Instead of simply choosing between the static easy/medium/hard options, these second wave selections tailor the difficulty to your liking, creating a better experience overall. Options like these crank up the heat inside the alien-infested pressure cooker that is XCOM by rewarding smart play and punishing mistakes. It has now been implemented in the sequel via a 'plot and parcel system,' a new tech that generates and places random objects or buildings into pre-designated 'holes' on a map. Most of the new gene mods are straightforward but there are still a few that leave out a detail or two. XCOM: Enemy Within introduced several new toys for the player to use, including the ability to genetically modify your soldiers. The feature was initially planned for Enemy Unknown but was scrapped in favor of handcrafted maps. The difference between Neural Damping and Neural Feedback. Other players I know swear by Aiming Angles (bonus accuracy if you're near flanking) and Red Fog (accuracy penalty if you're injured) and won't play without them. Unlike XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 features procedural map generation.
This may sound like a minor detail, but in a game where a few percentage points are the difference between brave and grave, messing with stats like this can really surprise you. But in party-time-second-wave XCOM, you can enable Not Created Equal and Hidden Potential to mix up your rookie's starting stats and how those stats change between levels. In boring-old-regular XCOM, rookies are basically all carbon copies of each other, with identical stats and level progression. My personal favorites change how your soldiers grow.
