Major Changes Rumored for XCom Shooter

[Andy Chalk]

Major Changes Rumored for XCom Shooter

2K's XCom shooter may end up third-person, squad-based and low-priced.

It's easy to forget amidst all the hoopla surrounding the looming launch of the XCom remake that the "new" XCom was originally announced, well over two years ago, as a shooter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99964-New-X-Com-Shooter-Coming-From-BioShock-2-Studio]. It's floundered rather badly since then; in January it was delayed until sometime in Take-Two's 2013 fiscal year and then in May it was pushed back again to FY2014. And now the reasons for such a lengthy delay may be coming clear, as it appears that the game may be undergoing a rather radical transformation.

Based on what is reportedly a recent marketing survey, the game is being overhauled as a third-person shooter, with the player in charge of a squad of agents in a fashion similar to Republic Commando or SOCOM. The PC version appears to be out of the picture and so does retail, as the survey suggests that the game may get a digital-only release at the $30 price point.

It's entirely unconfirmed and 2K has refused to comment on the situation, but it wouldn't be an unprecedented move, as Ubisoft did the same thing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115458-I-Am-Alive-is-Alive] last year with I Am Alive. It would also be unfortunate. XCom fans weren't thrilled with the idea of their beloved franchise being turned into a shooter but the concept was fun (and is a lot easier to swallow now that we have a "real" XCom remake in the offing) and the aesthetic was great. But nothing says "quickie cash-out" like focus-group neutering.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5947737/the-other-xcom-game-might-now-be-a-third+person-shooter]


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[Mark D. Stroyer]

Or rather, it's changing again.

Maybe now slightly less exactly-like-Mass-Effect?

 

[Jorec]

Please! This game was almost as ugly as the fan reaction >(
<youtube=wt39TNCpRTg>

He is never going to live that moment down. Even the X-Com Enemy Unknown devs are honoring him with a "Betrayal" achievement/trophy.

 

[CJ1145]

Please! This game was almost as ugly as the fan reaction >(
SPOONY BEING SPOONY

He is never going to live that moment down. Even the X-Com Enemy Unknown devs are honoring him with a "Betrayal" achievement/trophy.

I'll be honest. If I were him, I wouldn't WANT to live it down. That was hilarious!

But seriously, fun concept or not, this needed to happen. Little by little, hopefully incidents like these will teach game companies that gamers won't buy some half-baked cash-in title with the name of a popular franchise slapped on.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Might as well sack it and save the money, drastic direction changes always end in a blood bath.

 

[Ignatz_Zwakh]

I read the headline and thought "You mean like...they might actually make an X-COM game?!?!?"
Rather than the shooter they've been toting about, that is.

 

[scotth266]

XCom fans weren't thrilled with the idea of their beloved franchise being turned into a shooter but the concept was fun (and is a lot easier to swallow now that we have a "real" XCom remake in the offing) and the aesthetic was great. But nothing says "quickie cash-out" like focus-group neutering.

I call bullcrap on that statement.

If the rumors were true, and the game HAS been reworked into a Socom-style title, odds are it was precisely BECAUSE of all the bitching people made about the original game being a "betrayal" because it was an FPS and not their beloved strategy game (even though they got that too, people STILL don't want to let it go: see the number of times people post that betrayal soundbite whenever the game comes up in discussion).

The developer probably looked at all that fanboy whinging and went "fuck, well now we can't sell this even if the game is perfect", and desperately tried to rework it into a strategy-shooter to try and appease the XCOM fans while retaining some of the spirit of the original.

They might as well not have bothered: people were determined to see this studio burn to the ground for "desecrating" their franchise, and even if this game winds up being incredible and was a good XCOM game in its own right, nothing will save it from the rabid hordes of people who were "betrayed" by a developer trying to do their own take on an otherwise dead franchise.

And people ***** about stagnation in the games industry. Way I see it, it's their own damn fault.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I call bullcrap on that statement.

I'm unclear as to how you're disagreeing with me. I'm saying that the concept was a good one and what little we'd seen of the game so far looked promising; you seem unhappy that changes are apparently being made because of negative (and irrational) fan reaction. Are they not two sides of the same coin?

