XCom Shooter Delayed Again

[Andy Chalk]

XCom Shooter Delayed Again

2K's XCom shooter might not see the light of day until sometime in 2014.

The whole XCom situation is weird. Fans were disappointed when a promised revival turned out to be a "reimagining [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99964-New-X-Com-Shooter-Coming-From-BioShock-2-Studio]" of the franchise as a shooter, but perked up a bit when that shooter started to look like a pretty cool take on the series. Set in the 1950s, the game will be a sort of prequel to the full-blown alien invasion of the original X-Com: UFO Defense, with a unique visual style that combines the down-home look of the Midwestern United States with pre-Fallout futuristic technology and of course an elite team of J. Edgar's best.

But then a "real" X-Com remake was pushed back [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115063-Firaxis-Reveals-a-Real-X-Com-Remake] to Take-Two's 2013 fiscal year, and now it's been delayed it again, this time to FY2014.

Take-Two isn't saying why the XCom shooter has been pushed back so far; it's possible the company is a little nervous after seeing what happened to EA's attempt [http://www.amazon.com/Syndicate-Xbox-360/dp/B0050SY9WC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337723704&sr=8-1] to remake a much-loved strategy game into a shooter, or maybe it just wants to give Enemy Unknown plenty of room to make its mark. It's also quite possible, and even most likely, that the game just isn't shaping up the way it was expected to.

Whatever the reason, the timing is certainly coincidental: the same day that Take-Two announced a delay in XCom: The Shooter in Desperate Need of a Subtitle, it also slapped a firm launch date [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117372-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-Invading-This-Fall] on XCom: Enemy Unknown.

Source: Polygon [http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/5/22/3037131/2ks-xcom-shooter-delayed-for-another-year]


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[MrBrightside919]

I smell a cancelled game...

After the REAL Xcom was announced, this game was pretty much dead...we didn't see anything, hear anything, etc...

...and I couldn't care less. Enemy Unknown looks SOOOOOO much better than this game ever did. It really just seemed like they were trying to make Xcom into Bioshock, and people didn't like that one bit...

They probably "delayed" the game while they figure out what they want to do with it...

My prediction is that it will be canceled...

 

[gigastar]

Either the brainstorming session turned up/ripped off more good ideas than they had time to implement...

Or developers decided to shift the games style a little closer to its parent brand, and got more time to do so...

Or the executives are starting to crush the game under the bureaucratic mountain because Enemy Unknown is what really has the fans attention...

Hard one to call from the outside at this point, methinks.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I was. It looked interesting.

 

[lancar]

This will not end well for the developers...best to just cancel now.

Is anyone here actually looking forward to this? (honest question)

I'm catiously optimistic about the game not being as bad as i thought, does that count?



captcha: Barking mad
yeah.. tell me about it..

 

[Yal]

Is anyone here actually looking forward to this? (honest question)

I was keeping an open mind. Mass Effect-style shooter bits underneath an X-Com strategic view does sound genuinely interesting.

But I'd play pretty much anything if you gave it an X-Com strategic view. You know what Peggle needs between levels? Tech trees and resource management.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

Well I'll go ahead and say it... Not a single fuck was given that day!

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed it'll be canned!

 

[Neverhoodian]

The whole XCom situation is weird. Fans were disappointed when a promised revival turned out to be a "reimagining [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99964-New-X-Com-Shooter-Coming-From-BioShock-2-Studio]" of the franchise as a shooter, but perked up a bit when that shooter started to look like a pretty cool take on the series.

They did? All the reactions I heard from fans were more along these lines:

Spoiler

In any event, I can't say I'm surprised. Now that there's a "proper" X-COM reboot (to say nothing of Xenonauts), the XCOM shooter seems redundant to say the least. FPS games aren't exactly an endangered genre, after all.

 

[RaNDM G]

There comes a point where one should just kill development, especially if it deviates too far from from the original vision.

