New York, NY – June 1, 2015 – 2K and Firaxis Games today announced that XCOM® 2, the sequel to the Game of the Year* award-winning strategy title XCOM®: Enemy Unknown, is currently in development for Windows-based PC. Developed by Firaxis Games, XCOM 2 transports players 20 years into the future, where humanity lost the war against the alien threat that has established a new world order. The secret paramilitary organization known as XCOM is largely forgotten, and must strike back to reclaim control of Earth and free mankind from the aliens’ rule. XCOM 2 is currently scheduled for release in November 2015. The game will also be coming to Mac and Linux via Feral Interactive.
In XCOM 2, the roles have been reversed, and XCOM is now the invading force. They are hampered by limited resources and must constantly evade the alien threat in their new mobile headquarters. Players must use a combination of firepower and stealth-like tactics to help XCOM recruit soldiers and build a resistance network, while attempting to expose the evil alien agenda and save humanity. XCOM 2 will introduce gameplay features such as procedurally-generated levels, which will make each experience unique to the player, as well as offer a much deeper level of modding support. Additionally, XCOM 2 will offer a variety of new content including five updated soldier classes, increased soldier customization, more alien and enemy types, evolved tactical combat and more.
“Firaxis proved they could reimagine a beloved franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a Game of the Year award-winning title,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “With XCOM 2, the team is breathing new life into the series by adding an epic narrative and challenging players to overcome near impossible odds.”
“The feedback from the passionate XCOM community played an important role in the development of XCOM 2, driving us to push the visual, gameplay and replayability boundaries of what a strategy game can be,” said Jake Solomon, creative director of XCOM 2 at Firaxis Games. “We’re thrilled to implement long-time fan requested features such as procedural levels and modding support, as well as adding more of what makesXCOM great like new aliens, enemies and soldier classes.”
For more information about XCOM 2, visit IGN.com, where the game is featured as the IGN First title for the month of June. In the coming weeks,IGN will reveal exclusive details about XCOM 2, including gameplay impressions, in-depth analysis of alien and enemy types, new soldier classes and combat tactics, story-focused insights and more.
XCOM 2 will be available for PC and is currently scheduled for release in November 2015. XCOM 2 is not yet rated by the ESRB. For more information on XCOM 2, please visit www.XCOM.com, become a fan on Facebook, follow the game on Twitter using the hashtag #XCOM2 or subscribe to XCOM on YouTube.
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On one hand I'm happy XCOM is getting a sequel, on the other I'm disappointed all my efforts in the first game were in vain.
Sounds like it still lacks any grand strategic aspects from the original. Narrative is nice and all, but I really miss that whole multiple bases/assault teams bit where it was an actual struggle to stay ahead of the global incursions, instead of that one skyranger to rule them all nonsense we got for EU.
I was all like, well this should be cool, I loved the new XCOM.
Then...
There was a snake man...
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGMOGMOGMOGMOGMGOMGOGMOGMGOMGOMGOMGOGMOGMOGM
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Load officially blown.
never finished the 1st game i think. buggy and they ain't been patching
Might be good. The first one was a ok game. Of course we were all let down the remake wasn't as in depth as the original, but for it's own game it was ok.Xenonauts was the far better "X-Com" reboot. On another note, UFO Extraterrestrials 2 should finally be out this year. It looks to have quite a bit of depth.
Of course, it all anyones opinion, but Xenonauts? Really.
Xenonauts made me gag in horror.
Frankly there are two camps as I see it. Either you are stuck in past worshiping at the altar of TUs, or you have evolved and recognize the major improvement that was the new 2 action system.
Both are valid though
IGN has an article with some more info.
Apparently this is an alternate universe and where XCOM didn't win. Not happy that it is not a straight sequel.
"Solomon painted an alternate version of how the war unfolded: “When the aliens showed up, XCOM suffered massive casualties, and governments around the world crumbled in face of popular support to surrender. Then, the Earth was quickly overrun. And so, 20 years into the future, the world is a very different place. The aliens rule Earth from giant shining megacities where all the people of Earth are flocking; that’s where they’re promised an easy life, a secure life free of disease.“"
Some details on the soldier classes.
"First of all, we have a new team of battle-hardened XCOM soldier classes that are similar to Enemy Unknown’s, but distinct. The Sharpshooter shares a lot of DNA with EU’s Sniper, but can also specialize in using a pistol as a primary weapon instead of a last resort. The Ranger is the evolution of the Assault class, still specializing in close combat with shotguns and the like, but now comes equipped with XCOM’s first lethal melee weapon: a machete-like blade. The Grenadier? He (or she) blows things up, much like the Heavy. The Specialist replaces Support, and uses a hovering drone called a Gremlin both in combat to stun enemies and buff allies, and out of combat to pull off tricks like long-range hacking. There’s also a fifth mystery class that Firaxis is saving for reveal closer to launch."
