XCOM Message Board older than one year ago

2K Marin creative director Jordan Thomas wasted little time in addressing XCOM's year-long absence after E3 2010. "We're here to pull back the curtain on what we've been up to for a year," Jordan told us during a demo last week. "We've kind of been flying under the radar for a long time, and I wanted to start by talking about why that was."

The studio was comprised of plenty of talent from Irrational who had worked on BioShock (including Thomas) and then developed BioShock 2 at 2K Marin. In other words, BioShock was their comfort zone, Thomas said. "Our first crack at XCOM kind of had a run-and-gun feel. It was very BioShock. It was contiguous first-person, it had a creepier, splicer-like alien enemy, and so on," Thomas said. Over the last year, they've tried to get away from that, making "several key alterations" to the XCOM reimagining we first saw last year.

XCOM was a strategy game, the new XCOM is a first-person shooter, and that incongruity seems to be responsible for much of 2K Marin's second draft. "The main reason for that is that we are strong fans of the original XCOM series," Thomas said. "Basically, XCOM was about being the best of humanity repelling an alien invasion through cleverness and dynamism. Through taking the enemy technology and subverting it, to remove their strategic edge." Lucky for you, the "best of humanity" are on your team.

#impressions The news that 2K's XCOM reboot would handle combat as a first-person shooter sent longtime fans of the PC strategy series on a gamer's tour of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, rage, of course, lasting the longest. A year after it was first shown at E3, and about a year before its release, we might be seeing a game that can sway some of them into acceptance? More »

Leveling up mechanics and story details discussed at E3 2011!

Last year's XCOM wasn't "XCOM-y enough," according to the developers. It had lost its turn-based, gridded action, and became a standard first-person shooter. After enough of an outcry, 2K Marin dug in and changed the formula. They've returned with an XCOM that remains a first-person shooter, but it now has tactical, team-based gameplay that more closely honors its roots...

They came from outer space and you'll send 'em back.

After months of secrecy, XCOM's release date has finally been declassified by publisher 2K Games. The first-person relaunch of the XCOM series will arrive on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on March 9, 2012, according to 2K. The nearly nine month window between now and then does, of course, give plenty of extra time to delay it, should that be necessary. Not that we hope it gets delayed, but it does stand to reason that we won't see BioShock Infinite in the first quarter of 2012 if XCOM sticks to the release date, as 2K Games is unlikely to drop two major shooters so close to each other.

The game's E3 2011 trailer was also loosed, showing off a much more direct example of XCOM's first-person action gameplay. A press release accompanying today's release date news speaks to the game's setting as well, explaining that XCOM will put players into the shoes of Special Agent William Carter who, employing a crack team of veteran XCOM officers, will "strike surgically against the alien menace" in an effort to turn the tide of war against them. It's kind of like Halo, basically, except in 1950's America. And no Master Chief (as far as we know). And the aliens are way more inky, of course.

Okay, it's not that much like Halo. Fine.

Reports of widespread violence, unexplained deaths and geological anomalies are piling up!

#tacticalmaneuver XCOM, The first-person sequel to classic strategy game X-Com, will be released on March 6, 2012, for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, that last platform being newly-confirmed by publisher Take Two. More »

After months of secrecy, XCOM's release date has finally been declassified by publisher 2K Games. The first-person relaunch of the XCOM series will arrive on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on March 6, 2012, according to 2K. The nearly nine month window between now and then does, of course, give plenty of extra time to delay it, should that be necessary. Not that we hope it gets delayed, but it does stand to reason that we won't see BioShock Infinite in the first quarter of 2012 if XCOM sticks to the release date, as 2K Games is unlikely to drop two major shooters so close to each other.

The game's E3 2011 trailer was also loosed, showing off a much more direct example of XCOM's first-person action gameplay. A press release accompanying today's release date news speaks to the game's setting as well, explaining that XCOM will put players into the shoes of Special Agent William Carter who, employing a crack team of veteran XCOM officers, will "strike surgically against the alien menace" in an effort to turn the tide of war against them. It's kind of like Halo, basically, except in 1950's America. And no Master Chief (as far as we know). And the aliens are way more inky, of course.