 

[Blind Sight]

I'm conflicted.

On the one hand, if the game eventually gets cancelled it will serve as a representation that turning old games into modern FPSs is a generally bad idea that will get you more hate and bad press then anything else (hopefully deterring others from doing the same, HOPEFULLY). Also, the 2kMarin developer's comment about how 'turn base tactics aren't relevant anymore' will be a great gaming irony.

On the other hand, the most viewed video on my youtube channel is me ranting for forty minutes about the E3 Demo. I'm actually planning on buying the game and having a good old recorded ragefest, explaining everything wrong with the game. So if it's cancelled I might miss the chance to have an entire let's play explaining what not to do when making a remake.

On my third, mutated hand, the conspiracy theorist in me can't help but think that the FPS was just a marketing ploy to get fan response going before Firaxis' version came out. And if their version turns out to be terrible, there's the excuse of 'well at least it wasn't the FPS'. But I think this is just paranoia.

 

[lancar]

Still, with the new X-COM, the one that fans are going gaga for and everyone has just left this one in the dust. Fans hated the look of it and non fans turned a blind eye. Maybe it won't be bad (hell it could be brilliant) Still, it doesn't look like this will go very well (could be wrong entirely)

I think there's probably some merit in the notion that, perhaps, they've just grown quite a bit nervous about the whole thing after watching Syndicate crash and burn (as it deserved) right in front of their eyes. The strategy game remake gives them the perfect opportunity to quickly do a 180 switcheroo and go all "yeah, we totally intended for this X-com remake to be the focus all along" and put the shooter on ice until they've built up some more up-to-date brand recognition.

Come to think of it, this might tie in well with the recent information about the remake only allowing 4-man squads, in addition to the already known kill-cam feature. A strategy game with a tighter focus on individual soldiers and "cool killshots" sets the stage for an FPS alot better than the original X-COM ever could.

 

[Worgen]

Since we are getting a real xcom remake, I cant really get myself annoyed by this game anymore.

 

[lancar]

X-COM isn't exactly a world-wide known game, I suppose the key is to build interest so fans will be a little more welcoming of a spin-off. When Fallout 3 was announced, F1+2 fans cried a lot, but hey F3 was a brilliant game and is more popular than the first two which led to the successful launch of F:NV! Never a fan of X-COM myself.

Of course. All is forgiven if the game you're making turns out to be really good.
I remember reading bethesdas dev blog for Fallout3. They said that they were all deathly afraid that they'd screw up, due to the massive amounts of expectations hanging over them, and that they all let out a collective sigh of relief when it was clear the game was a hit.

Fallout wasn't really a strategy game to start with, though, and it was always about one main character. This translated rather well into the first person perspective, something that X-COM cannot easily do due to it being about an organisation and not a single person.

Still, fortune favors the bold, as they say, and should the X-COM shooter come out and prove to be a really good game, I think the franchise would be better off for it.
I for one sure won't have any problems with it now that I'm getting the actual strategy game I wanted Anything on top of that is just icing on the cake (if it turns out to be good, that is. otherwise its just... err... bad icing.. or something)

 

[Callate]

It did look interesting in the extended demo they released a while ago, but the turn-based X-Com (done by no less than Firaxis, possibly the best makers of turn-based games today) was the game everyone was actually waiting for. It's true that Syndicate may have made them re-think the "we'll re-use the title, borrow a few trappings from the setting, and completely change the genre" approach; it's also quite possible that they realized that with Enemy Unknown on the horizon, they were risking losing most of the X-Com audience who wouldn't be happy with the genre shift and trying to sell an excessively strategy-minded shooter to a crowd that wasn't impressed by the brand.

Six months or so after the turn-based game releases might be the best window, if Firaxis' effort does well; they can bank off the appreciation of the turn-based effort and garner any new fans who'd appreciate examining the setting from a different perspective.

 

[octafish]

I bet they are re-tooling it into a F2P MMO.