You can loot. Nice.
"Inventory is set to be much more important this time around, too. “Loot is a thing now,” said Solomon. “One thing for the soldiers is that they have to make do with the things they’re recovering from the battlefield.” This doesn’t extend to the kind of on-battlefield inventory management X-COM: UFO Defense fans remember, but rather a sort of “backpack” into which you can throw loot items recovered from fallen enemies or allies. Once you return them to base, you’ll be able to equip them for the next mission. What that loot is hasn’t been detailed yet, but we can see in the trailer that XCOM soldiers have in some cases literally duct-taped upgrades to their weapons.
Loot will serve an important function on the battlefield, too: in the same way that Enemy Within added the Meld resource to incentivize us to charge our soldiers into danger (instead of slowly advancing your troops at an ultra-conservative pace) by putting an expiration timer on valuable collectables, XCOM 2’s loot will have a countdown. If you don’t reach loot items within a few turns, they’ll explode into less-valuable weapon fragments, which is what happens to gear in Enemy Unknown if you don’t take the aliens alive. So there’ll be increased risk attached to the best rewards, because the Advent soldier or alien who just dropped something shiny might have still-living friends in the area.
If one of your troops is rendered unconscious, wounded, or killed in action, one of their teammates can sling the body over a shoulder and carry them out. When resources are scarce, it’ll be crucial to save their equipment even if you can’t save their lives."
Sectoids have been upgraded with human DNA.
"Case in point: the Sectoids have taken this opportunity to incorporate human DNA into their own, rapidly changing their species from four-foot-tall imps into imposing seven-foot-tall monsters with beady eyes and a brand-new set of unsettling pearly whites. Worse, they’ve enhanced their psionic abilities to include mind control from the get-go, making them extremely dangerous for any one soldier to take on by themselves. Despite their more human-like legs, Sectoids have apparently not yet evolved the ability to wear pants, but still have greyish-pink skin and an otherworldly glow emanating from their internal organs. Though we saw an XCOM Ranger slice through a Sectoid with a melee attack in the trailer, Solomon assured me that a move like that would only be possible in-game if the Sectoid had already been softened up."
The Snakeman is a Snakewoman, and they are called Vipers. Looks more like a cobra to me.
"In addition, the XCOM 2 trailer showed us the snake-like female Vipers (a clear reference to the Snake Men of X-COM: UFO Defense), who have the capability to not just immobilize and slowly crush a soldier with a constriction ability similar to Enemy Within’s Seekers, but can also yank them right out of cover with a frog-like tongue. Beyond that, background images hint at the return of the psionically powerful four-armed Ethereals, and we’re told many other XCOM enemies will be back along with a complement of all-new alien invaders."
No relation between Advent and Exalt.
"Obviously, this kind of creature would render the early game a miserable, punishing experience wherein the typical XCOM rookie would be ground to a pulp if there was more than one or two in play at once. Hence, we have a new form of fodder against whom our lowly recruits can prove themselves and level up: the Advent. So far we’ve seen two ranks of these (probably) human collaborators, whom Solomon clarified have no direct relation to the Exalt forces from Enemy Within. These rank-and-file troopers wear black armor, wield magnetic weaponry, and maintain order in the alien-controlled cities. We’ll have more on the aliens and the Advent later this month in our XCOM 2 Enemy Profiles."
I was okay with the two action system, TU's are more flexible and lead to deeper action variety, but they're just as artificial and deeper variety doesn't equate to better. Tactical depth is accomplished by a variety of tactics, not a variety of actions.
The game has major flaws, both in and out of combat.
The big flaw in combat, and it's a crippling one that makes EU vastly inferior to the original X-Com, is the enemy behavior. In the original, the aliens actually did stuff when you weren't around, they could pop up and smoke your guys at any time. Tactics were extremely important as a result. In the new one, they sit there jerking off, waiting for you to spot them before they "run to cover" and give your perfect accuracy snipers reaction shots on them. As a result of this behavior, the only missions that are interesting are the terror missions where they're wandering around slaughtering civilians.
The scripted nature of the interactions makes the fights absurdly easy by comparison. You can play entire games without losing a man at normal difficulty, that isn't the remotest of possibilities in the original. People are going to die, frequently without accomplishing anything. Often at no fault to you.
The big flaw outside of combat is the utter lack of anything resembling a challenge. There isn't one because the aliens aren't an opponent, they're scenery. You can give them enough bonuses to make combat hard, but they still aren't going to come and smoke your base. It's a scripted campaign, almost entirely devoid of strategic planning. The one thing you really get to do is decide where to stick your satellites first. Your base has a build order to maximize growth, but the only thing you're really doing is going through a series of scripted encounters, working your way to a finish that has little to do with whether you're beating the aliens back. You could actually lose the original, they'd attack your bases.
