XCOM 2: War of the Chosen – How To Unlock The Templars Faction

The Templars are the weirdest faction in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. Heavily reliant on psionic abilities, and armed with killer glowing psychic blades, they’re all about rushing directly into melee range. Thankfully, they’ve got a whole bunch of other weird powers to make life easier — they can swap places with enemies, teleport, or build up Focus to unleash a deadly area-of-effect psychic blast.

They’re all the last faction you’ll earn — if you’re playing the vanilla tutorial campaign version of XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. This faction has to be found before they’ll give you a powerful Hero Unit. See how to do it — what you need to accomplish (and build) for the Templars to reveal their secrets.

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How To Unlock The Templars Faction

The Templars one of three Resistance Faction in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re playing through the standard tutorials, it’s the last faction you’ll unlock, and there’s only one way to make that happen. You’ll need to complete all the Resistance Faction tutorials before getting your very own Templar Faction Hero.

The Templars are a melee-based, psionic faction with special Momentum powers. Essentially, the Templar Faction Hero starts every mission underpowered, and gradually becomes more powerful as they earn kills. Each kill gives the Templar one charge of Focus, and the more charges the Templar gets, the more damage their melee attacks do. Their defense also increases, and Focus can be expended on powerful abilities.

To unlock the Templar faction and gain your own Templar Faction Hero, you’ll need to complete the following:

1. Complete the Reaper / Skirmisher Faction Hero mission. This is only if you’re doing the Tutorial — skip the tutorial, and all factions are acquired the same way.
2. Construct the Resistance Ring in the Avenger.
3. Open Covert Actions and select Locate Faction under the Templar tab.
4. Send two soldiers — staff an Engineer to decrease Covert Action duration -33%.
5. Wait until the Cover Action is complete.

Voila! One of your soldier may be wounded in the Covert Action, but when it completes you’ll earn a Templar Hero Unit, and the ability to complete more Templar Covert Actions for special rewards. You’ll also get the hidden location of the Templar faction HQ — make contact with the region to make use of the facility.