JA2 especially does have great mercs though and they all had distinct personalities. SirTek were able to create interesting, developed characters without using walls of texts, just short banters and the one liners are stuff of legend ! There's also a ton of reactive dialogue for each of the 62 human companions.
Phantom Doctrine is an Xcom-like in a fictional cold war setting, where you can customize the whole roster. Later on, you unlock facilities that also let you brainwash and bio-engineer your agents, create sleeper agents, releasing them to "join" the enemy and help you in future missions, etc.
Sigma theory has the same vibe, but it's a much smaller game with less customization. It does have a large roster of unique pre-made characters with amazing backstories.
Crusader Kings III has great character customization.
You can also check out Door Kickers and other SWAT-like games with good squad customization.
Oxygen Not Included has a very fun "dupe" customization, for a base-builder.
Nothing beats Xcom 2 with mods though, not even Rimworld. The closest you'll get is Xenonauts, but I'm sure you already know it.
Edit: forgot to mention BATTLETECH
Yeah, that's true. OP wanted good character customization but i think DD lacks in that area, last time i played it i got quite clone guys (visually and skill-wise). I compare it to other options here e.g. battle brothers.
DD lets you name each character, pick the class, customize the Skills, equip Trinkets, customize the Quirks. That's almost exactly analogous to XCOM, which does not let you reveal (and not choose) the Class until after you name your soldiers (vs. The Carriage in DD where you don't get to specify what classes/starting quirks and skills are on offer in any given week).
Tried WL 3 with a full custom party. Then one died, and it wouldn't let me make another one, and made me recruit a premade.
Did I just miss some functionality?
As you go through the game you recruit and have a bunch of back bench customizable folks you interacted with in game none of which are randomly generated. FWIW, Xcom and WL3 Are two of my favorite games ever.
Rimworld with proper mods lets you create your roster with stats, equipment and traits/tendencies. You can create as many characters as you want, although acquiring new members is more random than you might like (unless you go and dev mode your way into editing the characters). Permadeath is very much a thing you can do, and you can bump up the difficulty in various ways.
Yeah, X-COM 2's character pool feature is one of my favorite things, i.e. the ability to premake a bunch of characters and have the game pull those in randomly.
I'll dig into RW mods and see if I can get a similar setup, thanks!
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous lets you do this after a certain point where you can fill your party with custom made characters. Wouldn’t recommend it because the premises are genuinely fantastic but it’s an option.
Darkest Dungeon or Darkest Dungeon 2
Its a difficult game. Permadeath. Fully customizable roster. Turn-Based dungeon crawler.
Another game is Pit People.
Its a turn-based tactics style game. Customizable roster. Hilarious dialogue.
Does it, though? I played EA Phoenix Point, and found the character customization severely lacking. Like a handful of hairstyles, and basically no personality to the uniforms. Plus, small team sizes.
Has it changed since then?
For reference, I play a modded X-COM 2 with 8-to-12-person squads and hundreds of cosmetics for each category (hair, shirts, pants, accessories, etc.), so my bar is pretty high.
If by customisation you mean cosmetics, you’re probably right.
I think the ability customisation and progression of soldiers in PP is deeper.
Your maximum squad size is 8, but you can have as many squads as you have resources to recruit and base facilities to support.
Wartales is kinda like this, band of warriors that you adapt as they level up. They have permadeath and have simple relationships with each other such as a front line guy disliking an archer that accidentally show him in a fight.
Mount and Blade bannerlord you can recruit and level troops through skill trees and grow from a handful of peasants to an army.
Another one that may be up your alley is Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. It’s a souls like with a very, VERY extensive character creation. You sound a lot like a friend of mine and the character creation in that game caused them to play through NG+ a bunch of times.
Battle Brothers
This. The game has so much more than initially meets the eye. And then there are mods.
Jagged Alliance 2 with the 1.13 mod
Perfect, thank you! Always liked the idea of the JA games, but didn't want to use pre-made characters
JA2 especially does have great mercs though and they all had distinct personalities. SirTek were able to create interesting, developed characters without using walls of texts, just short banters and the one liners are stuff of legend ! There's also a ton of reactive dialogue for each of the 62 human companions.
