Three new STAR WARS video games announced, including what sounds like STAR WARS: XCOM

Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment have confirmed they are working on three brand-new Star Wars video games.

First up is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2, a sequel to the 2019 "Metroidvania"-alike which saw a young Padawan survive the Jedi Purge and attempt to lay the groundwork for the rebirth of the Jedi Order in the years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The game was extremely well-received, so a sequel is a no-brainer, and indeed, its existence was an open secret in the industry. It's believed that Respawn have already been working on the game for more than two years, so hopefully it won't be too long before it appears.

Second up is a new first-person shooter in the Star Wars universe. A lot of fans of the old Dark Forces/Jedi Knight FPS series were disappointed that Fallen Order did not lean more into that game's mix-and-match approach of allowing you to use blasters and lightsabres as you wished. It sounds like this new game will take care of the less Force-using side of the Star Wars universe. Respawn are masters of the FPS genre, having previously worked on the Titanfall series (and its popular spinoff, Apex Legends). Many of their developers were previously at Infinity Ward, where they made some of the better Call of Duty games. So this sounds like a particularly well-made match.

Third, and most intriguingly, is a strategy game that will be developed between Respawn and new studio Bit Reactor. Bit Reactor were founded just a few days ago by ex-Firaxis developers, including numerous veterans of both the XCOM and Civilization franchises, with a mission statement that they would be focusing on turn-based, cinematic experiences. That very much sounds to me like their game will be XCOM: Star Wars (or a close analogue of), which is a mouthwatering prospect, especially if they implement a proper strategy layer. This game sounds like it only literally just got off the ground, so don't expect it in the near future.

Alongside the Knights of the Old Republic Remake game currently in development at EA's Aspyr Studios, that brings the total number of Star Wars titles known to be in development to four.

The news has taken some in the gaming press by surprise, since Lucasfilm terminated their exclusivity deal with EA last year in favour of collaborating with a wider variety of studios. Ubisoft and Massive Games are making an open-world action game set in the Star Wars universe, whilst Quantic Dream is developing Star Wars: Eclipse, a story-focused game in the new High Republic time-period. A new Star Wars Lego game is also in development. The feeling was that maybe EA would focus less on Star Wars going forwards. However, their two Battlefront games and Fallen Order had sold almost 40 million copies between them, making them among EA's biggest recent successes.

Sadly missing from the announcements is any sequel or expansion for the splendid Star Wars: Squadrons. The game apparently did well (especially for a lower-budgeted game) but developers EA Motive had been put to work on a non-Star Wars project.

XCOM creators spill the beans (a bit) on upcoming Marvel XCOM-alike, MIDNIGHT SUNS

Following rumours from the start of the summer, Firaxis have confirmed they are making a Marvel tie-in game. Midnight Suns melds the turn-based, tactical gameplay of their enormously successful XCOM series with the Marvel superhero IP.

In the game, the player creates their own hero, The Hunter, who joins forces with a roster of Marvel heroes to battle Lilith, the Mother of Demons. Heroes to appear include Iron Man, Wolverine, Blade, Ghost Rider, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Magik, Nico Minoru and Dr. Strange. 

The game has been described as a "tactical RPG", suggesting there won't be a deep strategic metagame as in the XCOM series, with instead a more story and character-driven between-battles section. Aside, presumably from the turn-based combat, the game will not share any mechanics with the XCOM series.

XCOM franchise head Jake Solomon has led development, with Marvel Comics artists and writers lending support and assistance, including help in designing The Hunter (who will be customisable in terms of appearance, gender and powers) and The Abbey, a hub area which the team will retire to between missions.

It sounds like the game will be drawing on The Rise of the Midnight Sons comic arc in 1992, in which a group of Marvel heroes and antiheroes join forces to fight Lilith. 

This does beg the question of whether Firaxis is developing more XCOM games; both XCOM 2 (2016) and Chimera Squad (2020) had substantial cliffhanger endings that seemed to be setting up more games in the series. However, a second team at the company helmed both XCOM 2's expansion, War of the Chosen, and Chimera Squad, so certainly they have the scope to develop more than one game at a time.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is due for release on Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox One and Xbox X in March 2022. Firaxis will unveil the first gameplay trailer on 1 September.

XCOM: Chimera Squad

2040. Five years ago, the XCOM resistance movement successfully defeated the alien Ethereals and liberated Earth from their control. However, the destruction of the Ethereals not only freed humanity, but also the dozen or so alien races under their control, who found themselves marooned on a strange world and having to coexist with their former enemies. This coexistence is controversial, but several cities have prospered with mixed human and alien populations. One such place is City 31, but when three criminal factions try to overthrow the new order, XCOM is called upon to deploy a police force to the city to help salvage the situation.

Chimera Squad is the latest game in the XCOM series, rebooted by Firaxis in 2012 to great success. Unlike its two predecessors - to which it is more of a spinoff than a direct sequel - Chimera Squad eschews a global perspective for the more focused setting of a single city. You're also not in command of XCOM any more, instead taking control of the Reclamation Agency of City 31. Reclamation is a subdivision of XCOM which deals with police operations in the aftermath of the War for Liberation (as depicted in XCOM 2 and War of the Chosen). Unfortunately, Reclamation is low in the priority list and doesn't have access to the high-end technology developed towards the end of that war, explaining why you start the game (once again) with machine guns and shotguns rather than plasma rifles and alloy cannons.

The game proceeds much as its forebears: you have a strategic map, this time of just the city rather than the planet, where you choose which operations to undertake. You can also research new equipment, purchase new stocks, train your soldiers or send them on secondary missions which generate more resources, such as money, intel or Elerium. You have to keep the city's panic level low, which can be achieved by completing missions and establishing police forces in each district and levelling them up.

Whilst the strategic side has less options than in previous games - there's no way of interrogating enemy soldiers, for example, and no fellow resistance forces to coordinate with - it still provides a pleasing degree of choice, with dire consequences possible if you make the wrong decision.

More controversial is the decision to limit your soldier roster. You choose four starting characters and as the campaign continues more troops trickle in from other XCOM assignments at your request. You can have up to eight agents on the team, four of whom can be deployed on a mission at a time (unlike prior games, there's no way of increasing the limit to six soldiers). The others can cool their heels at base or go on secondary missions, help speed up research or train to unlock new skills (or remove permanent injuries sustained in battle). The big difference is that these soldiers are all recruited from a set pool of eleven. You can't hire random new recruits any more. On the plus side this means all the soldiers get full voice acting with nice lines of dialogue resulting from which characters they are paired with. On the downside it means the attachment you get from shepherding characters through several missions in a row and growing their skills from scratch is lost, and you also don't have the customisation options any more to give them crazy haircuts or names. They are also irreplaceable: if they die, they die and it's game over rather than having to soldier on (particularly odd as there's more characters to recruit than there are slots on the team, so they could easily have had an option to slot in up to three replacements before saying it's game over).

Removing player choice from the game for relatively limited rewards - your soldiers' "banter" is decidedly non-revelatory and a bit hackneyed - is an odd experiment, but it does make the game more distinctive. Another questionable choice is limiting the roles available. Most of the XCOM 2 classes are represented (Terminal is a Specialist, Verge is a Psi Operative) but several are missing. Grenadiers not being around kind of makes sense - you don't want rockets blasting around an urban area with civilians present - but not having any Sharpshooters feels strange (police snipers are a thing), especially as one of your characters, Blueblood, is effectively a Sharpshooter locked into the pistol specialisation tree. Again, it feels like this franchise which celebrates player agency and choice has taken such choice away from the player and limited things.

