14 DAY TRIAL // Rumors towards the mid point of February suggested that there were significant changes made to the XCOM project that is being developed at the studio 2K Marin, after the leader of the team announced that he was resigning.
But the publisher says that, while Martin Slater left, development work is going on as planned and the company is confident that the resulting video game will be well received by gamers.
Speaking to Joystiq a representative from 2K Games said, “Over the course of a project, development teams do change and evolve from time-to-time.”
He added, “While we can confirm that Martin Slater is no longer with the studio, there have been no changes to the way in which XCOM is being developed. The project continues to involve strong collaboration between our California and Australia locations and continues to be led by creative director Jonathan Pelling, a longstanding member of the talented team that worked on BioShock, BioShock 2, Freedom Force and Tribes.”
The X-COM concept is a very generous one, allowing gamers to combine very tacticized battles against aliens with management efforts aimed at offering soldiers the best equipment and chance to take out the invaders.
When the new 2K Games XCOM was unveiled, a lot of fans of the older games expressed concerns at the fact that the experience was recast as a shooter that seemed to lack any management elements or any tactical side.
The developers said that those elements of the game were still present and that they would be demoed later.
The resignation of the leader of the development team could mean that the entire concept was being reevaluated and that the game might be closer to the original.
At the moment, 2K Games says that the new XCOM will be launched on the PC and on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft at some point during 2012.