First DLC for The Bureau features new character, psychic government testing

2K Games today announced the Hangar 6 R&D downloadable content for The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, the game's first expansion pack, set to arrive October 8 for $5 only on Xbox 360.

The Hangar 6 R&D expansion is set shortly before Agent Carter's adventures in the main game, in the lead-up to the initial alien invasion.

In the content, players will learn that during his period, Agent DaSilva volunteers to participate in a series of psychic experiments at a location known as Hangar 6.

"In this DLC, players will take control of Agent DaSilva, and his squad, as they are treated with an elerium-based compound gas in order to visualize and combat the mental defenses of another agent infected with the 'Sleepwalker' pathogen," 2K Games said.

According to 2K, DaSilva will be an "entirely different" kind of character compared to Carter. However, the studio said it kept the "cool 60s vibe" from the main game intact.

"We did a lot of research on psychic and psychotropic military experiments of the 60s. We watched lots of videos of soldiers giggling in trees," 2K said. "We read up on Remote Viewing (a series of government experiments wherein trained soldiers were supposedly able to know things about a subject using only Extra-Sensory Perception--that is, psychically). We stared really, really hard at goats."

2K said the Hangar 6 R&D expansion will be "even more difficult" than The Bureau, though players will have a number of new abilities to make use of. These include a new series of powers and perks based on the "plant and trigger" abilities, as well as new weapons like the AK-47 and a prototype Microwave Gun that cooks enemies from the inside out.

Though the Hangar 6 R&D expansion is exclusive to Xbox 360, 2K previously announced that new content is also in the works for PlayStation 3 and PC.

The Bureau is set in 1962 America at the end of the Cold War. John F. Kennedy is president and the U.S. public at large is afraid of a nuclear war with Russia. At the same time, the US government is establishing a secret organization to combat this threat. As it turns out, it's not the Russians who invade, it's the aliens