14 DAY TRIAL // The team working on The Bureau: XCOM Declassified says that the title was announced much too early for its own good and that the 2K Marin studio had to create the game while dealing with the pressure coming from the fan community.
As part of a Ask Me Anything session hosted by Reddit, Eric Caponi, a lead narrative designer, states that, “you guys got to see behind the curtain a bit and see some of that sausage being made. The game (and full disclosure, that version of it was before my time here), was announced too early, before the process had really been seen through to the best and most credible version of the game.”
The game was first shown to the public in 2010 and it seems that at the time, the core features of the game were not set in stone and the team needed to explain why it was making a number of changes.
Nik Karlsson, a senior product manager, adds, “Once we knew The Bureau was a very challenging, very tactical, very calculated third-person shooter we went to work telling the world about it” and that, “this game is no longer a FPS, and it’s no longer a detective game, it’s a tactical third-person shooter that’s reflective of the core XCOM tenants.”
Development on The Bureau was also overshadowed by the launch of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the turn-based strategy game from Firaxis that was wildly successful and increased expectations from the fan base.
The Bureau takes place in the ‘60s and gamers will get to see the aliens’ first incursion against Earth.
Players will use a third-person view to command a squad of operatives and will battle earlier versions of most of the units seen in the strategy game.
2K Marin has already said that The Bureau is canon for the story of the XCOM universe.
Launch is set for tomorrow in the United States and Friday in Europe on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.