2KIt’s hard to be too picky about free games, but there’s no denying that the freebies handed out by the likes of Amazon Prime and the Epic Games Store often fall a little flat. Every once in a while, though, you’re given an indisputable classic that makes you forgive all the skippable offerings you got along the way. That’s the case with one of October’s free games on Amazon Prime, as it’s an all-time great tactics game you need to check out if you’ve somehow missed it for this long.Released in 2016, XCOM 2 is up there with the best turn-based tactics games ever made. Building on the already solid foundations of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 does everything a good sequel should, preserving what made the original great while smoothing out its rough spots and adding smart new features.XCOM 2 starts with grim tidings from the first game — you lost. XCOM: Enemy Unknown follows the player’s attempt to repel an alien invasion, and XCOM 2 takes place 20 years after that battle was lost. Rather than defending your home against aliens, you’re now leading a scrappy insurgency aiming to take the planet back from the invaders.The core of XCOM 2 is its fantastic tactical combat. In the years since its release, it’s become something of a meme that no matter how good your chances look on paper, you always seem to whiff on crucial shots that have a 90% chance of hitting. But rather than relying on dice rolls, combat gives you plenty of ways to even the odds. You start most missions in the shadows, with enemies unaware of your presence until you give them a reason to notice you. That means the strategy starts before a single shot is fired, letting you get into position to try to wipe out as many targets as you can before combat even begins.Choosing where you strike from and which abilities to use are crucial to XCOM 2’s turn-based strategy, but the decisions you make off the battlefield are just as important. In one of the game’s most brilliant moves, it makes each of your expendable soldiers a unique character with their own name and background, plus a suite of configurable skills that make them behave just a bit differently from one another in battle. Thanks to those small touches, they start to feel like real people, rather than just being the demolitions expert or the sniper. That allows you to start weaving stories in your head as your troops grow closer by saving one another from harm or fracture by letting each other down.Each of XCOM 2’s soldiers is a unique character. | 2KThere’s also the campaign layer of XCOM 2 to worry about, as you’re the administrator of your secret base. You need to choose how to allocate resources towards staffing and equipment, then adjust your priorities based on the outcome of your battles, making the non-combat decisions almost as consequential as those made in the heat of battle.There’s a reason XCOM 2 has held onto its reputation as a great turn-based tactics game for nearly a decade. While there have been plenty of subsequent titles that offer equally compelling combat, its multi-layered and unpredictable campaign still stands out. It’s still well worth buying today, let alone picking up for free while you can.XCOM 2 is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.