This extends to the missions themselves, which are now played out in combat encounters rather than continuous maps. Each mission has between one and three encounters, and moving between encounters is accomplished by a "breach" sequence where you access the next encounter by smashing through windows, rappelling through skylights, booting down doors or occasionally just walking onto the battlefield. The audio barks don't change to the situation though, resulting in the occasionally non sequitur sight of one of your squadmembers screaming "BREACH! BREACH! BREACH!" before taking two steps forward and ducking behind a car. This does feel more limited than the continuous maps of the previous games and can get quite annoying, as previous encounter zones are inaccessible, sometimes resulting in your characters being bottlenecked at the entrance to the next zone and not being able to fall back to the previous room and take better cover, as the previous map is now greyed out and simply can't be accessed.

Once you get over these differences to the standard XCOM experience, much fun is to be had. The new mechanics, although sometimes irritating, do mean you spend most of your playtime making actual combat choices rather than slowly inching forwards into the fog of war in continuous overwatch. The breaches have a lot of options for when and how you enter the next encounter (like deciding to blast a hole through the wall with shaped charges to take the enemy by surprise or charging through a door into an enemy crossfire but which puts you closer to the toughest opponents). The result is much shorter, more focused combat experiences.

A big change to combat is that rather than having team turns - so all the XCOM agents go and then all the aliens go - the game instead uses interleaved turns, so one agent goes, then one enemy, then one ally and so on. This makes for a change in tactics as you start focusing on the enemy who is about to go next and can use abilities which adjust the timeline (moving characters around in it to your advantage and the enemy's detriment). This has a lot of good points, such as meaning that the enemy can't gang up all their fire on one exposed agent and kill him or her and there's nothing you can do about it, but again it does loose the ability to pick which agent is going next and having finer control over their actions. Broadly speaking, I thought this change was interesting for making combat a more varied experience, but there was no strong argument for it being better or worse than the alternative, just different.

Chimera Squad is probably not the way forwards for the franchise permanently, but it does offer a lot of variations on the standard XCOM formula which make it fun to play. It's short and focused - a single playthrough will last around 20 hours rather than the ~50 hours of an XCOM 2: War of the Chosen campaign - and the smaller scale works surprisingly well. The removal of choice from the player in favour of set characters, a preset squad roster and focused, short combat sequences is interesting, but I think would go down badly in a full XCOM 3, so hopefully if XCOM 3 is in development (and based on the cliffhanger endings to both XCOM 2 and Chimera Squad, that seems likely) they take on board the ideas that work (the breach mechanics to start a mission, but may not mid-mission, and maybe the interleaved turns as an option) and leave out the ones that do not.

Chimera Squad (****) is a tight, experimental and fun variation on the XCOM formula with some ideas that work well and others that are less successful, but fun in this spin-off context. It is available on PC only now.

A brand new XCOM game is coming out this month

2K Games have surprise-announced a brand new game in the XCOM franchise which will be released in just ten days. XCOM: Chimera Squad is a new, stand-alone game that will act as an interlude between XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and...whatever comes next (XCOM 3, one hazards).

Chimera Squad is set in City 31, apparently after the XCOM-led human resistance defeated the alien occupiers in War of the Chosen and drove them off-planet. With the alien Ethereals gone, many of the other aliens they were controlling have broken free and joined forces with humanity. Chimera Squad is so-called because it is the first XCOM squad with alien recruits among its number. Whilst XCOM is rebuilding to face a renewed threat from the Ethereals (or the mysterious enemy they themselves were fleeing), it is also dealing with more hostile aliens who have gone to ground and also with human groups unwilling to work with their former enemies.

Chimera Squad isn't quite a full-blown entry in the XCOM series, instead consisting of a 20-hour campaign of preset missions with pre-generated characters with their own personalities, custom dialogue and in-mission character development. In that sense it is more reminiscent of the XCOM 2 Tactical Legacy Pack from a couple of years ago, which added linear, story-driven campaigns to the more familiar strategic gameplay. The game also adds a new Breach mechanic to the game and expands on the idea of teamwork from War of the Chosen, which allowed you to develop relationships between characters which yielded in-mission rewards and special abilities.

XCOM: Chimera Squad will be released in 24 April and is currently available for pre-order at the price of £8.50, or $10 in colonial currency.

PHOENIX POINT gets release date

Phoenix Point, the new game from the original creator of X-COM, has a finalised release date and it's pleasingly soon: 3 September 2019.

Phoenix Point is the second game from Snapshot Games, the studio set up by legendary British designer Julian Gollop to revisit some of his previous titles. Following the success of Chaos Reborn (2015) (a remake of Gollop's 1985 game, Chaos: The Battle of Wizards), Gollop launched Phoenix Point with a crowdfunding campaign in 2017.

Phoenix Point uses a similar structure to Gollop's 1994 game UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-COM: UFO Defence), but draws on elements from X-COM: Apocalypse (1997) and the recent XCOM series from Firaxis Games, which began with X-COM: Enemy Unknown (2012). A strategic metagame is played via a global view, in which mode new technologies can be researched, targets selected and equipment upgraded. Once a possible mission is identified, the player can send a crack squad of soldiers to the location in question, at which point the game turns into a turn-based tactical wargame.

Unlike XCOM's near-future pulp SF setting, Phoenix Point is a post-apocalyptic game set several decades into the future, after most of civilisation is wiped out by a mysterious mist that has risen from the oceans, bringing mutated and horrifying creatures with it. The Phoenix Project is an organisation devoted to restoring order to the world. To do this, the organisation must deal with several rival human factions, including the cult-like Disciples of Anu, the militaristic New Jericho and the high-technology Synedrion, aligning with some and perhaps eliminating others, whilst also working to contain the threat from the sea.

Phoenix Point is launching on PC and X-Box One. The game attracted some controversy when it was revealed that the game would be exclusive to the Epic Games Store for one year after release. It will, however, also be available on the X-Box Game Pass, which will also allow access for PC gamers.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

The alien occupation of Earth, aided by the ADVENT military force, continues unabated. XCOM, the organisation committed to defending Earth from alien invasion which is now acting as an underground resistance, has scored some major victories, inspiring the aliens to summon three powerful hunters - the Chosen - to destroy XCOM once and for all. But XCOM also has some new allies to bring to the fight...

War of the Chosen is a huge expansion for the strategy game XCOM 2. Just as XCOM: Enemy Within (2013) completely updated and revised XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012), improving every element of the game until it shone to perfection, so War of the Chosen attempts to do the same thing for XCOM 2.

In this game's case, it was more sorely needed. The vanilla edition of XCOM 2, released in 2016, was a fine game but also a slightly frustrating one. The turn-based combat section of the game was altogether more polished, more interesting, more varied and just plain more fun than that of the original game and its expansion. However, the strategic metagame was messier, less focused and less interesting than that of the original game. This left XCOM 2 as being a huge step forward over its predecessor in one area and a huge step back in another.

War of the Chosen certainly solves the biggest problem by giving you much more to do on the world map. The original generic Resistance faction has now split into three distinct groups you can ally with: the Reapers, an elite squad of ninja-like sharpshooters; the Skirmishers, a group of ADVENT soldiers who have escaped alien control and rebelled; and the Templars, a group of humans who have embraced the aliens' psionic powers. Winning the trust of each faction requires some work on the map screen, and in turn getting their support means you can aid them through covert actions, joint operations where XCOM and the factions work alongside one another in off-screen adventures. These operations also allow you to level up your soldiers outside of the traditional missions. The rewards - more intel, more Resistance contacts (allowing you to contact new regions without having to build more comm rooms) and even sabotaging the Avatar Project - are impressive and powerful. The factions are also fun in the sense that they had distinct characters to the game, voiced by veterans of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The aliens, of course, can also bring more friends to the party. There are now 3 powerful special alien characters who are each given control of one-third of the globe. Doing missions in one of those regions can see the Chosen intervening in the battle, giving you a mini-boss to fight. The Chosen can be driven off (but not killed, yet) and they can also achieve their own objectives (usually knocking one of your troops out and scanning them to learn clues to tracking down the Avenger, XCOM's mobile headquarters). Defeat the Chosen and they gain weaknesses (such as a fear of explosives or greater vulnerability to snipers). Fail to do so and they become stronger, eventually amassing enough knowledge to assault the Avenger directly. This has a whiff of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System, a great game mechanic I'm surprised more titles haven't stolen. With the help of the new rebel factions, however, you can also track down each Chosen's lair, eventually mounting an assault to finish them off once and for all.