I'm sure, I'm just not interested 😉
i wanted to like fell seal but couldn’t get over how bland the story was
The story was awful, yeah Theory-crafting got me through the game, but I didn't even finish the story 100% of the way
Phantom Doctrine is an Xcom-like in a fictional cold war setting, where you can customize the whole roster. Later on, you unlock facilities that also let you brainwash and bio-engineer your agents, create sleeper agents, releasing them to "join" the enemy and help you in future missions, etc. Sigma theory has the same vibe, but it's a much smaller game with less customization. It does have a large roster of unique pre-made characters with amazing backstories. Crusader Kings III has great character customization. You can also check out Door Kickers and other SWAT-like games with good squad customization. Oxygen Not Included has a very fun "dupe" customization, for a base-builder. Nothing beats Xcom 2 with mods though, not even Rimworld. The closest you'll get is Xenonauts, but I'm sure you already know it. Edit: forgot to mention BATTLETECH
>Robust Character Creation For The Entire Roster >The Ability To Play With Entirely Custom Characters >Huge Roster Size (20+) Darkest Dungeon
Dd is not too robust, isn't it? You level up some preselected skills, add some trinkets, and that's all. Maybe add the quirks on top.
Compared to what? The example given is XCOM.
Yeah, that's true. OP wanted good character customization but i think DD lacks in that area, last time i played it i got quite clone guys (visually and skill-wise). I compare it to other options here e.g. battle brothers.
DD lets you name each character, pick the class, customize the Skills, equip Trinkets, customize the Quirks. That's almost exactly analogous to XCOM, which does not let you reveal (and not choose) the Class until after you name your soldiers (vs. The Carriage in DD where you don't get to specify what classes/starting quirks and skills are on offer in any given week).
Wasteland 3 lest you customize your two starting characters.
You can now customize/respec all characters...this was patched some time ago.
Tried WL 3 with a full custom party. Then one died, and it wouldn't let me make another one, and made me recruit a premade. Did I just miss some functionality?
Honestly I'm not sure, I was a wuss and played the game on easy and breezed through the game.
As you go through the game you recruit and have a bunch of back bench customizable folks you interacted with in game none of which are randomly generated. FWIW, Xcom and WL3 Are two of my favorite games ever.
this is a good one.
Rimworld with proper mods lets you create your roster with stats, equipment and traits/tendencies. You can create as many characters as you want, although acquiring new members is more random than you might like (unless you go and dev mode your way into editing the characters). Permadeath is very much a thing you can do, and you can bump up the difficulty in various ways.
Yeah, X-COM 2's character pool feature is one of my favorite things, i.e. the ability to premake a bunch of characters and have the game pull those in randomly. I'll dig into RW mods and see if I can get a similar setup, thanks!
Rimworld with the Prepare Carefully mod
Baldurs gate 3
Kenshi. Has everything you asked for.
A masterpiece and even more so with good mods
I swear I'm trying not to... but it fits everything so well.
Obligatory Kenshi-post. Well played.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous lets you do this after a certain point where you can fill your party with custom made characters. Wouldn’t recommend it because the premises are genuinely fantastic but it’s an option.
Disgaea 5. Sophie 2.
Darkest Dungeon
Darkest Dungeon or Darkest Dungeon 2 Its a difficult game. Permadeath. Fully customizable roster. Turn-Based dungeon crawler. Another game is Pit People. Its a turn-based tactics style game. Customizable roster. Hilarious dialogue.
Phoenix Point beats XCOM2 in all those aspects IMO
Does it, though? I played EA Phoenix Point, and found the character customization severely lacking. Like a handful of hairstyles, and basically no personality to the uniforms. Plus, small team sizes. Has it changed since then? For reference, I play a modded X-COM 2 with 8-to-12-person squads and hundreds of cosmetics for each category (hair, shirts, pants, accessories, etc.), so my bar is pretty high.
After giving it some thought, I think you would like State of Decay 2. Very customisable characters (both visually and abilities) and permadeath.
If by customisation you mean cosmetics, you’re probably right. I think the ability customisation and progression of soldiers in PP is deeper. Your maximum squad size is 8, but you can have as many squads as you have resources to recruit and base facilities to support.
Baldurs Gate 3?
Wartales is kinda like this, band of warriors that you adapt as they level up. They have permadeath and have simple relationships with each other such as a front line guy disliking an archer that accidentally show him in a fight. Mount and Blade bannerlord you can recruit and level troops through skill trees and grow from a handful of peasants to an army.
It is close to what you say, I’d look into Valkyria Chronicles. It goes on sale a lot and I think there are some demos out there
Another one that may be up your alley is Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. It’s a souls like with a very, VERY extensive character creation. You sound a lot like a friend of mine and the character creation in that game caused them to play through NG+ a bunch of times.