Okay, it's not that much like Halo. Fine.

I think the last time any of us heard anything really significant about 2K Marin's upcoming first-person reboot of the classic X-COM strategy series, it was last year's E3. Flashes of continued existence have popped up here and there, but with the original, tentative release date and this year's E3 fast approaching, the radio silence from 2K was, ironically, a bit disquieting.

Get ready for some serious singularitying... or... um... yeah, I got nothing.

Fans need wring their hands no longer, as 2K chose to break the silence today with both a new trailer (which you'll find embedded at the bottom of this story), and a solid release date for the title: March 6th, 2012.

The trailer shows off a good bit of the game's style of action, which, as Kotaku'sStephen Totillo interestingly pointed out, 2K went to great pains to avoid referring to directly as "first-person shooting." I mean, the trailer certainly looks chock-full of first-person view points, and scenes where you are at least ostensibly shooting things, but there's something about the way the characters on your team and the enemy soldiers move, the way they're animated, that feels very... dare I say it? Okay, here goes nothing. It feels very strategy game. I'm just sayin'! It looks that way! Don't hold me to anything! I'll deny I ever said it!

I'm not sure if old school X-COM fans will ever be completely happy with something that isn't pure, unfiltered X-COM, but if the trailer below can't get you even a little excited about the prospect of what 2K Marin is up to here, well then, I just don't know what to tell you.

Those aliens sure are awful inky!

WINDSOR, UK - 2K Games announced today that XCOM, the intense sci-fi thriller in development at its 2K Marin studio, will be coming to the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC on March 6, 2012 in North America and Ma...

WINDSOR, UK - 2K Games announced today that XCOM, the intense sci-fi thriller in development at its 2K Marin studio, will be coming to the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC on March 6, 2012 in North America and Ma...

After a year long silence, the enemy unknown is among us again. Below, you can find a brand new and very different to the last trailer for the XCOM reboot, which is created by some of the guys behind Bioshock 1&2, as well as the long-awaited release date. Hooray/uh-oh. Here we go.(more…)

#video The new Xcom game isn't really X-Com at all. There's no turns and certainly no isometric combat. For those upset about this, maybe you should look into, of all things, a Ghost Recon game for the 3DS. More »

Earlier this month, internet snoop supererogatory noticed 2K Australia's studio head Martin Slater resigned, right in the middle of development on the upcoming XCOM reboot. That news was paired with another tweet saying, "FWIW, there's a rumor that XCOM's undergone some big changes since it was announced." Sounds plausible, especially if the studio head of one half of 2K Marin (yeah, it's confusing) is no longer with the company.

"Over the course of a project, development teams do change and evolve from time-to-time," a 2K spokesperson told Joystiq. "While we can confirm that Martin Slater is no longer with the studio, there have been no changes to the way in which XCOM is being developed. The project continues to involve strong collaboration between our California and Australia locations and continues to be led by creative director Jonathan Pelling, a longstanding member of the talented team that worked on BioShock, BioShock 2, Freedom Force and Tribes."

While Slater's departure may not have caused changes in the way, or the process, that XCOM is being developed, that doesn't mean the game itself hasn't undergone changes since we saw it last, at E3 2010. We'll know for sure the next time we get our hands on the title. Probably E3 this year, right 2K?

Take Two has updated its release calendar in coordination with the publication of its Q3 financial report. Most of the entries therein aren't too surprising, including already known release dates and windows for LA Noire, Duke Nukem Forever and BioShock Infinite -- however, XCOM and Spec Ops: The Line, both of which were formerly scheduled for this calendar year, are now listed as "Fiscal Year 2012" releases. That means they should arrive sometime between April 1, 2011 and March 31, 2012 -- Strauss willing and the creek don't rise.

