If you’ve played an XCOM game in the past, then you know the chryssalid, the most frightening-looking alien the games depict. In

How will we be able to put these abilities to use in multiplayer?

It's pretty straightforward. We're pretty excited about giving the players the tools for everything they encounter in the game. Then you can make your dream team. They will have costs based on the units that you choose, and then you'll have some chances with soldiers who select different abilities and items at different costs. Things like the chryssalid, you'll be able to include that in your loadout, and then use burrow, and if you kill somebody with a chryssalid poison, you can then choose to multiply. You'll have more chryssalids. That sort of stuff is intact.

I'm curious, in a multiplayer scenario, about that burrow and how that ends up being used against other soldiers. What is it like to play as the chryssalid and use that particular ability? What are the kinds of surprises you would spring upon an enemy in that case?

You kind of think about it like the seeker, how if you go invisible with the seeker using Ghost Armor, it's just thematically now you're going underground, and you can't move while you're invisible. You want to set it up as an anticipatory tactic where you see your opponent potentially move towards, and then you'll get a free attack on them if they move within this radius. That's a way to use it. You can unburrow anytime you want, but it's a nice way to ambush the player with the enemy with that specific skill.

Come back to GameSpot tomorrow (5am PT, July 29 2015) for the next in our series of XCOM 2 exclusives, an interview with series creative director Jake Solomon.