New downloadable content for The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, which will launch exclusively on Xbox 360 next week, will introduce players to a new piece of the XCOM storyline, publisher 2K announced today in a blog post.
Hangar 6 R&D, which will launch on Oct. 8 for $4.99, takes place shortly before the main events of The Bureau involving Agent Carter. Players will control Agent DaSilva, and his squad mate Ennis Cole, who has volunteered to undergo a series of "psychic experiments" and treatments with an elerium-based gas at the The Bureau's mysterious Hangar 6 location. This gas, according to the blog post, will cause Agent DaSilva to "visualize and combat the mental defenses" of an agent infected with the pathogen "Sleepwalker."
The difficulty level for Hangar 6 R&D will be higher than The Bureau main game. Players will have access to a new set of powers and perks built around DaSilva's "plant and trigger" bomb abilities from The Bureau level "Signal from Beyond." There is also a new AK-47 and prototype Microwave Gun for players to utilize and some of Agent Carter's abilities are also available in DaSilva's upgrade patch.
Harley White-Wiedow, lead designer on the DLC, writes that the team at 2K Marin conducted research on psychic and psychotropic military experiments during the 1960s, and "watched lots of videos of soldiers giggling in trees" and "stared really, really hard at goats."
"The development team at 2K Marin wanted to explore what it was like to be part of The Bureau before and during the initial invasion, and so this DLC is set before Agent Carter's recruitment into the organization," writes White-Wiedow. "Because of that, we needed a new protagonist, someone who was around before the invasion that the player could relate to, and our thoughts immediately went to Nico DaSilva. What was he doing during the invasion? Why does he talk about having lost so many friends? We wanted to explore these questions, and we wanted to up-rez his mustache."
