New Details Offered on Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown

A lot of long term fans were positively surprised when publisher Take Two and developer Firaxis announced that they were working on a strategy reimagining of the classic XCOM concept that would bear the name Enemy Unknown.

Now more details about the game experience have been offered and the tidbits of information seem to point to a game experience that is very close to that offered by the first game in the much loved franchise.

The tactical battles, which are the meat and potatoes of the game, will see some changes, mainly linked to how actions are distributed.

There are no more Time Units in the game but each character controlled by the player can be given one move and one action order during each turn, with some situations allowing for a double move to be used.

Gamers will also be able to call on suppressive fire in order to keep enemies pinned down while he moves around the tactical map and the destructible terrain will also open up a number of new tactical options.

All the missions will be procedurally generated, keeping players on their toes and making sure that the challenge is always fresh.

Already confirmed units include the Mutons, Sectoids and Cyberdiscs.

Firaxis also confirmed that the toughest difficulty level in the remade UFO: Enemy Unknown has been called Classic Mode.

Regardless of difficulty choice players will have to deal with the fact that all dead soldiers remain so, regardless of characteristics, and that their equipment, especially if high value or taken from the aliens, might be destroyed when they die.

There are also suggestions that PC players will get a special User Interface that will allow them to get more information out of the game and see more of the tactical battles.

Players who crave their XCOM fix will first be able to pick up the shooter based on the universe, which is set to arrive on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 during March.

The strategy game is being developed by Firaxis for an autumn launch on the same range of devices.