Firaxis – that of Civilization fame – has just announced that they are remaking X-Com and that it’s going to be a turn-based strategy, like the original. Excuse me while I post my face:

And now, Mister Adequate and myself shall post our thoughts on this:

Pike’s Thoughts:

There’s a lot that could go wrong here but there’s also a lot that could go right. The easy way out would be to say to just make X-Com but give it a graphical and UI facelift, but we could even improve upon that. RPS discusses this at length in this article. Mostly what I think is vital to me is that they don’t lose any of that feeling of being terrified between turns as you hear noises and “hidden movement.” Like old Hitchcock movies, X-Com largely works not because what it shows you, but because of what it doesn’t show you. I hope that, in the whirlwind of fancy graphics and whatnot, Firaxis doesn’t lose sight of this.

This is definitely going to be an interesting one to watch– since we don’t have any major details yet, it’s definitely too early to say whether or not this is all going to work, but as it stands now I’m rather cautiously optimistic. Firaxis isn’t perfect by any means, but if we’re going to put X-Com in the hands of a major studio I’m glad they’re the ones getting it.

Mister Adequate’s Thoughts:

Given that we know very little about the thing at this point, Pike has already covered most of the major points that could be made right now, and I echo everything she said. What I will add is that I am also cautiously optimistic if for no other reason than the fact that XCOM – the shooter that is – is already on the way. There’s nothing to be gained by trying to capitalize on the action market, 2K would be competing against themselves, and a studio like Firaxis is never going to have an easy time going up against 2K Marin in the shooter domain, but the strategy side of things is, Xenonauts aside, wide open.

There is an enormous wealth of ideas about what a new XCOM ought to be floating around out there, and I hope Firaxis have been carefully and continue to carefully read and think about them, and take them on board where it seems appropriate. We’re a rabidly obsessed, hard to please fanbase, but give us what we want and we will reward you with kingly sums.

Another, and absolutely vital, aspect here is modding capability. People have done some impressive things with the original X-Com despite the thing not being remotely modder-friendly, but look at the mod scene for Civ IV and imagine that transposed into XCOM.

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And there you have it. Who else is excited?