There are also new ADVENT troop types (including a flamethrower soldier and one with psi abilities) and a new, neutral faction called the Lost. Effectively zombies, the Lost are humans adversely affected by those green alien pods dropped all over the globe at the start of Enemy Unknown. These appear in missions set in abandoned cities and are attracted by explosions and gunfire. Canny players can trick the lost into attacking ADVENT forces, which is very entertaining.

On top of this, you also have new weapons, new research and much greater character customisation, including the ability to form bonds between pairs of soldiers which increases their combat effectiveness when deployed together. Soldiers also become tired after missions and need to be given time off to recuperate, encouraging you to recruit more soldiers rather than just relying one one single super team for every job. There's also tweaks to gameplay, such as offering the ability to reduce the number of time-limited missions from the vanilla game (which everyone hated).

The result is a bigger, brasher and more confident game than the original XCOM 2. There's a lot more going on and you have a lot more choices to make which are more meaningful. The game gives you more control and you do feel like you're running a worldwide resistance movement as you order covert operations to be undertaken, research some much-needed new tech or decide to launch an assault on an ADVENT base. War of the Chosen fixes most of XCOM 2's problems in one fell swoop.

There are, however, some issues. The onslaught of all this new stuff means that campaigns now last a lot longer than previously (my first XCOM 2 playthrough lasted 30 hours, whilst my War of the Chosen playthrough lasted about 50), which means a typical campaign now goes on so long that the game risks getting stale. One of the key issues with XCOM 2, the ridiculous length of time it took to resolve an action (3 days to pick up supplies when you know their precise location? 8 days to rescue a stranded engineer?), remains firmly in place and can make the early game unnecessarily punishing as it takes forever to get going. However, when you do hit a stride the sheer range of option and missions available also means that you will be levelling characters to max level very quickly, leaving you with a huge roster of top-tier soldiers for most of the game who can curb-stomp everything. This leaves the new alien threats, particularly the Chosen, feeling underwhelming as a threat once you hit the mid-game and utterly trivial in the late game period.

There's also the fact that although War of the Chosen dramatically changes an XCOM 2 campaign, the still basic structure is in place underneath and, once you get over the new factions and the Chosen, the game won't offer any new surprises. This was also true of Enemy Within, but in that case it was a very modestly-priced expansion pack which also replaced the original game. War of the Chosen, on the other hand, has been sold as a full-price game which requires XCOM 2 to run, making it a fairly expensive undertaking (less so these last few weeks, when it's been more readily available on sale). For such a higher premium people might be forgiven for expecting much more content. Firaxis have realised this themselves, recently adding the Tactical Legacy Pack which adds more weapons and equipment, more map types and a 28-mission, story-focused campaign, which certainly helps add variety to the game.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (****½) improves the XCOM 2 experience and makes it a more rewarding, more fun, deeper and more compelling game. Both the strategic and tactical options gameplay are improved, and there's a richness in the experience that very few games can match. It's not perfect, though, and occasionally the game can feel a bit too whacky and crazy for a series originally rooted in paranoia and horror, whilst nearly doubling the length of the game risks it getting stale.

The game is available now on PC and via the online stores for X-Box One and PlayStation 4.

XCOM 2: Tactical Legacy Pack

Released back in 2016, XCOM 2 was a worthy, if flawed, sequel to the classic 2012 turn-based strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown (itself a remake of the 1993 game X-COM: UFO Defence) and its expansion, Enemy Within. A year later Firaxis released War of the Chosen, an interesting expansion pack to the game which, inexplicably, they decided to sell at the same price as a full-price game. I demurred on purchasing it until it came down in price.

It's taken well over a year, but the expansion has finally come down in price and I'll be checking it out in full soon. However, to make the expansion more worthwhile and better value for money, Firaxis have also released a new expansion for the expansion, the "Tactical Legacy Pack" to make it even better value for money, as it's completely free. Taking place between XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 proper, the expansion charts how the XCOM organisation brought itself back from the brink of extinction after the aliens successfully conquered Earth.

The Tactical Legacy Pack contains several key parts, including a collection of challenge maps which pits your team against a tough objective as well as new items and maps (some of them revamped versions of fan-favourite maps from the original game and its expansion). However, the meat of the pack is something new to the franchise: a narrative and story-focused single-player campaign. A standard game of XCOM consists of two parts, a strategic metagame where you recruit soldiers, research new technology and make decisions on what operations to carry out next against the aliens, and a tactical, turn-based combat mode where you deploy the troops you've chose and outfitted in battle.

The Tactical Legacy campaign throws out the strategic part of the game in favour of a series of missions. There's no research, flying around the globe with the Avenger or recruiting new soldiers (at least, not in the traditional way). Instead you go from battle to battle to battle, with objectives being laid out during the loading screens and in-mission voiceovers. It's an experimental change to the standard XCOM formula and one that is quite interesting, removing as it does the agonising decisions on what troops to bring on missions and what equipment to use, as your troops are selected and outfitted for you.

The campaign is divided into four episodes, each consisting of seven missions. That's 28 missions to get through the story, and will in total take a player between 10 and 15 hours to traverse (depending on the difficulty mode you select). Each of the four episodes has a different focus: "Blast from the Past" sees Bradford (aka "Central") escaping from the fall of XCOM HQ and teaming up with some other survivors to carry out a mission. Along the way he and his new team attract more support and they realise they could transition XCOM into a guerrilla resistance force. "It Came from the Sea" is a nod at the 1994 game X-COM: Terror from the Deep, with XCOM having to fight off an invasion of aquatic chryssalids (sadly, there aren't any actual underwater missions). "Avenger Assemble" sees Lily Shen reluctantly taking to the field as she scavenges crashed Interceptors, UFOs and Skyrangers to get the rebel carrier, the Avenger, ready for launch. "The Lazarus Project" sees both Bradford and Lily entering the field to recruit more elite soldiers for XCOM.

Completing these missions also unlocks weapons, soldier recruits, maps and some new enemy types, all of which will then appear in a subsequent War of the Chosen campaign. The Tactical Legacy Pack therefore offers both a significant amount of gameplay on its own terms as well as a lot of new bonus stuff to enhance a new playthrough of the standard XCOM 2 campaign (although only with War of the Chosen installed; this stuff won't work with vanilla XCOM 2). Also entertainingly, the expansions allows you change the game's soundtrack, between the standard XCOM 2 soundtrack, the Enemy Unknown soundtrack or, impressively, a remixed and upgraded synthwave version of the original 1993 game soundtrack, which is very well-done.

It's hard to knock this kind of material, especially as it's free. One of the criticisms levelled at the pack is that a set of linear missions isn't very XCOM-y, which I sort of agree with. All of the new generation of XCOM games have had linear story missions popping up at one point or another, but as a change of pace from the traditional gameplay type before getting back to the procedurally-generated missions. If you're a purist who hates linear missions, then yes, this might not appeal to you. More irritatingly, the only way to unlock all the stuff from the expansion in a standard game is to play through the missions.

