History VideoGame / TheBureauXComDeclassified

* FrickinLaserBeams: As in other XCOM games, it's the middle tier of weaponry. Unlike them, though, the aliens start off with it instead of plasma.

* MiniMecha: The Sectopods.

* LastSecondEndingChoice: Depending on who you chose for the final mission.
** [[spoiler: Doctor Weir links up to the Mosaic Core and orders the aliens to surrender. The Zudjari help rebuild the damage they caused and hide any trace of their existence. Earth isn't willing to let them stay, so XCOM returns their mothership to them so they can search for a new home. The Sleepwalkers are cured, and have no memory of what happened during their infection.]]
** [[spoiler: Agent Weaver links up to the Mosaic Core and orders the aliens to kill each other. All their installations are destroyed, as is the mothership. The Sleepwalkers are {{Mercy Kill}}ed.]]
** [[spoiler: Director Faulke links up to the Mosaic Core and orders the aliens to surrender. The surviving Zudjari are all executed after they help hide their presence. Their installations and the mothership are destroyed to maintain secrecy. The Sleepwalkers are left in medical care to die from natural causes.]]
** MiniMecha: Sectopods are the toughest individual enemies in the game (although the Elite Mutons can probably tie with them). You fight one as early as the 2nd mission, and later in the game you'll often have to deal with 2 at once.

* ActionGirl: Agent Angela Weaver. The only female field agent seen in the main storyline.

* BadassGrandpa / BadassBookworm: Doctor Weir has a head full of grey hair, mentions he fought in [=WW2=], and still handles himself well in combat.

* CallForward[=/=]DramaticIrony: Dr. Weir remarks that he thinks the [[spoiler: captured Ethereal is one of a kind, and isn't the precursor to another invasion. If he's the one Asaru chooses to merge with, they will also describe the Ethereals as "good" aliens who want to avoid enslavement.]]

* CrutchCharacter[=/=]ATasteOfPower: Agents Nils and Kinney in the first mission. They're both Level 5 (the max for an agent) and have a full set of abilities.

* InfantImmortality: Subverted with Kevin, a young boy who featured prominently in some trailers [[spoiler:who ends up being killed in an alien attack. He's later revealed to have been the son of one of the Bureau's agents, who after completing his report on the attack begins to write a resignation letter as [[DespairEventHorizon he's convinced there's nothing left to fight for.]]]]

** MiniMecha: Sectopods are the toughest individual enemies in the game (although the Elite Mutons can probably tie with them). You fight one as early as the 2nd mission, and later in the game you'll often have to deal with 2 at once.
* MultipleEndings: Depending on who you chose for the final mission.

* BadassGrandpa / BadassBookworm: Doctor Weir has a head full of grey hair, mentions he fought in WW2, and still handles himself well in combat.

* AllThereInTheManual[=/=]AuthorsSavingThrow: The ''Hangar 6 R&D'' mini-campaign explains why sleeper agents stop showing up after the first mission (Nico and Dr. Dresner managed to shut down that particular functionality of Mosaic, leaving all infected humans as harmless Sleepwalkers).

* BadassGrandpa: Doctor Weir has a head full of grey hair, mentions he fought in WW2, and still handles himself well in combat.

** TheGoomba: Sectoids are basically the Grunts from ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''(Carter even uses the term 'grunts' to refer to them in the opening mission), SlaveMooks who are individually weak and poorly equipped, but are deployed in numbers to support more high-value units.

** TheGoomba: Sectoids are basically the Grunts from ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', SlaveMooks who are individually weak and poorly equipped, but are deployed in numbers to support more high-value units.

** Another recording details surgery that sounds quite painful.

* OmnidisciplinariScientist: Averted. The game does a fairly good job in showing that the Bureau has collected scientific experts from various different fields. There's even one NPC who it turns out was brought in for his personal interest in parapsychology and cryptozoology.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: The "The Aftermath" trailer provides this to some scenes of the previous live-action trailers. [[spoiler: It confirms Agent Dennis Cole's death, for one.]] It also provides some more clarity to the first live-action teaser, which appears to happen later.

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Subverted with William Carter; he was ALWAYS a Heel, being all along a paranoid anti-communist 1960's racist bigot with anti-social, self destructive tendencies due to personal trauma and the societal trends of the time, and the bonding with the Ethereal Asaru was the only thing keeping him stable in the first place.]]

* TheConscience: [[spoiler: Asaru, the benevolent Etherial, essentially served as this for his host William Carter, curving the man's self destructive tendencies and racist paranoia, even though it's implied Asaru didn't even know that he and Carter were different people at first until TheReveal, essentially being born from Carter in a sense.]]

* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: One of the few games to present [[spoiler: the notion that the ThirdPersonShooter perspective is due to an outside force controlling the player-character]].

** At the end of the game, the player ends the invasion and obliterates the Outsider Empire. Fast-forward several decades, and the resulting power vacuum has allowed a new batch of aliens to prepare an even more devastating invasion of the planet.

* NotSoDifferent: Director Faulke offhandedly mentions his interest in using Mosaic to control humanity in a similar way to how Origin used it to control his people, only "more responsibly". Carter is understandably unsettled.

* XMeetsY:
** ''Franchise/MassEffect'' meets ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' with a dash of ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' thrown in for good measure.
** Alternatively, it's been described as ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' given the ''Series/MadMen'' treatment.
** The creators did state they want to have an ''Series/TheXFiles'' feel to it.

* AlternateContinuity: With the original ''VideoGame/{{X-COM}}'' series.

* LostForever: Minor operations and dispatch missions, should you choose to take the Major operation without completing them first. The same goes for side quests in the XCOM HQ.

* [[NeverTrustATitle Never Trust a Tagline]]: Most of the "truth erasing" happens off-screen, your job is mostly just blasting aliens in the face.

* LaResistance: The original purpose of The Bureau was to serve as an organized resistance if the Soviets managed to successfully invade the US.

* ''Codebreakers'': Originally a PreOrderBonus, it was released on October 15, 2013. A side-mission where Agent Carter is sent out to investigate why a key communications facility responsible for intercepting and interpreting the enemy’s transmissions has gone dark.
* ''Light Plasma Pistol'': Originally a PreOrderBonus, it was released on October 15, 2013. It adds the titular Light Plasma Pistol to the game.

'''''The Bureau: XCOM Declassified''''' is a tactical ThirdPersonShooter prequel to the 2012 ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' by [[Creator/TakeTwoInteractive 2K Games]], for PC, UsefulNotes/XBox360, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation3. It was released on August 20, 2013.

** Nico does ''not'' have these particular animation tics in the ''Hangar 6 R&D'' DLC campaign, suggesting it's more a case of [[spoiler: the tics being particular to Asaru]] rather than the animators [[TheyJustDidntCare simply not caring]].

''The Bureau: XCOM Declassified'' is a tactical ThirdPersonShooter prequel to the 2012 ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' by [[Creator/TakeTwoInteractive 2K Games]], for PC, UsefulNotes/XBox360, and UsefulNotes/PlayStation3. It was released on August 20, 2013.