Earlier this week, 2K Games and developer Firaxis further teased XCOM: Enemy Within, the first expansion for the popular turn-based strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The contend features new enemies, new weapons, and, above all, new upgrades for soldiers. The upgrades include genetically engineered bioweapon powers and full cybernetic mech suits.
Today, Firaxis has provided a full gameplay video for the new content. Enemy Within’s lead designer, Ananda Gupta, narrates the gameplay video seen below. The video begins by showing off the mech trooper, which can wreck aliens with brute force and a mini gun. The genetic powers are then revealed, including superhero-like athletic feats and psychic firewalls. Of course, enemies have gotten upgrades as well, and the video ends with a pending mech-on-mech battle.
XCOM: Enemy Within is scheduled for a November 12 release in North America, for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 consoles.
With the launch of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified now a quickly-fading memory, 2K has turned its attention back to the main XCOM strategy game franchise. The publisher and developer Firaxis recently revealed the first full expansion for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, titled XCOM: Enemy Within.
Enemy Within will feature all-new weapons, enemies, and soldier upgrades. Those soldier upgrades are where the real gameplay twists will come in. Players can now upgrade soldiers using two different upgrade paths: genetic engineering or cybernetic augmentation. The genetic path upgrades soldiers with bioweapon capabilities, giving them powers through enhanced limbs, eyes, skin, and brains. The cybernetic path upgrades soldiers using a new “Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit” (MEC). That’s right. Enemy Within will have mechs.
A new trailer for the content was released this week. It shows off both of the new upgrade paths, as well as the new extraterrestrial enemies that make these upgrades necessary:
2K Games released The Bureau: XCOM Declassified this week, to mediocre reviews. Now that the publisher has finished promoting that strange amalgamation of strategy and third-person shooting, it has now turned its attention to the game that revitalized the XCOM brand last year.
XCOM: Enemy Within was officially announced this week at Gamescom. The title is an expansion to last year’s hit XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It will feature new weapons, soldier upgrades, and enemies. 2K and XCOM developer Firaxis claim that seeing all the new content will require “three to four” playthroughs. Enemy Within launches on November 12 (November 15 in Europe) for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.
“The incredible critical and consumer response to XCOM: Enemy Unknown inspired us to offer new content that would deepen the strong bond that has been created for our XCOM brand,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Firaxis Games is renowned for delivering massive, highly immersive PC expansions in the Civilization series, and XCOM: Enemy Within builds on that lineage and expands the experience for console gamers as well.”
A new resource, called “Meld,” is collected from aliens on the battlefield to unlock the new content in-game. New upgrades include mech suits and genetically-engineered powers for soldiers.
As incredible as it sounds, the full experience of 2k’s and Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown has now hit mobile platforms. The game is available today through Apple’s App Store for iPad and iPhone.
XCOM was released last year for consoles and PC. It received nearly universal acclaim, and ended up topping many best-of-2012 lists. Though the graphics and controls have been modified for mobile devices, the entire game is there for $20 – half as much as it costs on Steam. The game can be played on iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 5 devices, as well as the latest version of the iPod touch.
Last year, Firaxis Games and 2K Games reinvigorated the turn-based strategy genre with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The polished, tactical gameplay won over critics and even gamers not familiar with strategy games in general. It ended up near or at the top of many best-of-the-year lists for 2012 video games.
Almost three months ago, Firaxis promised to bring the XCOM experience to mobile platforms. As far-fetched as it sounded, the developer promised to bring the full XCOM: Enemy Unknown game to Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices. Now, Firaxis is only days away from releasing the game on iOS.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown will hit the iTunes App Store on June 20th. It will be priced at $20/€18/£14 – expensive for an iOS game, but half as much as the game sells for on PC.
The game has been optimized to use a touchscreen interface and uses Apple’s iCloud to sync game saves across different devices. Multiplayer mode will not be included in the game at launch, though Firaxis has promised to patch in in later as a free update. The game will function on iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, and iPad mini devices, as well as the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and latest iPod touch.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown should, in theory, work better than for some other games ported to mobile (Grand Theft Auto III comes to mind), as the PC version of XCOM could be played entirely with just a mouse. As XCOM designer Jake Solomon demonstrates in the video below, all the functionality of the PC and console versions seems to have made it into the mobile version:
XCOM: Enemy Unknown may not be the most highly anticipated game launch of the 2012 holiday season, but it is one of the more interesting and original titles coming this fall. The game allows players to take on the role of XCOM commander, managing resources and technology research back at base, while also directly commanding soldiers on the tactical, turn-based sci-fi battlefields.
Today, 2K Games and Firaxis Games announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is now available for preorder at all major gaming retailers. It is offering pre-orderers some exclusive DLC called the Elite Soldier Pack, which consists of aesthetic customizations for players’ soldiers and an X-COM: UFO Defense-inspired soldier. The game has a scheduled release date of October 9 in the U.S.
Also, as a bonus, 2K Games today released a gameplay demonstration that was shown in secret at E3 and PAX. The trailer shows off combat in the game and demonstrates some of the tactics and weapons players will be using against the unknown alien threat:
Civilization V was one of the best games of the year when it was released in 2010. There was some noticeable omissions, however, that kept the game from being the best it could be.
Now it’s 2012 and 2K has announced the first expansion pack for the title – “Gods and Kings.” It is currently slated for a late Spring 2012 release.
The expansion will bring the usual added tech, units, buildings, wonders and playable Civilizations. How many new things are being added? The expansion is adding 27 new units, 13 new buildings, 9 new wonders and 9 new playable civilizations. Some of those include the Netherlands, the Celts (yay!) and the Mayans.
Now onto the big changes – they are adding in religion back in a resource. Players will be able to create their own religion and grow it from simple roots to a world-controlling empire. If that doesn’t excite you, you obviously don’t play Civilization.
One thing that Civ V did mess up was its combat system. It could be easily exploited either way. They are going to fix that with an AI that places more emphasis on balanced army composition. They are also adding melee naval units which is really going to throw a lot of players off, including yours truly.
I never used diplomacy much in my Civ V games as I tend to just launch full out tactical nukes on my enemies while they’re still in the Industrial Revolution. To perhaps sway bloodthirsty Civ players like myself, they are making diplomacy far more interesting now. How are they going to do that? They’re adding back in espionage aka spies. The expansion will allow players to establish embassies in rival civilizations and spy on them to collect intelligence.
They will also be adding new city-states to complement the new religion feature. They are removing the exploit where players could just pay off city-states to be their friend. Players will now have to help out the city-states in their petty squabbles of wanting to kill each other.
Finally, they are adding three new scenarios with one of them already sounding amazing. The three new scenarios are the Fall of Rome, the medieval era and a Victorian sci-fi setting.
We have no idea how much the expansion is going to cost yet, but I’d wager it about $20 to $30 for all of the content listed above. It’s more than worth it since the improvements and additions are already making me want to get back to playing Civ V this weekend.
