Welcome Back Commander: XCOM 2 Invades Your PC In November

[Amaror]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Well, yes but those only include physical sales. While steam doesn't release Sale numbers steamspy tells us that 2.6 million people own the game on steam http://steamspy.com/app/200510 .
And that is twice as much as the physical 360 and ps3 sales combined.
That being said there's also this tweet which suggests that it might not have anything to do with sales numbers.
https://twitter.com/FXS_MisterKevin/status/605462267476340736

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Well, yes but those only include physical sales. While steam doesn't release Sale numbers steamspy tells us that 2.6 million people own the game on steam http://steamspy.com/app/200510 .
And that is twice as much as the physical 360 and ps3 sales combined.
That being said there's also this tweet which suggests that it might not have anything to do with sales numbers.
https://twitter.com/FXS_MisterKevin/status/605462267476340736

I decided not to include Steam digital sales figures because I couldn't find sales data for Xbox Live and Playstation Network digital sales, which will have contributed to their respective consoles as well.

 

[Tomeran]

Looking forward to this one for sure, sounds awesome.

Regarding the plot:

Has there been any official announcements regarding the plot that Xcom actually lost the "campaign battle" and that the "game over" ending is canon? I'¨ve only heard unsubstantiated rumours on this.

What I have heard from 2K themselves is that "Humanity lost the war" which could mean anything in an XCOM: Enemy unknown-context. It could mean the campaign which most of us played out(succesful win ending) actually took place but that it was premature that this would mean a victory in the war. Instead it could've ended up as a "won the battle but not the war"-scenario in which the aliens later returned in strength, overran and pacify the planet in what is dubbed the "unification" and then established the Advent administration which uses genetic engineering to prolong and improve human life, in order to keep the humans pacified. Which obviously is a ruse for some sort of sinister intent.

This twist on it seems rather more likely imo rather then: "Nothing you did in Xcom: Enemy unknown mattered or even happened!"-approach. Would be a lot more friendly to players that cared about the outcome of the first game rather then erase it like it didnt happen.

 

[DrOswald]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

VGChartz numbers are horribly inaccurate for digital sales because they rely on numbers released by retail platforms. Digital distributors don't typically release their sales numbers and we know for sure steam does not. This means digital sales are almost never taken into account. Those numbers probably represent how many physical copies were sold, which accounts for nearly all the console sales but likely very few of the steam sales, which is where the vast majority of the sales took place.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Pro tip here, VGChartz numbers are inaccurate at best, laughably wrong at worst. They "estimate" sales numbers, via some sort of algorithm that takes into account console numbers, pre-orders, brands and shit like that, instead of showing actual data, which most of the time leads to them overshooting or lowballing sales numbers significantly. Closest you're going to get to actual sales figures is NPD numbers or the content of stockholder meetings being shared with the public. (Barring of course the company themselves gloating about units sold publicly.)

Cheers for the heads up. To be fair I have no idea how they gather their data, they appeared as the top hit for sales figures searches and were linked as sources in various IGN and Gamefaqs articles so I figured they should've been fairly reliable.

I decided not to include Steam digital sales figures because I couldn't find sales data for Xbox Live and Playstation Network digital sales, which will have contributed to their respective consoles as well.

Which is asinine, since the vast majority of PC gaming is digital, as opposed to consoles, where digital is somewhere around 25% circa November 2014. Leaving it out skews figures disproportinately among platforms.

Yeah, but you can't compare apples with oranges (as the saying goes). You can't compare digital and physical sales for one medium and only physical copies for another medium. I would have been more than happy to gives full sales figures including digital if I could have gotten hold of the XBL and PSN figures, but I couldn't and so was only able to show the figures for one medium.