Also, for the second quarter in a row, Max Payne 3 failed to make an appearance on the release calendar. When this happened last December, Take Two was quick to reassure fans that the title was still in development. We have our fingers crossed for a similar assurance in the company's conference call, which is due to start any minute.

Speaking to Gamasutra, 2K Marin's Jonathan Pelling discussed the state of development on the upcoming reboot of XCOM. The game has already raised something of a fuss with longtime fans, as the new game eschews the turn based strategy in favor of first-person shooting. Still, Pelling insists that the new XCOM will retain the "feeling" of the series and that it includes plenty of strategic elements.

We've heard all of this before, of course, but Pelling did reveal the interesting fact that each of 2K Marin's teams -- one in Australia, the other in California -- is focused on a different section of the game. According to Pelling, the California team is "dedicated to leading the design side of the field operations -- the FPS combat and stuff," while the Australian team is focused on the story and campaign. He added that the studio is making sure neither team diverges from the other. Still, Pelling noted that the game has "a very strong concept behind it and so it's really just a matter, at this point, of executing."

#2k I paid a visit to 2K Marin's Canberra offices last week to have a chat with the developers of the upcoming XCOM reboot for the 360 and PC. And there was really only one question I wanted to ask. More »

The internet is so cool, you guys. Check this out: Gamasutra recently did a feature on the XCOM first-person shooter reboot that's currently in development at 2K Marin. Julian Gollop, creator of the original X-Com: UFO Defense just happened to pop into the comments of said article to give his opinion on the current sorry state of the turn-based strategy genre, and revealing he's "now working on a turn-based tactical RPG which will be a 3DS launch title." Thanks, the internet! You're just full of surprises.

According to some investigation from TinyCartridge, Gollop's LinkedIn profile states he's been at Ubisoft Bulgaria/Sofia the past three years -- and Ubisoft has a turn-based strategy game titled Ghost Recon: Lead The Ghosts in the works for Nintendo's three-dimensional handheld. We've contacted Ubisoft to see if this cyclically-titled Clancy jam is indeed Gollop's next opus.

We visit the Aussie studio hard at work on reinventing the classic PC series.

#e3 The reason I love XCOM so much, why I'm so worried about its future has likely more to do with a stolen car and an obscene amount of hoagie sandwiches then it does the Sci-Fi strategy game. More »

Many longtime gamers, including me, were disappointed by the news that the new XCOM is a first-person shooter. Having witnessed a hands-off demo of the game at E3, I can tell you two things. One, it's definitely a first-person shooter. Guns, grenades, sprinting; you know the drill. Two, the game actually has much more in common with the original X-COM games than you may think.

#e3 Whatever stage of grief "acceptance" is, that's where I'm at regarding the new XCOM game. So it's with acceptance that I can appreciate the good things in these new screenshots of the game. More »

E3 2010: XCOM Screens

At last, 2K Games has unleashed the debut trailer for 2K Marin's upcoming FPS relaunch of the XCOM franchise. Though the suburban, 1950s aesthetic smacks familiar of the underwater metropolis of BioShock, the extraterrestrial enemies you'll be tasked with eradicating look like no aliens you've ever had to fight off before. Okay, maybe if you're Spider-Man, you'll find yourself on familiar ground. Everyone else is screwed.

Check out the trailer after the jump, and imagine how unpleasant it must be to have one of these gelatinous, violent blobs force feed themselves to you. That cannot be delicious. Or sanitary.

Tucked away in its E3 lineup announcement, Take-Two shed the tiniest bit of light on the release dates for Spec Ops: The Line and the upcoming XCOM reboot. According to the release, both games are slated for a 2011 release, though it doesn't get any more specific than that. Spec Ops had previously been announced for Take-Two's fiscal 2011, offering the hope of a November 2010 release at the earliest. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

If only there were other games that let you blast aliens and enemy soldiers.

XCOM PC Games Trailer - E3 2010: Debut Trailer More »

Forget little grey men, 2K Marin's XCOM reboot shatters the American Dream with an all-new threat... and it's looking hot.

Find them. Study them. Fight them.