 

[Burst6]

XCom fans weren't thrilled with the idea of their beloved franchise being turned into a shooter but the concept was fun (and is a lot easier to swallow now that we have a "real" XCom remake in the offing) and the aesthetic was great. But nothing says "quickie cash-out" like focus-group neutering.

I call bullcrap on that statement.

If the rumors were true, and the game HAS been reworked into a Socom-style title, odds are it was precisely BECAUSE of all the bitching people made about the original game being a "betrayal" because it was an FPS and not their beloved strategy game (even though they got that too, people STILL don't want to let it go: see the number of times people post that betrayal soundbite whenever the game comes up in discussion).

The developer probably looked at all that fanboy whinging and went "fuck, well now we can't sell this even if the game is perfect", and desperately tried to rework it into a strategy-shooter to try and appease the XCOM fans while retaining some of the spirit of the original.

They might as well not have bothered: people were determined to see this studio burn to the ground for "desecrating" their franchise, and even if this game winds up being incredible and was a good XCOM game in its own right, nothing will save it from the rabid hordes of people who were "betrayed" by a developer trying to do their own take on an otherwise dead franchise.

And people ***** about stagnation in the games industry. Way I see it, it's their own damn fault.

Transforming an old series with a solid foundation in strategy into a generic first person shooter isn't stagnation?

Developers have drastically retooled old games into new genres a few times already. Of course people will ***** because you're taking a series that you like and transferring it over to a genre that they might not like. The fact that 2K caved in just makes me thing that they didn't have any confidence in their product and the game was nothing but a derivative cash in with nothing amazing to set it apart from the other 50 trillion generic FPS games out there.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I would like to see something like XCOM combined with the kind of thing Full Spectrum Warrior had going, if it had to be strategic (we've already got a strategy based 'true' XCOM remake now, two if you count Xenonauts); I actually quite liked a few of the ideas they had going with the FPS (based on a video I watched like, last year), but then again I don't really have any ties to the original beyond coming to it recently.

If there's any deadline involved, this is pretty much screwed, which is a shame, but I'm sure many 'true' XCOM fans will be crowing over its demise.

The fact that 2K caved in just makes me thing that they didn't have any confidence in their product and the game was nothing but a derivative cash in with nothing amazing to set it apart from the other 50 trillion generic FPS games out there.

Such is the problem with the AAA market: confident or not it's a massive risk either way.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I did like the aesthetic of the game, and it seemed like it could've brought some fairly cool things into this stagnated genre.

But...

This could've gone a lot better if they called it something else in the first place. As silly as that might seem to you, I'm convinced that's the way it is. None of this BETRAYAL and outcry and naysayers would've happened if they came up with a new IP altogether instead of slapping XCOM on it for no reason.

You call it XCOM, even though it has nothing to do with XCOM, and you piss off every living fan in the process.
People who don't know what XCOM is, see it and think "cool" or for the most part; still don't a shit about this game.
Then comes the legit XCOM: Enemy Unknown 'remake', universally pissed XCOM fans now have a new legitimate remake to be happy/pissed about.
No one left to give a shit about this XCOM.

^All that mess, because it carried the XCOM name.

I wonder if this is true. It could very well be since I've heard absolutely nothing about this game in who knows how long (A year? Maybe more?) And that's unfortunate, because for gameplay alone, it could've been interesting to play. It could've had a big AAA release crowd waiting for it. And it could've been successful, and possibly spawn sequels. But nope. Now it might not even be released at all. Because they needed to call it XCOM. I am pretty disappointed, because it could've been worth the play.

 

[hino77]

Where`s the innovation in making a strategy game into an fps? Becouse i dont see any innovation there.
That X-com fps didn`t look all that interesting to me,just another shooter with a little bioshock mixed in.Publisher`s, or whoever is pulling the "strings" should remake things with a little bit more respect to the source material, and we would have a lot more good remakes.

BTW. am i the only one that thinks its kind of funny, and that thinks its kind of sad, that we live in times where remaking something in a way that resembles the oryginal is more of a creative risk? Publishers seem to like developers throwing ip`s into the shooter-grinder.

 

[Candidus]

but it wouldn't be an unprecedented move, as Ubisoft did the same thing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115458-I-Am-Alive-is-Alive] last year with I Am Alive. It would also be unfortunate.

Nope. Glad to see this POS turning into vaporware.