That said, the missions are pretty good and interesting. Selecting troops, equipment and upgrades forces players out of their comfort zone and gets them acquainted with troop classes and weapons they might not normally deploy. You can also massively ramp up the difficulty on these missions to very high levels to make them even more of a challenge for hardened players.

It may be churlish to criticise this amount of free content, but there are a couple of issues that arise. One is that the new missions don't make many concessions to in-universe logic: your soldiers include Reapers and Templars (from War of the Chosen) long before you may have recruited those factions. XCOM 2's conceit is that XCOM lost the war in the original game very early on, but this game sees XCOM using advanced plasma and laser weapons in combat and also features crashed advanced Interceptors from the original game. If, like me, you've not played War of the Chosen yet and decided to join in the hype train with this expansion, there's a hell of a lot of stuff left unexplained (even moreso if you didn't play vanilla XCOM 2 either). Also, given that XCOM 2 launched two and a half years ago in a pretty iffy technical state and has been patched several times, it was somewhat dismaying to see the game still managed to crash several times during my playthrough with occasional graphics and game logic bugs taking place.

Having said that, these problems are more niggling than catastrophic. If you have that itch that only quality turn-based combat can scratch, the Tactical Legacy Pack (****) certainly delivers on that front. The expansion offers a solid gaming experience on its own merits, adds a lot of fresh content to your standard War of the Chosen playthrough, brings in a lot of new challenge maps and skirmishes, expands on the XCOM story and lore, and even brings in a whole new (and presumably expensive) soundtrack. It's a lot of stuff for exactly £0 ($0). The Tactical Legacy Pack is available now on PC and will download automatically for all War of the Chosen players next time you install the game. Firaxis have been unclear on when and if the expansion will be added to the XB1 and PS4 versions of the game.

E3 2017 tidbits

The annual paen to shiny graphics and explosions, E3, is underway in Los Angeles at the moment. It's the year's biggest video game expo, a time for companies to make big announcements and grandiose promises that occasionally pan out but mostly don't. There is oddly little to get that excited about this year, but a few things stood out.

Metro: Exodus

The Metro video game series (comprising Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light) has been one of the most satisfying first-person shooter series of the last decade, going for Russian bleakness and evoking a sparse atmosphere of building tension and horror rather than going for bombast and lots of explosions. Metro: Exodus will apparently expand away from the Moscow metro (the setting for most of the first two games) and feature larger, less linear levels. Although highly promising (the red star steam engine looks cool), the concern remains that the first two games executed a single story brilliantly and ended at just the right moment. Here's hoping this third game enhances, rather than degrades, that legacy.

Total Warhammer 2

Or that would be the game's real title in a world that made sense, rather than the brain-numbingly silly Total War: Warhammer 2 (I'd take Total Waaagh!: Warhammer 2 at this point). Still, this sequel to the Creative Assembly/Games Workshop collaboration takes the war across the western ocean to Lustria, Ulthuan, Naggaroth and the Southlands. High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen and a "secret" race (who are totally not the Skaven) will join the roster. The sequel will have a stand-alone campaign but will also bolt onto the original Total Warhammer to unleash a massive, world-spanning conflict.

XCOM2: War of the Chosen

This is a comprehensive expansion for the splendid XCOM 2 which will add ruined, post-apocalyptic cities, complete with zombie-like mutants, as well as adding rival rebel factions you will be competing (and maybe fighting) against, but can also ally with against the alien threat. The game will also add new special alien bounty hunters who have been sent to take out your forces. Riffing off the Nemesis System from Shadows of Mordor, they will gain experience and level up as the game continues, becoming constant thorns in your side until you can finally take them out.

Anthem

A brand-new BioWare IP - their first in a decade - was always going to be a headline-grabbing moment. Unfortunately, the reception to Anthem didn't quite go the way BioWare were expecting. This is an action shooter which borrows - quite significantly - from the anime series Attack on Titan in its worldbuilding and setup, from Titanfall for its mechs (albeit much smaller than in that game) and from Destiny for its focus on co-op gameplay. Those hoping for a big, deep BioWare RPG like of old, or even another action/RPG hybrid like the Mass Effect series, were bitterly disappointed. Possibly prematurely, as the game actually looks pretty good.

Perhaps more notable were the games that didn't appear. Bethesda's science fiction mega-epic Starfield didn't make an appearance, despite heavy rumours, suggesting it's still a way off. Likewise CDPR held fire on Cyberpunk 2077, lending weight to the rumours it's now looking more like a 2019 release. Other games that looked reasonably interesting included Far Cry 5 and Bastard's Wound, an expansion for the excellent RPG Tyranny.

PHOENIX POINT teaser trailer and new staff announcements

Julian Gollop, the creator of the original X-COM series of games (and an unofficial advisor on the modern XCOM reboots), is currently hard at work on Phoenix Point, a game that can be best described as "XCOM meets Lovecraft". He's now released the briefest of teaser trailers for the game:

The trailer suggests not much of the game exists, but in fact there was a playable build being shown off last summer and the game has an early-to-mid 2018 release date. I'm guessing this is the start of a more thorough marketing and release schedule to raise awareness of the game ahead of its launch in a year or so.

Gollop has also confirmed that composer John Broomhall is working on the new game. Broomhall previously wrote the music for the first three X-COM games (UFO Defence, Terror from the Deep and Apocalypse) and has since worked on the Forza and Railroad Tycoon franchises.

The game has also added Jonas Kyratzes as a writer. Kyratzes is a noted video game commentator, designer and writer, best-known for his work on cult hit The Talos Principle, as well as his own indie Lands of Dream series.

Phoenix Point is set in the near future when the world has been consumed by a strange mist (released from the Siberian permafrost) that has transformed vast numbers of people into monsters. The game features a detailed strategic layer in which players take control of a band of survivors and have to make alliances with other factions, recruiting soldiers and scientists whilst coordinating a defence against the mist and finding a way of dispersing it. The game also features turn-based combat against the monsters with detailed weapons customisation. Remarkably, as well as the game featuring procedural levels it will also feature procedural monsters, creating new mutant types out of hundreds of different body parts.

PHOENIX POINT announced, a major new strategy game from the creator of X-COM

Julian Gollop should need no introduction to hardened strategy game players. Back in the late 1980s he developed Laser Squad and Lords of Chaos, highly popular and influential strategy games. But he really hit the big time with UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-COM: UFO Defense), released in 1994 and frequently cited as one of the very best video games ever made. He wasn't involved in the sequel, X-COM: Terror from the Deep, but did return for the third game in the series, X-COM: Apocalypse, in 1997.

More recently Gollop has been involved with Chaos Reborn, a reboot of Lords of Chaos, and has been providing advice to Firaxis on their XCOM reboot games, Enemy Unknown, Enemy Within and XCOM 2, all of which have been excellent. Clearly Gollop's been re-inspired by these games because he's now announced a new game which clearly draws on both his original series, the reboots and - slightly unexpectedly - survival horror for inspiration.

Phoenix Point sees the world being inundated with a "mist", a plague released from the permafrost which kills a lot of the population and provides cover for a mysterious invasion of mutated creatures. The survivors are divided into dozens of widely-scattered factions with wildly varying agendas. The factions are as likely to fight each other as team up against the monsters, and resources (weapons, food, vehicles etc) will be extremely scarce. The game will also feature a dynamic campaign with events unfolding regardless if your faction is getting involved or not. If you want, you can hold back to see if other factions can weaken the enemy for you before wading in, but you then risk them also getting more loot and equipment in the process.

