XCOM -- Designing a Game for Two Audiences

Older games weren't better because you had to decipher how to play them. People constantly belittle current games with lengthy tutorials and forgiving check points, wondering what happened to the days when someone would take the time to read a 50-page instruction manual and be OK with constantly reloading a save. The truth is we did those things because we had to; we hadn't been shown anything better. And the reason – at least, in part – that designers don't do that anymore is due to the fact that they're making a product for millions of dollars, and the audience that wants a super-niche, complex title might not be big enough to make it profitable.

All of this puts a team like Firaxis, who is taking on the monumental task of reviving XCOM, in a tough spot. How does the team remain faithful to XCOM's brutal difficulty and complexity while creating something that will attract new audiences?

For starters Firaxis doesn't make XCOM a sequel. It's been almost 20 years since the original was made, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown serves as a reset for the franchise. The series was never particularly story focused, but Enemy Unknown takes the series back to where it started. You're in charge of an international coalition called XCOM, whose sole mission is to stave off alien invasions. You have to pick your battles, taking your squad of elite soldiers all over the world in order to keep your fledging organization, as well as the human race, alive. 

Part two of Firaxis' XCOM strategy is to make it a multiplatform release. While the original X-COM came out only for PC, Enemy Unknown is releasing for consoles as well. Thankfully XCOM's turn-based combat makes it more reasonable than, say, a console-based real time strategy title. But systems have been reworked – dare I say simplified – for Enemy Unknown. 

When your units hit the field, you don't manage every individual trooper's time units (the currency that determined how many actions they could do per turn in the original). Instead, every trooper can make one movement and do one action – or, alternatively, make two movements – per turn. When you move, you don't have to worry about nickel and diming your movement points to get to just the right spot, you just look at the highlighted parts of the environment for that trooper and then move to anyone of the indicated positions. 

The simplified movement and action system makes Enemy Unknown more accessible but also retains the tactical feeling. Moving your troopers is a breeze, but picking smart positions for them still takes skill. Both the aliens and your soldiers seek to outmaneuver one another, so pushing for cover and protecting your flanks becomes paramount. You might have your heavy weapons guy lay down suppressing fire on an alien who's looking for opportune shot, enabling your relatively weak sniper to rush up to a rooftop and get a better vantage. You also need to think about whether the cover you've positioned your soldiers behind will hold up against alien assaults, as many parts of the environment are destructible. Vice versa, you might want to position someone with explosives close enough to break the wall of a building to give your other troopers a new point to fire into. 

The retooled movement and action system may not be exactly like the original, but certain staples for the franchise remain. The one that will be the most divisive being permanent death. Every soldier you deploy to the field can be named, and soldiers that live through multiple battles will level up. But, just like real war, one bad move or a stroke of bad luck can cost you someone precious. I watched as one soldier rushed a door, preparing to infiltrate a building, and a gigantic alien crashed through the wall and beat him to death. The importance of that moment may be minimal in a demo, but imagine a situation where you've spent hours with that guy, perhaps even naming him after your best friend. The effects of your actions could feel crushing in XCOM. 

Base building also helps ground the new XCOM in the lore of the 1993 classic. Excavating the earth beneath your facility opens up new space to build in. How you build out your base is up to you: you could focus on hangars for air defense or perhaps build science facilities to gain more from the alien artifacts you recover in battle. Layout of your base matters, as bonuses are allocated based on location of buildings and their proximity to similar facilities. 

Like permanent death, other parts of XCOM are, like the original, not very forgiving. The XCOM organization relies on many member nations, all of whom will ask for your support from time to time as they get harassed by invaders. The problem comes down to limited resources; you simply can't help everyone all the time. Neglect a country long enough, though, and it'll leave the organization and rob you of valuable resources. Thus, just like the XCOM games of old, your job comes down to triage: you can't save everyone, so how do you do the most good with the little you have? If you can't keep it together, you'll lose, forcing you to load an earlier save. 

It's still too early to say whether XCOM: Enemy Unknown will touch fans of the original as well as an entirely new audience. Firaxis is clearly making it for a much larger group of people, but also striving to retain the spirit and foundation in design that made the original so beloved. We'll find out if they've succeed when XCOM releases this fall.