XCOM: Chimera Squad guide: Missions, Field Teams, Unrest, and Anarchy

In XCOM: Chimera Squad, you’ll need to complete several missions until you reach the conclusion of your faction investigation. Along the way, you’ll also need to manage each district’s Unrest and the city-wide Anarchy using Field Teams. That’s a lot to take in, so here’s our guide to help you out.

Note: For more information, check out our XCOM: Chimera Squad guides and features hub.

XCOM: Chimera Squad – Missions guide

While you’re conducting your faction investigation in XCOM: Chimera Squad, you’ll run into various mission types. Here are the ones you’ll need to undertake:

Situations – These are colored blue and aren’t actually missions your squad will deploy in. Instead, you’ll simply get the associated reward and advance the game clock by a day:

Side missions – These optional, gold-colored missions are ones that your squad can partake in and they have some nice rewards too:

Main story missions – These are purple-colored missions that’ll require several days to pass before they’re made available:

Critical missions – These are also story missions, but they have a bright red notification to signify that they need to be tackled immediately on that day:

Special mechanics during missions

Likewise, you’ll encounter a few important mechanics during missions:

Elimination – The mission is very straightforward since you simply need to eliminate all hostiles and extract your squad:

VIP extraction – You’ll have to protect the VIP (seen below). It’s an NPC that can only move around and “Hunker Down.” If the NPC is killed, you’ll fail the mission:

Scavenger/Collection – There are crates found during encounters and you’ll need to obtain an important item therein. Reinforcements will start spawning and you can take them out or extract your squad immediately:

Bomb Squad/Data Uplink – Hostiles are attempting to either activate a bomb or upload classified data. They’ll do this once they’ve stepped on the red tiles and you’ll need to kill them quickly:

Epic Weapon Recovery -Halfway through XCOM: Chimera Squad‘s campaign, some side missions may state that epic weapons are up for grabs. One of the encounters therein takes you to a large room where you’ll find a mob who has the weapon. Defeat the target, pick up the weapon, and clear the area to finish the mission:

Takedown – As mentioned in our factions guide, this is the finale of your investigation. You’ll have a couple of encounters before heading to a location where you’ll fight lots of mobs and the faction’s leader. Here’s the Takedown mission against Violet, the leader of The Progeny:

Managing unrest and anarchy: Field teams

Since XCOM: Chimera Squad is a strategy game, here’s where the overall strategy applies. It’s how you manage Unrest and Anarchy while choosing from all the missions that are available.

Remember that for every mission that you can’t complete for that day, that district’s Unrest will increase. If a district reaches 5/5 Unrest (maximum), each subsequent day will increase city-wide Anarchy. Think of this as similar to XCOM 2‘s Avatar Project — once it reaches 14 points, it’s game over because City 31 will descend into chaos and your organization will get chased out.

Note: After eliminating factions, you’ll start getting +2-3 Unrest for missions that you ignore.

As such, your goal is to assemble Field Teams in each district to help quell Unrest and Anarchy. These come in three types and they require intel to be created or upgraded:

• Finance – earning credits/money; the resource is used to buy items from the Supply panel or your HQ’s regular vendor.
• Security – earning intel; the resource is used to create/upgrade Field Teams or buy items from the Scavenger Market in your HQ.
• Technology – earning elerium; the resource is used to complete upgrades in the Assembly panel in your HQ.

The resources are all earned every Friday, but each Field Team also has additional quirks (seen below):

Of the three, I found Security teams to provide the most benefit. This is because of the uses for the intel resource. Likewise, a 2-point decrease to that district’s Unrest each Friday is very helpful. Next up are Technology teams. Because the main story missions while investigating a faction take several days to complete, this helps cut down on the waiting time. Lastly, the Finance teams weren’t that helpful during my XCOM: Chimera Squad playthrough. You could say the rewards were very “situational” indeed.

Note: You can check out our intel sources mini-guide if you need help obtaining the resource.If you want to know the best squadmate picks while doing missions, you can refer to our character skills guide.

Field Team abilities and upgrades

Field Teams can be upgraded to a maximum of level 3, however, they don’t provide additional resource bonuses. Instead, they’ll unlock Field Team abilities on City 31’s virtual map and even a few upgrades for your Spec Ops projects. Here are the Field Team abilities you can use:

• Vigilance – Reduce targeted district’s unrest; effect increased depending on the assigned team’s level. This requires you to have one Field Team assembled, and is the first one that becomes available in XCOM: Chimera Squad.
• Quarantine – Freeze district unrest; requires four or more teams. This is particularly useful if you want to stop a district’s Unrest from hitting 5 points and cause Anarchy.
• Dragnet – Gain extra situation rewards; requires one or more teams at rank 3. This instantly completes a situation mission without progressing the day; you can even complete another mission while you’re at it.
• Major Crimes Task Force – Reduce City 31’s Anarchy; requires a team in every district. If you play your cards right, you won’t need to use this ability that often.

Speaking of Spec Ops projects, there’s one that lowers Unrest and it’s called “Humanitarian Aid” (seem below). Meanwhile, “Recruitment Drive” nets you a free Field Team that can be assigned.

XCOM: Chimera Squad is available on Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.