Particularly fascinating is that the turn-based combat mode will feature not just procedurally-generated levels, but procedurally-generated monsters, assembled from a vast array of body types and equipment. There is also a strong focus on an analytical AI, with the enemy reacting to your tactics. Specialise in snipers, for example, and they will develop counter-snipers or fast-moving creatures who can close before you can fire too many times. You will also have to contend with the mist, which forms a barrier and method of concealment on many missions.

The game is not due out until late 2018, but already looks amazing. Gollop is working on the game with a studio and is looking for a publisher. Given his already-excellent relations with 2K and Firaxis (he notes that the faction diplomacy is inspired by Firaxis's Alpha Centauri as well as his own X-COM: Apocalypse), it'd be cool to see the game end up there but I suspect there'll be a lot of interest in this game from other quarters. Part XCOM, part Stephen King, part H.P. Lovecraft, it looks absolutely great, even at this early stage.

XCOM 2

2035. Twenty years ago, aliens invaded Earth. An elite military organisation was formed to stop them: XCOM. It failed. Despite a heroic effort, the world was overrun and is now run by a joint alien-human government called ADVENT. On the surface ADVENT is peaceful and benign, pressing forward with advancements in medical technology and science. But they rule at the point of a gun and more sinister experiments are taking place in the background.

Now an underground resistance organisation, XCOM is creating sleeper cells around the world and stealing the aliens' technology to turn against them. All it needs now is a leader.

XCOM 2 is a sequel to 2012's XCOM: Enemy Unknown (and its expansion, Enemy Within), itself a remake of 1993's X-COM: UFO Defence. The X-COM/XCOM franchise has a reputation as one of the greatest video game series of all time, its combination of managing the defence of the entire planet with commanding individual combat missions against the aliens providing some truly sublime gameplay moments. XCOM 2 starts with a controversial premise: you lost the war against the aliens in the original game and now have to fight back with an underground resistance movement. There's a canonical (kind of) explanation for why you may remember winning in the original game, but you can just rationalise it as an alternate timeline if you really want.

Gameplay is similar to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, although there are a few twists. Once again you have a base of operations and have to upgrade it, building new facilities and carrying out research and development. However, your base is now a mobile SHIELD helicarrier alien cargo ship called the Avenger. You have to physically move the Avenger around the world map to recruit new agents, pick up supplies and carry out assault missions. As well as supplies (which replace money from the first game) you have to glean Intel to uncover the alien plans and you have to be more tactical in how you get hold of resources like elerium and alien alloys, which are required to research and build new equipment. When a mission starts, the game switches to a turn-based strategy map as you guide your team of up to 6 soldiers to fulfil an objective. This can vary from killing all the aliens present to rescuing a VIP to hacking a data terminal, often against a punishing time limit.

As the game continues (a first playthrough of the campaign will take around 25-30 hours) new, more powerful aliens are introduced so you have to stay on your toes, constantly researching weapons and armour so you can survive these tougher opponents and take them down. XCOM: Enemy Unknown sometimes forced you to compromise between different research tiers and trees, but XCOM 2 is positively evil in how it forces you to switch between different objectives, rush around trying to put out lots of fires simultaneously and in how long everything takes when the aliens are almost constantly attacking. XCOM 2 certainly makes you feel like you've got the whole world against you. It's a much, much tougher game than its forebear even on the equivalent difficulty levels.

It's also a game that gives you a lot of options. Character builds were something you could get away with not studying intently in the original game, but XCOM 2 is so tough that optimising your upgrade path is much more vital. For example, you can pick upgrades for your Sharpshooters that allow them to snipe enemy targets across the map with chained shots and using other soldiers to spot for them. You can also eschew that and pursue a gunslinger series of upgrades that give them up to six pistol shots a turn. A pistol doesn't do much damage, but upgrade it to a plasma pistol and fire it six times and it rapidly becomes one of the most powerful weapons in the game. The other classes get similar upgrades, with Grenadiers able to deal out masses of high damage with explosives and heavy weaponry and Specialists getting powerful drones that can dish out first aid and force fields (effectively) from right across the map. Rangers get excellent scouting and melee combat abilities that makes them formidable both at range and up-close.

For those who love rolling dice and comparing stats, XCOM2 is immensely rewarding. For those who want to just enjoy the game and get through to the end, don't be afraid to whack the difficulty down to easy ("Easy" in XCOM 2 is really not all that easy at all) and save-scum your way through the game. It doesn't take prisoners.

The game does hit the same sweet spot as the original of combining the widescreen, epic war for humanity's survival on a global level with individual combat missions, allowing you to customise your soldiers in almost any way that you please. However, whilst in-mission combat is tenser, more varied and more scenic than before - helped by the new, randomly-generated maps - the global strategic game is a lot more annoying. Some things take inexplicably long amounts of time - three days to pick up a supply drop you've just been given the coordinates to? - and you can bet that a vital, non-skippable mission will crop up 2 seconds before you'd have otherwise successfully researched your next tier of body armour. The game does a great job of making you feel like you're up against insurmountable odds, but all too often goes over that line and makes it almost impossible to proceed. The problem is that this steep increase in challenge abruptly falls off once you get the best weapons and gear and the game becomes, if not easy, than relatively straightforward.

XCOM 2 (****) is therefore a very good game, but ends up being frustrating. The combat is more interesting than in Enemy Unknown and represents a major step forward over it, but the grand strategic game feels random, arbitrary and at times tedious, and is a bit of a step back from Enemy Unknown's. Combined with the much more punishing difficulty level, this makes the game hard to recommend unambiguously. If you enjoyed the previous game and want more of the same, but more hardcore, XCOM 2 is certainly worth your time. If you haven't tried the franchise yet, I would definitely recommend starting with the previous game before tackling this one. XCOM 2 is available now on PC.

Technical Notes
XCOM 2 launched in a heavily bugged state on PC, featuring unusual lag, inexplicable CPU and GPU spikes and frame-rate drops, and occasional crashes. I was lucky in that I experienced only one actual crash in the whole game, and this guide helped improve performance immeasurably. However, waiting for a more comprehensive patch to fix the game's problems may be advisable.

XCOM: Enemy Within

Earth is under alien attack and it is up to the multinational defence organisation XCOM to defeat the invaders. But the aliens are now employing more advanced technology, including genetically-engineered creatures and mecha-suits. It falls to XCOM to adapt these weapons against the alien threat, even as it finds itself under attack by a fifth column of humans sympathetic to the alien cause.

XCOM: Enemy Within is a major expansion to the original XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It isn't a sequel to the original game, but instead completely expands and reworks it. The meat of the game remains the same: you command XCOM, researching new technologies, launching satellites to scan for alien ships and launching interceptors to shoot them down, and then deploying combat troops to fight the invaders through a turn-based battle system. The difference is that as well as fighting the aliens, you are also battling EXALT, a group of humans who have sided with the aliens. In addition to this, you can now develop G-Mods (genetic enhancements to your troops) and MECs (massive robot battle-suits) to expand the fray. Rounding things off are more advanced options to make the game harder or easier, or expand its length dramatically.

At its core, this is still the same XCOM experience as the original and if you didn't like that, Enemy Within doesn't do anything that will win you over. This is for players who enjoyed the original game and want more of it. Sadly, there aren't any new weapons (although there now more varieties of grenade) or armour, or new alien types beyond the Seeker, a flying squid-thing which can cloak and strangle soldiers without warning. The Sectoids can also now use MECs themselves, which makes this fairly nonthreatening species dangerous again at an advanced stage of the game, but still fairly easy to defeat.

