After XCOM developer Firaxis announced a new board game, a reader holds out a sliver of hope that a new video game could still happen.
I had no idea it was the 30th anniversary of developer Firaxis this month. Most people probably known them as the makers of Civilization but to me they’re the people that brought back XCOM. The original games were my favourite on the Amiga and I never imagined they’d be rebooted for modern consoles, but that’s exactly what happened with XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Xbox 360 in 2012.
For a little time there Take-Two was making a real effort to turn XCOM into a big franchise, with a more action-y spin-off called The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (I bet you forgot about that one – it wasn’t very good). We got expansions and XCOM 2 and they were all fantastic and then… nothing.
I’m not actually sure whether they didn’t sell well or whether Firaxis just wanted to do something else but either way their next game was Marvel’s Midnight Suns and that was such a huge flop that most of the top people that worked on it, and XCOM, left the developer and made the chance of XCOM 3 extremely unlikely. That can’t stop me from dreaming about it anyway though.
For those that don’t know, XCOM is a turn-based strategy game where you’re put in charge of a home base, where you research new tech and organise your troops, who then go out and fight in battles. It can get very complicated, but the basics are actually very simple, since all you have to do is move and shoot, although ideally while keeping in cover.
The first modern XCOM was pretty much a straight remake of the original Amiga game but XCOM 2 and its expansion did change things up quite a bit, with a lot more variety in terms of the enemies and the technology that made it seem like the options were almost infinite, since there was so much to see and do.
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That doesn’t mean that a new game wouldn’t be able to add some important new features though. The XCOM games were always a bit buggy and while the destruction effects are already impressive I’d like to see it work like the old XCOM Apocalypse, where you could level whole buildings if you wanted.
There’s also always improvements to be made in terms of AI, which not only would do illogical things at times but seemed to cheat quite a bit in order to give the illusion of being clever. It didn’t spoil the games but having the AI being able to play like a human would make a big difference.
It would also be good if you could have much bigger aliens and vehicles in a battle and crowds of people. And if you could expand the interceptor aircraft aspect. I understand they did that in Xenonauts 2 but it doesn’t seem like it was done that well.
XCOM is such an open-ended idea you could do literally anything with it. You could have an underwater sequel, like Terror From The Deep, or set it in space where you’re trying to colonise planets, or set it back in time like The Bureau tried to do. You can bring in all sorts of new aliens, maybe lots of different races that can be allies or not and you have to be diplomatic with them.
I’m sure a proper game designer could add even more ideas, but the problem is I don’t know who’d make the game now that Firaxis has lost all the top designers. Maybe they could be tempted back but I don’t know that Take-Two would want to go to that much money and effort. Although, looking at things positively, they will have unlocked the infinite money glitch of GTA 6 soon and they did at least announce a new board game for the 30th.
Of course, someone else could make a new game and just call it something else but, unfortunately, an XCOM clone isn’t the obvious thing to be making right now. Although apparently Star Wars Zero Company is quite like XCOM, so I’ll be watching that with interest. At this point I’ll take anything.
By reader Trepsils
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