Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Computing
  4. News

Long War 2, an ambitious, large-scale mod, on the horizon for ‘XCOM 2’

Add as a preferred source on Google

The developers behind the XCOM 2 free add-ons “Alien Pack,” “Perk,” and “Laser Pack” have been working hard to bring out more new and exciting content for Firaxis’ popular strategy game.

Pavonis Interactive, previously known as Long War Studios, is working on a large-scale PC mod called “Long War 2,” according to a new post on the XCOM official website.

Recommended Videos

Fans of the PC versions of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Within will likely remember the original Long War mod. Unlike most mods, Long War was an all-encompassing refinement. The mod, released in beta in 2013, tweaked almost every facet of the game, from the nuances of the campaign to character classes to weapon customization and more. Like many mods, Long War started as a fan-made project, but after receiving unprecedented critical acclaim, widespread downloads, and even praise from Firaxis, the core developers banded together to create a formal studio. “Long War” moved out of beta in late-2015, and has been played by over 500,000 unique players.

Details are sparse on both XCOM’s official site and the newly launched Pavonis Interactive, but if Long War 2 manages to implement even half of the refinements seen in the original, the upcoming mod will certainly be a welcome addition to the already stellar tactics game that we awarded a perfect score upon its release.

Long War 2 does not currently have a timetable for release, but we expect updates in the next few weeks. As with all of Pavonis Interactive’s XCOM franchise mods, Long War 2 will almost assuredly be free, as it is not official DLC from Firaxis Games.

Pavonis Interactive has been quite busy as of late. The Colorado-based independent developer is working on their own extraterrestrial strategy game, Terra Invicta — possibly explaining the company name change. The project is currently in pre-development and eyeing a future Kickstarter campaign.

We will provide more concrete information on the progress of Long War 2 as it develops.

Steven Petite
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…
Sony is helping bury physical games, and preservation is being left to clean up the mess
A reported 2028 cutoff for PS5 discs gives the industry a deadline it still doesn’t seem ready to handle.
A PS5 sitting on its side with two Dualsense controllers next to it on the right.

Sony’s reported plan to stop producing PS5 discs in 2028 would push PlayStation deeper into a digital-first future, where access depends on licenses, storefront policy, and platform support lasting longer than companies usually promise.

That’s tidy for Sony and ugly for game preservation. Physical media was never a perfect archive, but removing it before a serious replacement exists turns the survival of old games into someone else’s emergency. It also raises questions about long-term ownership, resale rights, and whether players can truly rely on purchases to remain accessible decades later.

Read more
PS Plus adds Modern Warfare III in July, plus two games worth your time
The unremarkable Call of Duty campaign comes bundled with remastered multiplayer maps, joined by For the King II and CrossCode.
PlayStation Plus July 2026 games featured

PlayStation Plus subscribers are getting a new lineup to dig into starting July 7, and this one leads with the biggest name Sony has put in the Monthly Games slot in a while. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III headlines this month's lineup, joined by the co-op fantasy RPG For the King II and the retro-style action RPG CrossCode. All three games will be available on PS5 and PS4 and remain available through August 3.

A blockbuster with a rocky reputation

Read more
Cinder City wants 64GB of RAM, and the rest of its PC specs make it even weirder
Remember when 16GB RAM was enough?
Cinder City Gameplay screenshot

For years, PC gamers have joked that game developers treat hardware requirements like a shopping list. Cinder City might have just taken that joke a little too seriously. The game's newly listed recommended PC specs ask for a whopping 64GB of RAM. That's a figure that's raising eyebrows because almost everything else on the list looks surprisingly… normal.

64GB RAM paired with an RTX 4060?

Read more