A big difference is the introduction of EXALT, a sort-of anti-XCOM who use similar weapons and tactics to your own troops. They seem a bit more threatening as well, more likely to use Overwatch and their troop types includes heavy missile and sniper classes that the aliens lack. EXALT are a worthy new addition to the game, but also one that can be disposed of without too much trouble: in the course of the new 30-hour campaign I played for this review, EXALT were around for maybe 8 hours of it before I defeated them for good.

The G-Mods and MECs are interesting new additions to the game, but are of limited utility. MECs look awesome, but their weapons are frequently less capable than the ones your own troops sport and their inability to use cover means they tend to draw the fire of almost every alien on the map on every turn. This makes them, weirdly, more useful as last-minute reinforcements to use only when everyone else is committed rather than the front-line shock troops they seem designed to be. G-Mods give your troops formidable bonuses, but these tend to be more useful only on the more punishing difficulty levels.

Enemy Within does bring a huge amount of variety to the base game. There are many more map types and variety of maps, and the various optional DLC has now all been folded into the game. This results in more narrative-based Council missions and more stuff to research and build. There is also a rather nasty new surprise in the form of a punishing base invasion mission, where the aliens will actually assault your base at an inconvenient moment and you have to fend them off in one of the more tense encounters in the game.

All of that said, the basic game is still the same and some may find these new additions do complicate what was a perfectly-balanced game. Others, and such is my view, will find that the additions inject new life to a classic title and elevate it just that little more. Enemy Within (*****) is available now on console in the UK (X-Box 360, PS3) and USA (X-Box 360, PS3), and on PC via Steam.

XCOM 2 announced

Firaxis and Take Two have announced that XCOM 2, the sequel to 2012's XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion, Enemy Within, will be released in October this year.

The new game is set twenty years after the events of the previous ones and features a bit of an about-turn from the end of those games: the aliens have invaded, again, but this time in much greater force and have won, occupying the planet. XCOM has been forced underground, waiting until some degree of complacency has set in on the part of the aliens, and then striking back unexpectedly. The game features a mobile base, the Avenger, and XCOM teams launching attacks on alien forces both in rural areas and inside the gleaming, futuristic cities they have built for their human sympathisers/drones. There is more of an emphasis on stealth and guerrilla warfare this time around, with the game apparently drawing inspiration from the third of the original 1990s XCOM games, X-COM: Apocalypse.

The game will also use procedural generation to create battle maps, rather than simply rotating through the same eighty-odd default maps as in the original game. There will be new weapons, alien types and new character classes.

XCOM 2 is, unexpectedly, a PC exclusive with no console release mooted at the current time. Enemy Unknown did surprisingly well on console, so the decision to limit the release to PC only is interesting. Firaxis should be revealing why shortly, but there are theories that the new game will feature a much heavier modding focus than the previous ones.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

1962. The Cold War is at its height. In great secrecy, President John F. Kennedy has ordered the founding of the Bureau of Operations and Command, code-named XCOM, which will coordinate the defence of the American homeland in case of a Soviet invasion. When Earth instead falls under clandestine attack by alien forces, XCOM's brief is changed to defend against the incursions. CIA Special Agent William Carter is recruited by XCOM as the alien attacks intensify and has to lead the fight back.

The Bureau is a prequel to the critically-acclaimed 2012 turn-based strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Unlike that game, The Bureau is a real-time action game played in third person, with emphasis on shooting from cover. You command a squad of three soldiers (one of them is always Agent Carter) who are each equipped with different weapons and powers to be used against the alien threat. At the start of the game you are using contemporary weapons, but as the game goes on you can recover alien weapons and turn them against their creators.

The Bureau had a rocky road to release. Begun in 2007 as a fresh reboot of the XCOM franchise, development was shared between 2K Marin and Australia. The vision for the game shifted repeatedly. The original 2010 E3 demo showed a tense, claustrophobic game based around investigation and gathering evidence of alien incursions. It was more like the X-Files and appeared to be a highly original and experimental direction to take the series in. However, it appeared to have nothing to do whatsoever with the existing XCOM franchise. The developers didn't exactly endear themselves to fans by declaring that strategy games were dead. Astonishingly, the developers of The Bureau did not know about Firaxis's Enemy Unknown game until it was revealed to the general public in early 2012, and that game's enormous critical and sales success left their more traditional (and moribund) action-shooter looking rather unnecessary.

2K seemed to agree. The game was transformed into an action shooter clone of the Mass Effect games, had some of the traditional XCOM aliens shoe-horned into it and a narrative link to Enemy Unknown rammed into its ending that is quite astonishingly unconvincing. Literally days after ushering The Bureau out of the door in August 2013, 2K announced an expansion for Enemy Unknown named Enemy Within and seemed to do everything they could to make people forget about The Bureau, including firing most of the people that worked on it.

All of this context might lead you to be expecting a truly terrible game. In fact, The Bureau is an enjoyable, competently-executed cover-based shooter with some really nice tactical options. The storyline and characters are - mostly - forgettable, but there's some great ideas going on here. Recruiting new troops and sending them on missions you can't attend yourself is a great idea (and one that could be transferred to Enemy Unknown, which suffered plausibility issues by always having the aliens attack three targets simultaneously) and the levelling stuff is a good way of differentiating characters. There is permadeath as well, although the game's use of checkpoints and quick-loads means it's easier to avoid than in Enemy Unknown. In-battle powers are chunky and satisfying, and towards the end of the game you find yourself assessing the battlefield, deploying drones and turrets and giving orders to your team-mates as much as you are firing plasma rifles. Combat may be ripped from the Mass Effect series, but frankly it's handled better. The last few missions in particular have some epic and memorable firefights.

There's some great attention to period detail, with 1962 America brought vividly to life through music, architecture, cars, aircraft and so on. This version of XCOM's Skyranger being a 1960s transport helicopter is a cool idea, and rather than having tons of Interceptors you have just the one experimental flying saucer which plays a big role at the end of the game.

On the negative side of things, there's way too much physically running around the badly-designed base and the story and characters never really gel. Dialogue is irritating as characters you can speak to have word balloons above their head, but these don't vanish or change colour to confirm you've spoken to them. This means it's impossible to tell when you need to speak to someone again to get new information without talking to every single character between missions, which gets old very quickly. That said, there is a really, really good story twist in the last couple of missions. If you keep a close eye on what's going on you can see it coming, but it's still a well-executed plot twist that hints at greater narrative strengths than the game ever really engages with. The attempts to tie in the plot with Enemy Unknown are also interesting, but ultimately unrealistic. The plot hinges on the alien invasion - complete with Washington, DC being attacked, Chicago being burned to the ground and dozens of multi-kilometre alien towers being built across the country -  being completely covered up by the American government so the alien attack in Enemy Unknown still comes as a surprise, but this is ludicrously unconvincing.

Still, The Bureau (***½) may struggle to be a good XCOM game, but judged purely on its own merits it is a competent, entertaining shooter with some great combat and a decent length (clocking in at about 15 hours for the single-player campaign), and definitely a lot better than its lengthy development and its mistreatment by its publishers suggests it should be. Recommended, but preferably as a budget release. The game is available now in the UK (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3) and USA (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3).

XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot

Slingshot is a DLC  - or minor expansion - for last year's hugely successful turn-based strategy game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It shouldn't be confused with the absolutely massive and far more significant expansion, Enemy Within, out in November. Slingshot is an altogether modest, though far from pointless, affair. On console it will also be included with Enemy Within should you wish to wait for that release.

