One of the biggest surprises to come out of the XCOM 2 announcement earlier this week is that, unlike its predecessor—the game that so successfully resurrected the moribund series—it will be exclusive to the PC. Creative Director Jake Solomon told IGN that the studio has "very, very ambitious goals" for the sequel, and the only way to realize them was to focus on the platform for which it had the greatest depth of expertise.
"When we have our meetings, when we talk about stuff, we only talk about PC," Solomon said. "We talk about, ‘What is the experience like on PC? What does the mouse feel like in this experience?'" The UI is being optimized to more efficiently support mouse-and-keyboard controls, and in fact the current plan is to launch without support for controllers. More on-screen tactical information will also be provided, since the assumption is that players will be sitting closer to their monitors than they would to a television, and will thus be able to read smaller text.
XCOM 2 will offer other improvements as well, including physics-based rendering, more visually impressive destruction, and procedurally-generated maps. "To do that, we had to use all of our studio expertise... and our expertise here is PC," Solomon said. "That's our home, and that's where we're really comfortable."
The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 should have the power to run the game, but developing for multiple platforms simultaneously just isn't something Firaxis can do. And even if it did come to those platforms, it would almost certainly be without support for mods, one of the games biggest selling points. "We're certainly not opposed to [a console release]," Solomon said, "but I can assure [you] that's something we're not even discussing yet."
XCOM 2 is currently expected to be ready for release in November.
from PC Gamer latest stories http://ift.tt/1JsNiCo
Blogger Comment
Facebook Comment