 

[DrOswald]

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Pro tip here, VGChartz numbers are inaccurate at best, laughably wrong at worst. They "estimate" sales numbers, via some sort of algorithm that takes into account console numbers, pre-orders, brands and shit like that, instead of showing actual data, which most of the time leads to them overshooting or lowballing sales numbers significantly. Closest you're going to get to actual sales figures is NPD numbers or the content of stockholder meetings being shared with the public. (Barring of course the company themselves gloating about units sold publicly.)

Cheers for the heads up. To be fair I have no idea how they gather their data, they appeared as the top hit for sales figures searches and were linked as sources in various IGN and Gamefaqs articles so I figured they should've been fairly reliable.

I decided not to include Steam digital sales figures because I couldn't find sales data for Xbox Live and Playstation Network digital sales, which will have contributed to their respective consoles as well.

Which is asinine, since the vast majority of PC gaming is digital, as opposed to consoles, where digital is somewhere around 25% circa November 2014. Leaving it out skews figures disproportinately among platforms.

Yeah, but you can't compare apples with oranges (as the saying goes). You can't compare digital and physical sales for one medium and only physical copies for another medium. I would have been more than happy to gives full sales figures including digital if I could have gotten hold of the XBL and PSN figures, but I couldn't and so was only able to show the figures for one medium.

The problem with that is that showing only physical sales is grossly unrepresentative of the actual sales numbers. For a ton of reasons. For example, Xcom didn't release digitally on the Xbox for over a year after the initial release of the game, and when it did launch it was more expensive than buying a used copy. The price still has not dropped below $40 for either the PS or Xbox live stores. And, as it has been pointed out, digital distribution accounts for a small portion of console sales even under ideal conditions (it was certainly less than 25% in 2013.) Where as on the PC digital sales are king. So leaving out digital sales leads to incorrect conclusions - like that the consoles together sold almost double the PC. In reality, the PC outsold any other platform by at least 4 times, probably 5. Firaxis probably made 5 times the money on the PC port than it did on either console, and that isn't even taking into account Enemy Within, which we know had a much higher conversion rate on the PC. It is absolutely clear why they are concentrating on the PC market this time around.

 

[Redvenge]

I'm a little surprised by people's reactions to the "Xcom lost" aspect of this (personally, I blame the lack of hyphens, but I guess we'll see). The Alliance of Free Stars lost...

Too soon, man. Too soon. Those poor, poor Shofixti...

So... Earth lost. Everyone forgot about X-COM. So... we're doomed? The old X-COM project needed the funding of nations to operate. It needed equipment and troops purchased from civilian companies and recruiting services. I imagine that the story/plot is going to be extremely weak.

That gameplay, though. Looking forward to that.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

>much snippage<

The problem with that is that showing only physical sales is grossly unrepresentative of the actual sales numbers. For a ton of reasons. For example, Xcom didn't release digitally on the Xbox for over a year after the initial release of the game, and when it did launch it was more expensive than buying a used copy. The price still has not dropped below $40 for either the PS or Xbox live stores. And, as it has been pointed out, digital distribution accounts for a small portion of console sales even under ideal conditions (it was certainly less than 25% in 2013.) Where as on the PC digital sales are king. So leaving out digital sales leads to incorrect conclusions - like that the consoles together sold almost double the PC. In reality, the PC outsold any other platform by at least 4 times, probably 5. Firaxis probably made 5 times the money on the PC port than it did on either console, and that isn't even taking into account Enemy Within, which we know had a much higher conversion rate on the PC. It is absolutely clear why they are concentrating on the PC market this time around.

Alright, point conceded on the digital distribution issue. I had assumed (incorrectly) that digital to physical sales would come in at roughly 2-1 across all platforms (based on my own experience with my friends and their buying habits) and so wasn't expecting to have to explain away such a large discrepancy.

As for the money issue, I'm still not convinced. Accepting your point that PC sold 5 times as many copies that doesn't translate to 5 times as much money once you factor in the increased price of the console version.

 

[Piorn]

So I take it they're taking the HL2 guide to story telling, i.e. the Aliens are dead, long live the Aliens, we're a surveillance dystopia now.
But really, sci-fi plots are like real numbers, they're all the same, it just depends on how far you round them.

