Watch: XCOM 2 War of the Chosen: Inside Look at The Templar

Learn all about The Templars – a new faction coming to XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.

Firaxis have been extremely busy releasing video updates on the new features coming to their upcoming XCOM 2 expansion, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. The Templars are one of the three new (possibly) friendly factions which can join up with The Commander in their fight against both Advent, and the new Chosen champions which will join the game with the update.

The Chosen are psionic berserkers who have far exceeded the advancements of the XCOM projet, gaining the ability to form psionic blades, as well as project deadly psionic powers across the map – the drawback? They must charge these abilities through combat and conflict – the longer they wait the more powerful the attack, but if left overwhelmed then their overall effectiveness is undermined. Their attacks, as shown in the trailer below, can cause lightning chain effects, or localized surges. These all combine to make a perfect flanking unit, quickly dispatching enemies who are separated from one another before deploying devastating attacks on small groups of enemies.

The faction is one of three potential allies coming to the game in the upcoming expansion, although thus far it appears you’ll be made to chose between which you’ll be recruiting – The Reapers are deadly stealth Marksmen, and The Skirmishers are high-damage mid-range assault troopers.

You can find out all about the three new factions, the three special, chosen enemies, and the new enemy factions ‘The Lost’ in our E3 XCOM roundup. Firaxis have previously released a first look at one of The Chosen, The Assassin, which you can view here.

War of the Chosen is the first major overhaul expansion for XCOM 2, with previous releases including missions, new enemies, new weapons, or new tech. The expansion still requires XCOM 2 in order to run, in the least because the additional War of the Chosen content runs parallel to the story of the main game.

War of the Chosen releases on August 29th for PC, Xbox One & PS4.