Edit: Look at that damned screenshot. X-com FPS/TPS in the 1950's?! It looks like Mass Effect meets fricking Ghost Busters. What an abomination.

 

[Nimzabaat]

XCom fans weren't thrilled with the idea of their beloved franchise being turned into a shooter but the concept was fun (and is a lot easier to swallow now that we have a "real" XCom remake in the offing) and the aesthetic was great. But nothing says "quickie cash-out" like focus-group neutering.

I call bullcrap on that statement.

If the rumors were true, and the game HAS been reworked into a Socom-style title, odds are it was precisely BECAUSE of all the bitching people made about the original game being a "betrayal" because it was an FPS and not their beloved strategy game (even though they got that too, people STILL don't want to let it go: see the number of times people post that betrayal soundbite whenever the game comes up in discussion).

The developer probably looked at all that fanboy whinging and went "fuck, well now we can't sell this even if the game is perfect", and desperately tried to rework it into a strategy-shooter to try and appease the XCOM fans while retaining some of the spirit of the original.

They might as well not have bothered: people were determined to see this studio burn to the ground for "desecrating" their franchise, and even if this game winds up being incredible and was a good XCOM game in its own right, nothing will save it from the rabid hordes of people who were "betrayed" by a developer trying to do their own take on an otherwise dead franchise.

And people ***** about stagnation in the games industry. Way I see it, it's their own damn fault.

So obviously you haven't seen any of the released footage. This game would have done fine if it was called Men in Black. Seriously it was 70s era MIBs fighting off an alien invasion. There were no interceptions or alien spacecraft that would have tied it to XCOM. No research, no familiar enemy types. The only thing it had in common with XCOM is that it was called XCOM. Oh and there's aliens, kind of.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

XCom fans weren't thrilled with the idea of their beloved franchise being turned into a shooter but the concept was fun (and is a lot easier to swallow now that we have a "real" XCom remake in the offing) and the aesthetic was great. But nothing says "quickie cash-out" like focus-group neutering.

I call bullcrap on that statement.

If the rumors were true, and the game HAS been reworked into a Socom-style title, odds are it was precisely BECAUSE of all the bitching people made about the original game being a "betrayal" because it was an FPS and not their beloved strategy game (even though they got that too, people STILL don't want to let it go: see the number of times people post that betrayal soundbite whenever the game comes up in discussion).

The developer probably looked at all that fanboy whinging and went "fuck, well now we can't sell this even if the game is perfect", and desperately tried to rework it into a strategy-shooter to try and appease the XCOM fans while retaining some of the spirit of the original.

They might as well not have bothered: people were determined to see this studio burn to the ground for "desecrating" their franchise, and even if this game winds up being incredible and was a good XCOM game in its own right, nothing will save it from the rabid hordes of people who were "betrayed" by a developer trying to do their own take on an otherwise dead franchise.

And people ***** about stagnation in the games industry. Way I see it, it's their own damn fault.

General consensus is that the game as it was would have been fine.

People objected to the naming of it due to 'Xcom' being shoved on it as a pathetic attempt to generate interest in fans of the previous series instead of creating what could have been an interesting new name and IP.

 

[Cowabungaa]

It's easy to forget amidst all the hoopla surrounding the looming launch of the XCom remake that the "new" XCom was originally announced, well over two years ago, as a shooter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99964-New-X-Com-Shooter-Coming-From-BioShock-2-Studio].

It's funny how at first it was actually the other way around. I remember discovering an interview about the remake around the time a lot of new gameplay information and footage was released about the shooter. The whole forum was dead silent about it so I just posted it being all "Umm...you guys...you're sorting forgetting about this."

How the tables have turned. And rightfully so, I think. There's so many shooters out there that I welcome the tactical, turn-based action of the remake. I'd still give it a chance, because I heard at least some decent news about weapons research and all that jazz, but I'd be way less inclined to spend my rare euros on another shooter than something different.

 

[psicat]

Well hell! I was actually looking forward to the XCom FPS. Now not only do they push forward the damn strategy one first, they change the only one that looked unique.

 

[Master_Fubar23]

I didn't like the idea at first but it grew on me. It wasn't the X-Com I knew but I was really interested in the story since they said it was a precursor to the original.