XCOM Now an FPS Because Strategy Games Aren't "Contemporary"

It's nice to see the XCOM series being revived after more than a decade away, even if Ken Levine and Irrational Games aren't the ones developing the new game, as was once rumored. Series fans were shocked when the new XCOM was revealed as a first-person shooter; the series began in the turn-based strategy genre, and even when it moved in the direction of real-time strategy, it was still unmistakably a strategy series. The reason that's been abandoned with the new game is because strategy games just aren't in like they once were, in the mind of 2K Games.

Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K Games (XCOM's publisher), spoke with MCV about the subject, explaining, "The '90s generation of gamers all love XCOM and we own the IP, so we thought OK, what do we do with it? Every studio we had wanted to do it and each one had its own spin on it. But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing -- strategy games are just not contemporary."

"I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles, if he would make music today it would still be Ray Charles but he would probably do it more in the style of Kanye West. Bringing Ray Charles back is all fine and good, but it just needs to move on, although the core essence will still be the same.

"That's what we are trying to do. To renew XCOM but in line with what this generation of gamers want. The team behind it is asking themselves every day: 'Is it true to the values of the franchise?' It's not a case of cashing in on the name. We just need to renew it because times are changing."

Blizzard would likely be among the first to disagree -- StarCraft II was a major success last year; Relic continues to support the Dawn of War series; and Total War games continue to flow out of The Creative Assembly. It's not as if there is no success to be had with strategy games in this day and age, though clearly Hartmann disagrees.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with the new game -- 1UP's E3 preview makes it sound pretty good, particularly for a game that won't be out until sometime in early 2012. Regardless, you can bet old XCOM fans aren't suddenly going to be fine with the series' genre shuffle.

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