Slingshot makes a number of modest changes to a game of XCOM. It gives you a new character, a former Triad operative who quickly becomes a Lieutenant in your organisation. Starting a new game with Slingshot installed sees you get this character quite quickly, which can accelerate early-game progression. This has good and bad points. On the good point, you'll get him promoted (and thus access to the six-man squad upgrade) much earlier than normal. On the bad side, having a character of his level in your squad will also trigger the arrival of mid-game bad guys earlier than you normally would encounter them, which can cause a steep challenge if the new character is then injured or killed and has to sit out missions.

As well as a new character, there are also three new narrative missions. These missions see you taking down an alien battleship which is about to attack China. In the first mission you have to extract the new character and his intel on the alien ship. In the second, you have to install an alien homing device on a train to lure the ship into an ambush, and in the final one you have to storm the alien ship and capture it. This results in a significant early-game boost to XCOM's acquisition of new technology. It's all good stuff and can have a discernible impact on an XCOM playthrough. In particular, the much earlier unlocking of alloy rifles and other high-level weaponry (which usually are unlocked too late to make any major impact on a campaign) can make a big difference in how the endgame plays out.

For a modest cost, Slingshot (***½) does add some nice new features to an XCOM replay, though its feature set (but also the price) is dwarfed by the incoming changes from Enemy Within. For those who are already addicted to the game, Slingshot adds some welcome replayability.

Note: Slingshot is included as part of Enemy Within, so do not try to purchase this is you already have Enemy Within!

XCOM: ENEMY WITHIN announced

Firaxis have confirmed they are working on a major expansion and overhaul to XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Entitled XCOM: Enemy Within, the game will launch on 13 November this year.

The game will be an expansion for PC users and a stand-alone boxed release for console gamers (where it will also incorporate the previously-published DLC for the original game). The bad news is that the campaign will unfold pretty much as before, with the same milestone missions such as attacking the alien base and infiltrating the enemy command ship. There's no new campaign as such. However, the existing campaign will be changed.

The most obvious changes include new weapons such as a flamethrower, which is devastating for short-range combat, and new enemies such as the Mechtoid, a Sectoid in a battle-mech suit. These battle-mech suits - known as MECs - can also be created by your forces, giving you a powerful new weapon on the battlefield. You can also genetically modify your soldiers using alien tech. Both MECs and G-mods will require a new resource called 'Melds' which need to be recovered during missions. However, the aliens will set the Meld canisters to self-destruct when you attack. This will introduce new tactical considerations to missions, with players having to choose to secure Melds, carry out their mission objectives more quickly or split their forces. Because the Melds are alien tech, it is possible for them to corrupt your soldiers if you are not careful, hence the title.

There will be 47 new maps and map-types, including much-requested farm layouts. The game will now also track how often certain maps are used and will pump in new maps to reduce repetition. The game's code has also been adjusted with some elements previously locked away in Unreal Engine files now transferred to the .ini files, allowing modders to adjust the game more thoroughly than before. However, enabling randomly-generated maps will not be possible.

This is positive news, although the lack of a new campaign or other much-requested features (like base invasions) is slightly disappointing. But anything that fleshes out the original, excellent game is certainly worthwhile.

New XCOM game out in August

Or, more accurately, the old XCOM first-person shooter has been rejigged as a third-person action game and will be out in August.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (and sadly not Mad Men vs. Aliens) is the new name for what was previously called just XCOM. The game has had a highly troubled history, with development extending back a good four years. The success of last year's XCOM: Enemy Unknown seems to have caused a bit of a rethink and the game has moved away from a first-person viewpoint to a third-person one, with a cover system apparently inspired by the turn-based game. The setting - 1962 America - remains intact but there is now a traditional XCOM base hub from where players will choose missions (which will include both story-based essential assignments and optional side-objectives) and learn important information.

On the negative side, the FPS version's more intriguing elements, like a focus on investigation and clue-gathering with combat being a secondary concern, sound like they've been watered down, with combat now the square focus of the game. Some of the more intriguing alien designs have been retained, however.


Finally, it remains unclear if The Bureau is a prequel to Enemy Unknown or is still set in a parallel universe, as the FPS version was. We'll find out on 20 August.

The Making of XCOM

Polygon.com have an excellent article here on the making of the recent strategy game (and my top game of 2012) XCOM. Lead designer Jake Solomon and head of Firaxis Sid Meier talk extensively about the game's nine-year development process, the multiple false starts on the project and how it only came together when they brainstormed ideas for a week whilst playing a board game version of the title.

Lots of great stuff there and confirmation at the end that an XCOM sequel is being looked at.

The Wertzone Awards 2012

Once more unto the breach!

Best Novels

1. Existence by David Brin
David Brin returns after a long absence with a sweeping, state-of-the-nation take on what our lives may be like in the mid-21st Century. Strong characters and a thorough exploration of scientific and technological ideas combine for my strongest book of the year.

2. Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
Beckett's second novel is difficult to describe, being a piece built more around mood and atmosphere than plot. It's the story of the descendants of an ancient starship crash who discover more about the world around them and their true history, and thus about themselves.

3. Kings of Morning by Paul Kearney
Kearney conclude his exploration of Greek and Persian history through the lens of fantasy with aplomb, with flawed characters finding their destinies against the backdrop of war.

4. Railsea by China Mieville
A vast world consisting of oceans of rails, with immense trains ploughing across them. A crazed and whimsical echo of Moby Dick, but with awesome monsters and concepts straight from Mieville's weird imagination. Also incidental winner of the Biggest Mole Monster in SFF Award 2012.

5. Forge of Darkness by Steven Erikson
Erikson steps back from the immense complexity of his Malazan sequence to deliver a (relatively) straightforward prequel. Freed from the weight of backstory, Forge of Darkness is Erikson's finest fantasy novel in a decade.

6. 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Like Brin, Robinson also undertakes a thorough exploration of what humanity may be like in the future, this time 300 years hence. His effort is larger-scaled, taking in the entire Solar system, but fails compared to Brin due to an undercooked political thriller subplot. Still, a visionary work.

7. Red Country by Joe Abercrombie
A bonkers mashup of Al Swearengen, Rockstar Games and Clint Eastwood, this is a fantasy war western on an epic scale. With Abercrombie's trademark black humour and cynical characters, the story is traditionally bloody, brutal and conspicuously lacking in banjos.

8. Sharps by K.J. Parker
Parker's latest novel veers away from her(?) recent novels in being based around an ensemble cast rather than a single individual. It's also hilarious, with the characters being in the middle of a traditional epic fantasy backdrop but without a clue what's going on.

9. The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham
After the good-but-underwhelming Dragon's Path, Abraham's Dagger and the Coin series explodes more readily into life with this second volume. It's a more coherent and focused work than the first novel, consolidating Abraham's position as one of our most promising (relatively) new fantasy writers.

10. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
Jemisin's epic fantasy by way of Egyptian history and mythology is a bit of a slow-burner, but a smart and intriguing book.

Bubbling under: Blood and Bone by Ian Cameron Esslemont, Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton, The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams, The Twelve by Justin Cronin, Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds, Orb Sceptre Throne by Ian Cameron Esslemont, The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lilith Saintcrow, Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey, The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove, Ice and Fire by David Wingrove, Crown of Embers by Rae Carson.

The Wertzone SFF Comeback Award 2012

After a decade being mildly snarky about the Star Wars prequels (among a few other things), Brin returns with his most epic and impressive novel to date. Nicely done.

The Wertzone Award for Best Book Read in 2012 Regardless of Release Date

A book that manages to pack more story, character and thematic exploration into its low page count than some authors manage in entire trilogies. Intelligent and thought-provoking. Next year for the hat-trick?

Best Games

1. XCOM
Firaxis's resurrection of a twenty-year-old classic is a resounding success. Eminently replayable with a fiendish, "Just one more go!" feel, XCOM is a fitting tribute to the original game and a thoroughly compelling game in its own right.

