XCOM News

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News

XCOM2's Avenger mobile base revealed

Soldier Customization

August 7th, 2015

• Firaxis has released new footage of the upcoming XCOM2 game, with a focus on the Avenger, the mobile base used by XCOM to fight the ADVENT forces. Highlights include a tour through the base facilities and XCOM's Chief Engineer and Scientist, as well as a display of the soldier customization and the strategic layer.

OpenTFTD Beta Released

OpenTFTD

August 4th, 2015

• The developers of OpenXcom have released the first Nightly (a.k.a. beta version) of OpenTFTD, an open source reimplementation of XCOM: Terror From The Deep. OpenTFTD comes included with the engine of regular OpenXcom and requires a copy of the original TFTD game to play.

XCOM 2 Gameplay Video Released

June 16th, 2015

• Firaxis has released the first video of XCOM 2 gameplay during the E3 2015 conference. The footage features a tactical mission where XCOM troops have to blow up an Advent target and it shows several enemies, including the Advent units of Soldier, Captain, Turret and MEC, as well as the Viper and the evolved Muton Berserker. The video also shows the new concealment/ambush mechanic, as well as a Gremlin hacking a turret and the Skyranger retrieval. It is also possible to see Officer Bradford ordering XCOM troops into action and a glimpse of the world under the alien occupation.

XCOM2 confirmed!

June 1st, 2015

• 2K and Firaxis have confirmed today on the XCOM official website [[1]] the upcoming sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. XCOM2 takes place 20 years after the events of the remake, where the aliens have taken over Earth and the remains of XCOM are waging a guerrilla war against the extraterrestrials. The game will feature new soldier classes, the return of the Snakemen along with other new aliens, procedure generated (random) maps, and will be exclusive to the PC with specific features for mod development. More features will be revealed soon on IGN [2].

May 29th, 2015

• Two clues at the Advent website have a series of letters that when combined produce "VIGILO CONFIDO", or the motto of Enemy Unknown 2012. It seems that a new XCOM game is under development and more details should be announced later.

May 27th, 2015

• 2K has released yesterday a link to a site that presents an alternate reality company called Advent Administration. Its contents have triggered speculation on the 2K official forums and Xcom subreddit that it is related to a new upcoming XCOM announcement. The site contains a rotating globe, pictures depicting a XCOM: Apocalypse style city, one of which seems to contain artwork already present on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and a downloadable .pdf file uses a font called 'XCOM-Regular'. The site also appears to be under some sort of hacking by an unknown party, with its contents being replaced by phrases such as 'we are still watching'. While all of this is merely circumstantial evidence, 2K is expected to announce a major title on the next E3 Conference in 3 weeks so keep tuned for further details.

October 21st, 2014

• Firaxis has released video footage of the two panels dedicated to XCOM: Enemy Unknown during the company's 2014 community convention, which took place last month. The panels were called Designing the Soldiers in XCOM, which was presented by Game Designer Ananda Gupta, and The Artwork of XCOM, by Art Director Greg Foertsch. The Firaxicon videos are available at Firaxis's Youtube channel.

October 16th, 2014

• Steam announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown can be played for free this weekend, starting today and until next Sunday. For more details check Steam's announcement.

August 5th, 2014

• Fantasy Flight Games announced that they'll be publishing XCOM: The Board Game on the last quarter of 2014. The tabletop board game is based on XCOM: Enemy Unknown and can be played from 1-4 players, which take the individual roles of XCOM Commander, Chief Scientist, Central Officer and Squad Leader, with the help of an app companion to determine the moves of the alien forces. For more details check the publisher's page, and yes, the game comes included with plastic figures representing all soldier classes, as well as the Interceptors and UFOs. Cost is presented as $59.95 for this game and it will be available for preview at the publisher's booth on Gen Con Indy 2014.

June 13th, 2014

• OpenXcom has just completed its release 1.0 version, available for free at openxcom.org. If you're looking to spice up the original UFO: Enemy Unknown game, then check out this revamped open source clone version, developed by SupSuper and a bunch of X-COM enthusiasts. For more details about OpenXcom, see this presentation.

May 29th, 2014

• Feral Interactive has announced that they will release XCOM: Enemy Unknown as their first game for Linux this summer, using the Ubuntu 14.04 version and through SteamPlay.

