At E3 2010, 2K announced a reboot of the cult classic strategy series X-Com. Titled simply XCom, dropping the hyphen, the game is being developed by in-house studio 2K Marin, who was responsible for Bioshock 2. Much to many people’s dismay, it seems to look like some kind of shooter, far from its roots as a hardcore strategy title. However, GameInformer announced last week that a new XCom game, one with the same title (except for the rebranded franchise title) as the original, XCom: Enemy Unknown, will be their February cover story. The game will be developed by Firaxis, the company behind the acclaimed Civilization series and the classic Alpha Centauri. There are certainly few developers with as much experience in the genre as Sid Meier and his team.
There hasn’t been much detail on the game yet, as is typical for GI cover stories, but we do have a few screenshots, along with a little bit of information. More will be released on GameInformer as the month goes by, but for the full story you’d have to get the February copy. For now, though, here’s a few tidbits to tide you over.
The game isn’t a direct remake of the first game, but rather a “reimagining”. Many of the mechanics of the first game will be trimmed, changed, or outright removed, but the core concepts are supposedly still intact. The game’s combat is still isometric and turn-based, and it has a real-time global screen where you manage the world situation during the alien invasion. As far as timeframe, the game takes place significantly later than 2K Marin’s title. That game takes place during the initial alien incursion, and this one during the full-blown alien invasion. The game looks pretty good too – check out those screenshots!
Source: GameInformer