Loved the trailer, can't wait to get the game.

 

[elvor0]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Oh that's surprising, looks like my guess was waaaaay off. I didnt think it would be that popular on consoles. But yeah, in that case, what the hell Firaxis? Hopefully they'll bring it out on the consoles at a later date, it would be a shame for people to miss out on it.

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Perhaps (hopefully?) new mechanisms and gameplay complexity additions make it impossible to control with four buttons and a thumb stick.

It's a turn based game. There /are/ no complexities that couldn't be solved with a menu or context sensitive buttons.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Oh that's surprising, looks like my guess was waaaaay off. I didnt think it would be that popular on consoles. But yeah, in that case, what the hell Firaxis? Hopefully they'll bring it out on the consoles at a later date, it would be a shame for people to miss out on it.

Well please bear in mind that those figures are physical sales only, so when you factor in Steam those ratios change somewhat.

I agree with you, however. Hopefully we'll have a next-gen console port in the near future, it'd be a shame for Firaxis to build up a console fanbase with the first game and then ignore them with the second. [sub]Although that's exactly what Robot Entertainment did with Orcs Must Die.[/sub] [sub][sub]And yes, I'm still bitter about that.[/sub][/sub]

 

[elvor0]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Oh that's surprising, looks like my guess was waaaaay off. I didnt think it would be that popular on consoles. But yeah, in that case, what the hell Firaxis? Hopefully they'll bring it out on the consoles at a later date, it would be a shame for people to miss out on it.

Well please bear in mind that those figures are physical sales only, so when you factor in Steam those ratios change somewhat.

I agree with you, however. Hopefully we'll have a next-gen console port in the near future, it'd be a shame for Firaxis to build up a console fanbase with the first game and then ignore them with the second. [sub]Although that's exactly what Robot Entertainment did with Orcs Must Die.[/sub] [sub][sub]And yes, I'm still bitter about that.[/sub][/sub]

Oh quite, I imagine if you could factor in the Steam sales figures the pc figure would be at least double, but still, surprising.

 

[DrOswald]

Hey, what's with shunning the console crowd from this game? I loved EU and EW. Don't make me come out of my filthy peasant hut to shout angrily at the pidgeons due to your betrayal.

The PS4 and Xbone are already showing their age. It is unlikely that they would be able to run the games, not without a massive hit in graphics and/or reduced gameplay.

EW was hardly pushing the boundries of hardware, it needed 2ghz dual core, 2GB ram and a Nvidia 8800. I hardly see XCOM 2 being a massive step up. Don't be daft, XCOM 2 isn't going to be too much for the consoles to handle. I'm guessing it just didn't sell too well on the consoles rather than it being a hardware issue.

According to VGChartz, units sold to date by platform were 640k on PC, 600k on 360 and 510k on PS3, so console sales aren't too far off double that of PC sales. Disappointing - I was really looking forward to an XCOM sequel.

Oh that's surprising, looks like my guess was waaaaay off. I didnt think it would be that popular on consoles. But yeah, in that case, what the hell Firaxis? Hopefully they'll bring it out on the consoles at a later date, it would be a shame for people to miss out on it.

Well please bear in mind that those figures are physical sales only, so when you factor in Steam those ratios change somewhat.

I agree with you, however. Hopefully we'll have a next-gen console port in the near future, it'd be a shame for Firaxis to build up a console fanbase with the first game and then ignore them with the second. [sub]Although that's exactly what Robot Entertainment did with Orcs Must Die.[/sub] [sub][sub]And yes, I'm still bitter about that.[/sub][/sub]

Oh quite, I imagine if you could factor in the Steam sales figures the pc figure would be at least double, but still, surprising.

Actually, the figure it closer to 3x. Plus the conversion rate to Enemy Within was much higher on PC.

