NL kept complaining about the difficult spike (and Mathas did as well on twitter, but I don't watch his LP), but I wanna say something about that cause I know they said they're going to discuss it in the next Roundtable podcast: ignoring completely the fact that NL has been playing terribly for quite a while now (which doesn't mean he is a bad player, just that he's been playing like one cause the game became so easy after upgrades and such that he forgot everything he learned about the most basic things in the world, like, you know, using cover), we need to remember that a difficulty spike isn't inherently a bad thing.

In fact, a difficulty spike at the last mission isn't just okay, it's expected! (or should be) And what differentiates a normal spike in difficulty from a bad one is two things: if it fits that point in the game and if the spike is too big.

The difficulty spike in the final mission of XCOM2 is clearly fitting as it's the final mission (and the final mission in XCOM:EU/EW was ridiculously easy and disappointing exactly because of that btw) AND it's nowhere near "too hard", which is clearly evidenced by the fact that NL still beat it in his first try and while playing terribly.

All-in-all, the last mission is awesome, exactly because it's harder, and you feel awesome when you beat it.

And as a side note from that, Mathas complaining that "it's bs cause he didn't know he needed mindshields" for the last mission is total bullshit, cause: a) you totally don't need mindshields (hell, your psi-operative can even remove/make you immune to psionic effects by just being close to your other unit if he has that ability, but I'm sure both him and NL didn't bother reading the ability's description) and b) the game's story is literally about the aliens trying to create perfect psionic bodies for them and it's the last mission, what kind of final boss(es) do you expect to face? And do you think the "big bad final psionic enemy" isn't going to have better psionics than normal? C'mon, I had mindshields for almost my entire squad just to be sure on my first time (and it was total overkill cause the bosses were just regular Avatars, which I had already faced once).