2. Dishonored
Darkly atmospheric with an unusual setting and a laudable focus on stealth and intelligence over mindless slaughter, playing Dishonored is a rich (but often stressful) experience with a strong element of replayability to it as you attempt to get that perfect 'undetected' pass of a level.

3. Far Cry 3
As bonkers freeform shooters go, they don't get much more bonkers or more successfully freeform than Far Cry 3. A fantastic sense of setting and place with sublime combat overcomes some early makework problems in the early game. Plus the only game on this list where you can blow up a crocodile with a landmine, and is that not what humanity has striven for since first we looked at the stars?

4. The Walking Dead
A zombie game where the zombies are incidental, serving only as the vehicle which fleshes out character and plot. And with this game (based on being halfway through), Telltale have delivered their best characters and most compelling plot so far, not to mention the finest take on The Walking Dead franchise in any medium to date. Full review forthcoming.

5. Alan Wake (PC Edition)
An older, under-appreciated game on console is brought back to life on PC with jaw-dropping graphics and a sense of atmosphere that is staggering, not to mention some hilarious observations on the life of a 'struggling writer'. The PC version includes the two expansions and is an absorbing game.

6. Black Mesa
A bunch of unpaid fans spend eight years updating the greatest first-person shooter of all time (Half-Life) with modern graphics and production values. Frankly better than almost all of the actual original first-person shooters professionally released this year. Worth it just for the Chuckle Brothers reference.

7. Mass Effect 3
It's been a surprisingly thin year for roleplaying games, but Mass Effect 3 nearly makes up for it by itself. With a thorough exploration of consequence and hopelessness, set against a backdrop of smart characterisation and a soundtrack to die for, this could have been a contender for game of the year...at least before a series of titanic logic failures leads to the single most controversial ending of any popular franchise in the last ten years. The Leviathan and 'Extended Cut' DLCs help repair the damage somewhat, but it's not quite enough to overcome the disbelief. Still, the other 95% of the game is awesome.

8. Max Payne 3
Rockstar were always going to have to work hard to convince fans of one of the finest action games of all time that they were suited to take over the franchise, and in isolated, brilliant moments Max Payne 3 succeeds. In others it disappoints, particularly the game's reluctance to actually let you play it (with frequent, unskippable and tedious five-minute cut scenes). The breathless action sequences and stunning soundtrack go some way to repairing the damage, however.

9. Game of Thrones: The RPG
Awful graphics and dubious combat do not for a good RPG make. However, the awesome characters and a series of plot twists that even GRRM may have considered too shocking elevate this game above its problems to become something really interesting. And, based on the dozen hours I've pumped into it so far, frankly better than Dragon Age: Origins.

10. Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Remedy's quasi-sequel to the excellent Alan Wake has some terrific ideas floating below the surface, but ultimately proves too repetitive to withstand comparison with its older, more impressive sibling.

Best TV Series

1. Game of Thrones
The second season may have been more disappointing than the first, but it was still the television highlight of the year. Peter Dinklage's performance is even stronger this year than in the first, and more screen time for Charles Dance is always a good thing (though skirting the edges of being too much of a good thing). Some of the more tedious aspects ("Ships! Dragons! Ships! Dragons!") are more than outweighed by the outstanding episode Blackwater.

2. The Walking Dead
The second season of this show was probably best first-experienced on Blu-Ray, with the endless wanderings through the forest looking for missing characters getting a bit old by mid-season. But a renewed focus on character relationships and the deteriorating mental state of the redoubtable Shane (along with the occasional zombie massacre scene) do prove ultimately worthwhile.

3. Merlin
The final season of what started as a light-hearted kid's show proves to be unexpectedly dark, with multiple character deaths and a surprising adherence to the original legend's brutal conclusion. Well-acted and thoroughly enjoyable. If only the whole series had been like this.

4. Doctor Who
A switch to more stand-alone episodes after last year's over-convoluted arc proves to be a success, allowing the show to return to its roots as an enjoyable slice of SF hokum. The arrival of mysterious new companion Clara 'Kenny' Oswald, played with infectious enthusiasm by Jenna-Louise Coleman, has also helped revive the show following the exhaustion of Rory and Amy's storylines.

5. Red Dwarf
Given the damage wreaked on the Red Dwarf name by its seventh and eighth seasons (and the horrendous Back to Earth special of a few years ago, now retconned as the ninth season), expectations were accordingly low for this new season. The cast overcome the issues of age to continue to deliver fine performances with some of the best scripts the show has had in twenty years. Whilst there's still lots of misfires, this latest return for the show is worthwhile.


6. Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome
This pilot for an aborted Battlestar Galactica spin-off tries to make up for the problems of Caprica - being too talky and lacking action - but goes way too far in the opposite direction. Dubious characters and workmanlike performances are held up by some remarkable CGI, but ultimately it's for the best the show wasn't picked up.

Best Film

1. Ted
The touching and beautiful story of a young boy and his magical bear who comes to life. Later they take drugs together and meet Sam Jones from the 1980s Flash Gordon movie whilst Patrick Stewart berates Brandon Routh for making Superman Returns in narrative voiceover. Frankly, no other film this year was as much fun.

2. The Dark Knight Rises
Better than The Dark Knight (note: I am well aware that I am the only person on Earth who thinks this), this third movie in the series is a satisfying conclusion to Christopher Nolan's grimdark interpretation of the Dark Knight. As usual, Michael Caine is the best thing in it but is given a run for his money by Anne Hathaway's unexpectedly excellent Catwoman and Tom Hardy's evil Bane (despite sounding like he's sucking in helium whilst at the bottom of well).

3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Whilst the overall wisdom of extending a very short novel into a nine-hour trilogy remains to be seen, this first installment works thanks to excellent performances by Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Andy Serkis and Richard Armitage and the decision to flesh out the dwarves and their backstory much more than Tolkien did. Also the winner of the Best Hedgehog Scene of 2012 Award.

4. Cabin in the Woods
Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's metatextual examination of the horror movie genre risks tremendous smugness in its own cleverness but just about gets away with it with a darkly effective premise. Jet-black humour and a ruthlessness in dispatching major characters combine with inventive methods of murder and misdirection to create something very interesting.

5. The Avengers
Joss Whedon almost loses control of this vast behemoth of a movie several times, but just about reigns it in. The movie risks overwhelming the audience with explosions and action, but an undercurrent of humour and some great character moments (mostly involving Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson) save the film from total Baydom and instead render it nosily enjoyable.

7. The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins's slightly underwhelming novel is transformed into an enjoyable film, even if it adheres too much to the books in not giving the characters real moral issues to address. Still, great performances from Jennifer Lawrence and Donald Sutherland bode well for the sequels.
7. The Woman in Black
Daniel Radcliffe shakes off the Ghost of Potter to deliver a fine performance in this adaptation of Suzanne Hill's novel. Some standard horror techniques are over-used, but the film delivers an atmospheric experience.

8. Prometheus
Ridley Scott's Alien quasi-prequel features some superb acting, stunning set design and phenomenal set-pieces, but sacrifices too much logic and intelligence to achieve it. A visually impressive cinematic experience, but ultimately a hollow one. However, it does confirm the long-held belief that Everything is Better With Idris Elba.

The Wertzone Missing in Action 2012 Award

At the start of the year it seemed very possibly - even likely - that Valve was on the cusp of officially announcing Half-Life 3. That didn't happen, though head of Valve Gabe Newell did confirm that they are at least working on it, and we can expect it to appear some time between now and the heat death of the universe.

The Wertzone Award for Special Achievements in Seriously, Dude, What the Hell?

Tie.