A small gray alien finds itself alone in the smoking remains of a forested battlefield. Everyone else – friend and foe alike – has fallen, yet it still stands victorious, a conquerer of worlds. And then, the unthinkable happens: SNAP. A beartrap closes around its exposed footflesh. It yelps in pain, which draws the attention of one remaining human survivor. The two immediately lock eyes, but this is no staring contest. It’s a staring war. But then, the solider lowers his gun and pulls apart the beartrap’s blood-caked jaws. He proceeds to help his one-time enemy up, at which point we cut immediately to a montage of the two skipping merrily through sunflower fields, pushing each other on a swing set, and making silly faces in a photo booth. “Wow,” declares the president one minute and 47 seconds later, after the montage has ushered in an era of peace. “If we’d just gotten to know our enemy, everything would’ve been so much easier.”

I will imagine this sequence every time humans and aliens team up in XCOM: Enemy Unknown‘s multiplayer. Every single time.

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