May 17th, 2014

• YCOM: Enemy Unlikely - Another remake of the XCOM series, YCOM: Enemy Unlikely is a demake of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, with a bit of hilarity added. The video contains a link on its description to download and play the game.

April 29th, 2014

• X@COM - playable alpha demo. X@COM, or XCOM Rogue-like, is a current fan project that aims to replicate the original UFO: Enemy Unknown using only ASCII characters. They're aiming to finish the project by 2015 and they have a current playable alpha version that can be downloaded for playing.

March 9th, 2014

• Kokatu magazine has published an article about the creation of the original UFO: Enemy Unknown which includes a link to last year's video presentation made by its creator, Julian Gollop, about the original game's design process.

March 4th, 2014

• XCOM: Complete Edition released for PC and Mac. Includes all of the DLCs released so far, including the Elite Soldier Pack, Slingshot and Enemy Within.

February 7th, 2014

• XCOM: Enemy Within has won the Best Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year 2013 DICE awards. For a list of winners see [3].

February 4th, 2014

• 2K Games is preparing the release a complete edition of XCOM: Enemy Unknown on March 4th, according to Gameinformer. No further details have been released yet about the edition but it's likely that it should include all of the DLCs released so far, such as Elite Soldier Pack, Slingshot and the Enemy Within expansion.

XCOM: Enemy Within and Hangar 6: R&D have been released!

XCOM: Enemy Within released

November 15th 2013

• And now it is the rest of the world's turn as Enemy Within receives its international release today. So get on and enjoy the all new features!

November 12th 2013

• XCOM Enemy Within is released in America with new features like the new human faction – EXALT, Base Defence and all new maps and council Missions. Enjoy the game and see you on the farm with the crashed UFO.

XCOM: Enemy Within Reviews!

November 11th 2013

• Several reviews of XCOM: Enemy Within have been published today. To read/see them, check Escapist Magazine ("All of the fun new toys, however, do work a bit against the game's biggest flaw - after a certain point of advancement, the challenge and satisfaction of snuffing aliens dissipates quickly."), Shacknews ("Firaxis once again manages to balance XCOM's disparate elements, resulting in a challenging and satisfying experience."), IGN ("Enemy Within is an amazing expansion to a brilliant tactical game.") and Strategy Informer ("I could go on about the virtues of Enemy Within, about how good it was to play through the whole campaign again, but ultimately it’ll come down to two factors: The fact that the ending hasn’t changed a bit, and the fact that, ultimately, you’re still playing the same game.", and Revision3 ("EW gets a 4 out of 5.").

The Bureau Expansion

November 8th 2013

• The Bureau: XCOM Declassified gained it first DLC Pack today in the form of Hangar 6: R&D in which the player takes control of DaSilva in an attempt to get to the bottom of a mysterious new infection.

XCOM Base Defense confirmed on EW

October 23th, 2013

• The newest preview videos released (here and here) have confirmed the addition of a Base Defense mission to XCOM: Enemy Within, a feature of the original game long called for by players. Check for more details on the Enemy Within page.

EXALT revealed!

October 9th, 2013

• A new faction has been revealed for XCOM: Enemy Within, the upcoming XCOM: Enemy Unknown expansion. XCOM's new enemies are called EXALT and they're a secret paramilitary human group that is conspiring to use the alien technology and chaos of the invasion to achieve world domination. More details available at the Enemy Within page.

XCOM: Enemy Within details announced!

August 21st, 2013

• Producer 2K revealed details about XCOM: Enemy Within, the upcoming expansion to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The main features are the addition of the Meld, a substance that allows you to create a new class (Mech Troopers), with new weapons and abilities or to genetically enhance your soldiers (Gene Mods), along with other features. The release date is November 12th (US) and 15th (rest of the world) and check the full details on the XCOM: Enemy Within page.

XCOM: Enemy Within will be revealed on August 21st

August 3rd, 2013

• Producer 2K has confirmed that it will reveal during Gamescom 2013 a new DLC for XCOM: Enemy Unknown called XCOM: Enemy Within.

