Given that the cutscene that introduces Retaliation Missions ends with a civilian transforming into a Faceless, imagine living in a Resistance Haven and suddenly seeing someone you know transform into a horrific monstrosity that attacks your would-be saviors.

Their claw attacks are powerful enough to collapse the rooftops of the civilian buildings in the Retaliation Mission AO, meaning they can not only hit you hard, but cast you down to ground level at the same time, exposing you to other enemies.

The Faceless is a species of Voluntary Shapeshifters that disguise themselves as ordinary civilians whose true form towers nearly one story tall and looks like the lovechild of a Resident Evil game and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, with the face to match.

You can never know if you're clear of a Chryssalid threat anymore (At least not without scattering Battle Scanners across the AO). And they can bury themselves in the ground now to hide from sight, and they can even sense Phantom Rangers through their stealthiness, popping up to rush in and claw at you and breaking your concealment. And worst of all, they're actually right, but you won't know about this until it's too late, and you're being murdered as part of some inscrutable alien plot.

What it's like to be a civilian in this world? You live under the benevolent rule of the ADVENT, your alien saviors, but a bunch of armed lunatics are running wild all over the globe, so caught up in their insane conspiracy theory that they're willing to assassinate beloved leaders, bomb genetic modification hospitals, murder anyone who supports the ADVENT as part of its ranks, and generally commit all manner of atrocity.

If not for the aliens being much, much worse all of this would be very questionable. If you consider how easy it is to accidentally cause civilian casualties or willingly blow up one civilian to kill a group of Advent troopers.

Using toxic gases, incendiary explosives on living targets, corrosive acids, and the like are all pretty bad on their own.

Many of XCOM's tactics would probably qualify as war crimes.

Not only does that give your enemies better ammo with which to paint you as the bad guys, really, what does it say about you that you're willing to do something like that? Like bombing what are, publicly hospitals that are treating once-incurable ailments. You often have to undertake missions that are essentially terrorist activities.

You're seen by almost every other human in the world as the enemy, while the true monsters enjoy a huge amount of popular opinion.

You're vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the aliens, forced to live constantly on the run, knowing that you're always at risk of being tracked down by the aliens.

Imagine what it's like to be an XCOM agent in this world:.

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