal from the very beginning of a soldier's arrival.
Ink and Paint
We'll always, always, always be looking for new ways to customize our soldiers, and this mod provides new facepoints and facial tattoos, as well as 25 new arms tattoos. According to the modder, there's even more on the way.
Capnbubs Accessories Pack
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When your soldiers pop their heads out of cover, you want them looking their best. This pack by modder Capnbubs adds some noggin-based accessories, like a kevlar helmet and facemask that fits nicely with kevlar armor, several different berets, and a ballcap that can be worn with the bill in front or back (but thankfully not to the side). More are being added over time.
Military Camouflage Patterns
Your soldiers can proudly represent their country of origin with their flags and accents, but why not take it a step further with 21 different real-world camouflage patterns. Russian Berezka, Swedish Barracuda, US TigerPAT, and many others will let your squad hide with pride.
Star Wars Helmets
We know how frustrating it is when one of your squad, with a clear shot at close range, empties a clip but completely misses their target. That’s why these helmets are so appropriate: there are simply no worse shots in the history of the galaxy than your average stormtroopers. Includes the classic trilogy look, Endor’s scout troopers, and the new helmets from The Force Awakens. Add some black and white armor and bring a convincing taste of Star Wars into your game.
CP Halo Spartans
Storm Troopers aren't your thing? What about Halo's Spartans? Halo lore nerds will appreciate these character names come straight out of the books, and if Halo Wars isn't quite your chosen flavor of strategy, just pretend you're fighting the Covenant in XCOM 2. This character pool requires a ton of other Halo mods, like Halo Customizable Armors.
Custom Face Paints
Want your team to have grease-smears under their eyes like professional athletes, or their entire foreheads slathered with soot like Furiosa? Or maybe you’re more into the Braveheart facepaint or the raccoon look like Pris from Blade Runner. This face paint pack adds 10 new looks.
Advent Armor
Unfortunately, dressing like Advent doesn’t mean you can nonchalantly stroll over to them, offer them a cigarette, chat about the weather, and then bonk them unconscious and run away, giggling. Still, this mod lets you wear their big, clunky helmets and body armor. If you can’t beat ‘em, dress like ‘em.
Uniforms Manager
When a soldier dies in XCOM 2, they take with them all their earthly memories and dreams. But more importantly, they take their uniform with them, a set of customizations that you spend precious minutes assembling. Uniforms Manager is so helpful and obvious that it should’ve been a stock feature in XCOM 2: it lets you save and reapply created uniforms, letting your whole squad color-coordinate without the agony of clicking through the character creator a bunch.
Commander Shepard
Ain't no alien-killing badass quite like Mass Effect's Commander Shepard, so you should really add him or her—or both—to your crack staff of extraterrestrial-exterminating soldiers. Your Shepard will bark lines from the Mass Effect games, which naturally fit perfectly into XCOM 2.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Worth it alone for the "Get to da choppa!" line from Predator—which plays when you're calling for evac, naturally—this Arnie voice pack includes almost 200 lines from a number of his action films, including Total Recall, The Terminator, and Last Action Hero.
Deadpool
This mod mines the plentiful dialogue from High Moon Studios’ 2013 Deadpool game to great effect, with barks like “I AM THROWING A GRENADE” (grenading) and “Guns need bullets to work” (low ammo) slotting in cleanly with every soldier action.
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- Wes FenlonSenior Editor