Archived News

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified will be released next month

July 18th, 2013

• The upcoming XCOM squad based shooter will be available for sale on stores on August 20th in the US and on the 23rd to the rest of the world. From the available previews/footage it seems the game has been redesigned as a prequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, featuring Sectoids, Mutons and even Silacoids.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified coming soon

May 5th, 2013

• Marin's 2K XCOM squad based shooter should be released soon as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. The game was announced three years ago and has been redesigned.

Clash of the Titans: X-COM meets XCOM

April 2nd, 2013

• Julian Gollop and Jake Solomon have met for the first time during Game Developers Conference 2013 to be interviewed regarding the original game and the 2012 remake. Check the video of the encounter here: [4].

GDC 2013: Julian Gollop's Postmortem on UFO: Enemy Unknown/XCOM: UFO Defense

March 28th, 2013

• Julian Gollop gave a talk at Games Developers Conference 2013 on the development of the original UFO: Enemy Unknown/XCOM: UFO Defense. An interesting look into the philosophies and source material that went into the making of the game, and also how it nearly failed.

See the video at: http://www.gamespot.com/events/gdc-2013/video.html?sid=6406150

March 1st, 2013

• Elite Edition for the Mac announced. Firaxis have announced that Feral Games are porting XCOM: Enemy Unknown to the OS X and will be released in an Elite Edition. This edition will include the Elite Soldier Pack, Slingshot and Second Wave DLCs and should be released this spring.

January 8th, 2013

• Second Wave options now available on XCOM: Enemy Unknown. The latest patch released today by Firaxis now activates the Second Wave options and makes it available for the game. Despite it being already included but inactive (and playable through mods) the developers had stated that they didn't had time to complete Second Wave before XCOM: Enemy Unknown but it was on their intentions to finish it. It now includes the following options as part of Advanced Gameplay: Damage Roulette, New Economy, Not Created Equally, Hidden Potential, Red Fog, Absolutely Critical, The Greater Good, Marathon, Results Driven, High Stakes, Diminishing Returns, More Than Human, Total Loss, War Wariness, E-115 and Alternate Sources. The patch also introduces fixes to the teleport bug and adds a new XCOM Hero.

December 4, 2012

• 2K Games has released the first of two DLC packs for all platforms, named Slingshot. The pack features several additional new helmets, 1 new armor decoration and 3 linked Council missions and a special playable soldier named Zhang.

October 23, 2012

• 2K Games has announced the first of two DLC packs for all platforms. The first, named Slingshot, will feature 3 new linked Council missions that will focus on a playable character named Zhang.

October 9, 2012

• Eighteen years after the original release of UFO: Enemy Unknown (or XCOM: UFO Defense), 2K Games has released today in North America XCOM: Enemy Unknown, its remake of the original game, which will be followed by the international release next Friday. XCOM is back!

September 24, 2012

• Demo is released on Steam. It features a tutorial mission, a standard mission and a limited interaction with the Base and Geoscape layer.

August 10, 2012

• Multiplayer deathmatch revealed for XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012), mix your own squad of soldiers & aliens and battle online vs other players.

January 5, 2012

• Publisher 2K Games announces that Firaxis (makers of Civilization) is developing a re-imagining of the original XCOM: Enemy Unknown for release this fall (2012).

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New XCOM FPS Game by 2k Marin

• XCOM FPS has been delayed multiple times, release is late 2013 or 2014 at the earliest.
• The game will focus on elite U.S. government operatives attempting to prevent a nightmarish invasion of the United States (while dropping the dash in X-COM). See:
• The official XCOM site (only a couple of trailers here)
• Some criticism of its change in focus (1, 2), although 2k Marin may be rethinking this
• 2k's XCOM forum, including passionate posts by X-Commies
• Once slated for March 2012 release, it has now slipped to a later date (1, 2).

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X-COM Packages

Now available for less than $15

• At GamersGate, Steam and Direct2Drive. (Includes UFO, TFTD, Apoc, Int, and Enf).

For "reviews", see this.

OFFICIAL - NEW X-COM GAME FROM THE DEVELOPERS OF BIOSHOCK 2
Yes, this will come as a shock to all, but 2K Australia and 2K Marin is busily working on a first-person shooter based on the X-COM franchise. More info will presumably become available on the 2010 E3.

For more information/rumors check 2K's X-COM forum.