The game will offer more options than on home consoles

Sep 10, 2012 12:29 GMT  ·  By

Jake Solomon, who is the lead designer working on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, has emphasized just how important the PC version of the upcoming strategy game is to the development team at Firaxis.

The developer stated, “The PC version for us is a big deal. With a shooter or an action game you may be able to fall into the dangerous trap of porting the UI, but for us that was never an option.”

Firaxis has gone as far as creating two different User Interface teams for XCOM, one to work on the console ports of the game and another one that had full freedom to create another layout that worked well on the PC.

Solomon talked about another difference between the various versions of the game, adding, “we don’t have a grid in the console version, it’s all free movement. On the PC version it was such a pain in the ass to not have a grid that we went back and added it.”

A lot of gamers were surprised when Firaxis and 2K Games announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown would be launched on home consoles as well as the PC and many feared that the game would be simplified in order to reach a wider audience.

The team working on the game has since then offered information that shows how the PC version will use the unique abilities of the platform, ranging from better graphics abilities to the increased control offered by a keyboard and mouse setup.

We played XCOM: Enemy Unknown during Gamescom 2012 and found a mix of strategy and tactics that offered a lot of depth and tension even during the first missions of the single-player campaign.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be launched on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 9 in the United States and on October 12 in Europe.