In any case, there is a good chance it will get a port. It will likely use the same engine (unreal) and with consoles being x86 these days a port is relatively easy. My bet is that they are concentrating on getting a good PC title out of the door with all the bells and whistles (official mod support!) because that is where the money is and then get the UI team on a console port after the successful release of the PC version.

 

[zumbledum]

i am tumescent finnaly i have a game to look forward to this year , there have been some nice surprises for sure but its good to have one to jones after to

just loved the look and feel of that trailer really hope they deliver

Just one question: How did we LOSE the war in the first game when we basically wiped out the entire leadership and main-base of operation and the only mayor outpost the aliens had? I suspect there is another, unseen conflict in that 20-year-gap we didn't see (after all, the Ethereal did hint at 'another group' when you finished the game - so I currently suspect those are the guys we lost to in those 20 years)

well obviously i dont know but i would assume that we didnt win the last game its taking the path from one o the millions of lost games not one of the few won games

 

[Arshaq13]

I feel horrible for Khadija 'Ummi' Al-Nasser, the badass sniper from Iraq who was there since the first battle and never gave up or lost hope and kept her own team under control, single-handedly sniping everything in her sight.

Her life deserved a victory, it saddens me to say her battles didn't make a difference.

 

[loa]

Oh my god, finally.

I didn't like how limited the options in enemy unknown were.
Enemy within did a decent job giving more paths to choose from and a more varied endgame but that wasn't quite enough for some true diversity since it all boiled down to a bunch of binary "take this useful thing or this shitty thing" decisions.

The best part of enemy within was the ability roulette which randomized a soldiers abilities so some perks you would just never pick in vanilla because the other option is just so much more elemental to a class become actual options that form interesting, unique soldiers.

I hope they've learned from that and incorporate variety in some way and if it's only a "skilltree" that offers more than "option A" and "option B" and does the revolutionary thing of adding "option C" so that not all your supports and snipers are pretty much the same.
Also more, diverse research paths for weaponry and armor please.
It is "normal guns, laser, then plasma" in every single game ever and your only choices are skipping laser and whether you research armor or weapons first.

Some different types of weapons that do different things would be neat like electro weapons that have a higher range falloff and less damage but can be used to capture aliens from afar and ignore damage reduction or shields or something or chemical weapons that are highly effective against biological enemies but ineffective against machines etc so you have completely different paths that may not converge at the end to pick from.
In a game that stands and falls with its replayability, those things are pretty much essential.

Also this being made for the PC first and foremost is promising already since it won't be bogged down due to being designed with controllers in mind.

 

[onard]

I really want to like the new X-coms because I just love turn-based strategy games.

But back in my day playing X-com...
-You could deploy 12 soldiers at game start instead of 6 tops end-game.
-You could move after shooting.
-Heck, you could move-shoot-move!
-Anyone could equip any weapon and you had more weapon and item variety.
-You could have multiple bases and multiple transports.
-You could actually fly instead of glorified jumps.
-Etc, Etc. And we liked it!

Alas this new generation wants everything easy peasy and streamlined, so I can't blame the producers for simplifying stuff.

Anyway, this new X-com looks quite promising. The aliens not being that evil gives plenty of new possibilities, like already mentioned you'll probably have to be careful with minimizing civilian casualities and colateral damage or public opinion will turn against you. Also already mentioned, you could have the chance to regain the favor of countries so they start supporting you with additional funds and other useful stuff.

If the gameplay still turns to be less than half of the original X-com, I guess I'll just watch a Let's Play of the whole thing like I did with X-com EU. Pretty graphics are pretty.

Also delicious PS4 and Xbone owner tears.

 

[IceStar100]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I love xcom but no console. PC master race have pity on the peasants we are sorry we didn't worship you properly. I promise to double up on virgin sacrifice. Please do not deny us xcom.

Joking aside I'll wait tell a ps4 version comes out. if my lap top will run it I will get it here but I don't think it will.