Just depleted your manpower with a catastrophic terror mission where your grenadier got mind controlled, went mad, and blew up half your men on the ramp before the remainders all died to one bleeding terror drone? Not a problem, you can just fight off this base invasion with the rookies you hired to replace them, it should be easy... That sort of thing doesn't happen in the new one, it can't. The worst that can happen is you lose a couple countries income, and since no one ever dies after a point, your costs are negligible as the game progresses anyway.
Could we not turn this into a OldX-COM vs NewXCOM thread. Thank you.
It's not. It's a question of whether the second one will just be another great audio/visual experience, or a great game.
There are some majorly depressing features in the last game, and it's got nothing to do with being different from the original, they were just bad design decisions those of us hoping for a bit deeper of an experience would like to see changed in the sequel. If they stick with the same shallow AI design for combat, I've got zero interest in buying the game at release, it'll be another once through and shelve it game. It's bad enough on the replay value just being a scripted campaign setup.
UFO Defense wasn't a standard to aim for either, less random OMFG everybody's dead to that one asshole shooting me from outside my view would have been real nice back then. I don't even want to think about how many times I had to reload after being absolutely hosed by something I just couldn't get vision on as it had a rampant string of lucky shots.
Well I am really excited that Firaxis is moving forward with the Xcom franchise. I loved both EU and EW and i look forward to Xcom 2 in the Fall. Between Stardock and Firaxis its a good thing I am not married.
Yeah, that wasn't my intent. Just that the two different combat systems seem to appeal to different people, and it's rare to find someone who actually enjoys both of them.
I know that after playing 2T I went back and played some of whatever form the beta of Xenonauts was in, and just... quit.
Right there on the spot. TUs is so clunky and ridiculous and leads to a very slow grindy kind of play style, I couldn't do it anymore. But that's me, it's not a knock on TUs as a system, it's just that it's a system I do not care for. I also don't care for anything RTS, and I really really despise how GalCiv refuses to move away from open space maps, because the AI simply cannot play competently in that environment (not holding my breath for GC3 either). Everything else beautiful about any of those games (and there are plenty of great things) is ruined for me.
All that matters is that we're getting XCOM2, and that they put in snakemen (or women, how can you tell?).
Sold on snakeman frankly, the rest of the game could be just dress up and MLP Cosplay.
Well going by concept art they have certain endowments.
Though I wonder, are they of the same species as the Thin-Men or humans that have been modified.
I hope this goes multiplat eventually. I'd rather play on the ps4, but as long as they keep the control scheme from Enemy Unknown I'll be happy.
Looks interesting. Agree with many of the comments above about how EU/EW did not have the same 'depth' as their precursors. Mod, long war - reintroduced many of the 'missing' elements. This X-com2, even if not authentic enough for traditionalists, promises a more robust modding toolbox, and that opens up so many options. SO, I'm looking forward to seeing what this X-com 2 offers, even if the back story (aliens rule!) is distasteful to me. Scouts, get out there and get me quality intel on this x-com2 threat ...
On the IGN inerview they mentioned that the 'Vipers' were the thin men without the 'skin suits'. I always thought they were snake critters anyway. Dont they do that gas grenade that makes you sick?
One can only wonder what crazy crap these things are going to do. Ill never forget the crazy mission on the dock with the Crysalids poping out of the ship. Man was that hairy. I had just got Lasers and carapace armor. My medic had the run buff so he got the joy of running to the Captains deck, pulling the switch and making the mad dash back (with) his team to the extraction point. ...
New article up on IGN about the procedurally generated maps.
Damn Rhonin,
You beat me to it!
I like what they are shooting for. I consider this game a 'flagship' game for Firaxis and hope they do a good job.
New article up, it's about why it's PC only.
The Article goes to show some things that I already figured. In between the lines is the fact that PC gaming is anything but dead. In fact its alive and doing rather well. Also in terms of sales, PC is the way to go!
And.....
the real kicker.... If you want your game to succeed in both terms of longevity and replay-ability a company that supports its modding community is a win/win for all. You can't get TONS of mods for consoles like you can with a good PC.
How could you not like Xenonauts? Was it the graphics? It was the graphics, wasn't it?
The graphics didn't help, but ultimately it was the tedium of the TU system and the fact that at whatever point that was that I played on their test release there just wasn't really anything that hooked me. I also hated the air combat. Not to say EU has ANY air combat, but the version in Xenonauts was simply not my cup of tea.
At this point in my life I will not play a game that has a (major) system I don't like.
TUs are one of those systems.
Open movement in space games is really close to such a system (thus, no more GalCiv either).
I hope this ends up being good, but if it doesn't we got the kickerstarter "Terra Invictus" from the Long War team (ie not on kickstarter yet but hopefully soon).
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