Why does the victory ending have to be the canon one?

[Frankster]

UFO series already did this so...Colour me indifferent.
Basically for those who don't know, its a series of xcom like games, and for the series to continue one of the bad endings is made cannon and subsequent games deals with that, and though some might disagree with me, it made the series more interesting as it pushed the story in different directions (ex: desperate bunch of human colonists making a new life on mars away from all the troubles on earth) rather then keep being a rehash of the same formula and theme.

So yeah I'm perfectly cool with having the bad endings made cannon for the good continuation of a series.

If anything the thing that most surprises me about new xcom is that after winning the aliens didn't fuck up earth and the human race in a major grimdark way.

 

[Dalisclock]

i think they could have work with the orignal ending instead of going for the alternate universe.

i dont know, it could had been somethig like this : after the temple ship explosion, the fallout of the explosion poisoned the atmosphere and create an EMP like wave that disrupt tech. People start to blame xcom, and the world leaders start to cut funding of xcom. before xcom have fully restore their base after the EMP, the xcom base is raid by all the remaining alien forces.

you start the game. first mission is the base attack, with endless wave of attacker, it's impossible to win. you lost. the commander and a few base personal flee the base.

In a way, this seems more in line with what happened in the original X-COM. If you've played the games and/or read through the timeline of the series, even with each victory, shit only seems to get worse. Which is why, among other things, Humanity is living within a single mega city with the rest of the world being a wasteland in Apocalypse.

And let's face it, the aliens knew where XCOMS one base was all along. They merely chose to leave it alone after a single attempt. Is it really so hard to believe that the aliens, miffed by the loss of the temple ship, decide to take off the kid gloves and hit the XCOM base with everything?

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

the xcom commander and the few operative that survive decide to fight back. but without the base and their research database, they cannot recreate what they had before, so they go underground and very slowly rebuild their force, they return with conventional weapon, because even if they know that plasma weapon exist, they dont know how to build them anymore. qfter a while, after recruiting in the shadows and training, gather ressources, they manage to attack a ufo and capture it to make the new HQ. regaining the technology needed to at least start research and produce high tech equipement.

I don't think that would work. I don't see how we could lose the ability to create exotic tech by losing XCOM base. For one thing every engineer and scientist involved would need to die. Also the assumption that there isn't double or triple redundancy in saving the most precious technology knowledge on the planet. Or that other organisations haven't run parallel research like EXALT. The whole world is littered with alien tech now waiting to be reverse engineered.

I just don't see how we could credibly go backwards.

 

[visiblenoise]

I thought it was pretty uniquely interesting that XCOM didn't save the world (yet). I was more excited about that, and the resulting talk about stealth and guerilla tactics, over the procedurally generated maps or anything else.

 

[Uncle Comrade]

I'm not massively bothered by it, it just strikes me as being quite lazy writing. As others in this thread have pointed out, there was plenty of potential to have a 'you won the battle, but lost the war' scenario, either with the aliens redoubling their efforts, or whatever the Ethereals were preparing for catching up. Instead we get "Nope, you didn't win the battle, everything you did in the last game was a waste of time, and in fact never even happened."

It'd be like if the scrolling text in The Empire Strikes Back had said "Despite what you saw in the last film, the rebels didn't actually blow up the Death Star. Instead they sucked and died and the Empire is stronger than ever. Enjoy!"

I also find it odd that they're calling it X:Com 2, thereby emphasising the fact that it's a sequel, while at the same time declaring the game it's supposedly a sequel to largely non-canon.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm actually rather interested in the XCOM2 premise, mostly because the "The Gameover ending is canon" is a lot more interesting then the "You won, but we negated your victory between games" or the more obvious "You won, but now a bigger bad guy is coming to kick your ass". Especially if it ends up changing the dynamic.

 

[DementedSheep]

I don't quite understand the complaints I see around that it makes the first game a waste of time. Did you not enjoy actually playing EU? It's not like this is a story based game where your actions having consequence across a series is advertised as one of the features.

 

[Dalisclock]

I don't quite understand the complaints I see around that it makes the first game a waste of time. Did you not enjoy actually playing EU? It's not like this is story based game where your actions having consequence across a series is advertise as one of the features.

Or a game like Chrono Cross where everything you did in the first game was not only undone, in ways that just felt like the devs were giving everyone the middle finger.

Anyone who played Chrono Cross knows exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I like plots in games where "victory" doesn't really exist because there's no determinable end goal.

"You killed this big asshole making trouble and/or overcame your own personal demons at the same time! ...Now what?"

But for once I would a sequel where the canonical ending to the prequel was failure. But to give an example, it was possible to save someone in Clock Tower: The First Fear, but only one (saving Lotte was impossible; either Ann or Lola had to die) but the sequel canonised both of their deaths.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I don't quite understand the complaints I see around that it makes the first game a waste of time. Did you not enjoy actually playing EU? It's not like this is story based game where your actions having consequence across a series is advertised as one of the features.

Yeah I don't understand it invalidating a previous experience at all.

I always found what is and isn't canon a strange concept. 'This is the Real story in this fictional universe' what?

 

[PinkiePyro]

I see a lot of thoughtful posts... and here is my slightly stupid one..

I would like to remind everyone split timelines can also exist... take the "Official" zelda timeline

(timeline is in spoilers because its large)

Spoiler