Guess what!
There is going to be a new X-COM game!
And they’ve taken the hyphen out so it’s just XCOM now!
And it’s going to be developed by the very people we all thought it would!
Except not! At all! Nor will it resemble past X-COMs in any way, shape, or form!
Update: it transpires that XCOM is to be developed by Irrational’s other red-headed stepchild, 2K Australia.
The entire universe announced today that XCOM is currently in development at 2K Marin, a new to the party studio spun off from Irrational Games. You know Irrational – headed by Ken Levine, one of the greatest storytellers and designers in the games universe. Surely you’ve heard of his games. Bioshock. System Shock 2. Freedom Force. Stuff like that.
For years, rumors have swirled that Irrational would be heading up a remake of X-COM, and the masses were happy. Now those rumors have swirled down the Toilet of Bitter Ironies. And the masses are sad.
I have nothing against 2K Marin. Some great people work at that studio – guys like Jordan Thomas, the evil genius who created the Shalebridge Cradle mission for Thief: Deadly Shadows. But 2K Marin was created for one thing, and one thing only: to build the Bioshock franchise, because Levine didn’t want to do a sequel. He’s candidly stated that he understands completely why publisher 2K needed to do a sequel, he just didn’t want to do it. So 2K stole about half his staff, shipped them from Boston to California, and said “Go thee forth and make Bioshock 2.”
Which they did, and while reviews have been hovering in the eights, the general consensus is that Bioshock 2 is nothing more than average. I, for example, have no interest at all in playing it. I’ll grab a copy for $2.99 at Steam’s next Holiday Sale, but whether or not I actually install it is anyone’s guess.
Anyway, it’s 2K Marin, not Irrational, who’s been tapped to develop XCOM. And unlike the turn-based strategy, resource/research/facility management, and devious politics that made X-COM great, this one is going to be a first person shooter.
It may surprise some to learn that there actually was a shooter in the X-Com franchise: third-person shooter X-COM: Enforcer. Absolute catastrophe of a game. Of course, by then the franchise had been so ruined that no one even realized the game existed. I only heard about it through my job with GameTap. Played for ten minutes typed up the infocard. Those ten minutes were more than enough.
Look, I love shooters, especially ones with good stories. And I have to reiterate that I’ve got nothing against 2K Marin. But this news is the equivalent of promising delicious cheesecake with strawberry syrup and whipped cream, but neglecting to mention that the cheese used for the cake is going to be gorgonzola.
The masses are indeed sad. Sad, unhappy, and pissed off. I don’t doubt this game has the potential to be an excellent first person shooter. None at all. But what makes X-Com X-Com is that it is a turn-based squad-level tactical game. That’s what the People love about X-Com.
I don’t want to play a “Civilization” FPS where my character starts with a club and fig leaf and ends up with a jet pack and personal nuke.
This is horrible this new. All this time, all these rumors and it comes down to this. It’s still April, so maybe it’s just April Fools nonsense. NONSENSE.
Tragedy!
Like you, I like shooters. Love them, in fact. But we’re not suffering any lack of shooters. Whereas intelligent, well-designed tactical games are a dying breed.
Yeah I agree with Marquez. X-COM, which I have always spelt XCOM for perhaps lazy reasons, is unique in the turn based genre not least because it has so many layers that all work together to create this deep and multifaceted experience. From leaving one hand empty to reload a clip into your rifle to building your base so there were bottlenecks from the access lift should there be an invasion. All these details mattered.
We can only hope that it will be a turn based, squad based, tactical first person shooter with politics, base building and UFO dog fights wrapped around it. That’s straining my hope to breaking point but it will suffice for now.
I…I think part of me just died inside. I gotta go play UFO Aftershock now…at least it’s blue cheese over the gorgonzola.
I don’t want to play a “Civilization” FPS where my character starts with a club and fig leaf and ends up with a jet pack and personal nuke.
I do. I really do.
People all over the internet are coming up with brilliant ideas like this in dismissive protest against the X-COM shooter and so many of them could actually be great games. Don’t get me wrong – it’ll be a horrible shame if X-COM is reduced to a series of insipid action games. But this could still be a good game even if it’s a completely inappropriate use of the brand. It could even be an interesting game if it creates a weird hybrid of big-budget shooter and tense strategy game. Should it be a replacement for the existence of anything other than first person shooters? Certainly not. But I’d like to play XCOM the strategic shooter, Civ! the club-to-nuke action game and Dance Dance Deus Ex as well as more natural successors. It needn’t be either/or, and if we try to make it so we’ll lose out.
This new XCOM game could be fun if it retained the aspects of UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown but just worked the ground missions out in FPS format, but I doubt that’s what will be done.
Sigh. It seems inevitable that all the games from the current young adult/middle-aged gaming group’s past be dredged up in new, lame fashion.
[…] I haven’t seen much coverage on XCOM since Steerpikes last post on its development, and the revelation that 2K Marin were the developers leading the charge, I thought it would be […]
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