When XCOM 2 was recently announced by Firaxis, many fans expressed their joy about finally getting a sequel to the successful 'XCOM: Enemy Unknown' and 'Enemy Within'. However, their joy was short-lived after they got to know the game will be a PC exclusive one.
Considering the fact that both 'Enemy Unknown' and 'Enemy Within' were made for both consoles and mobiles, this was quite a shock for the fans of the franchise. However, it seems like Firaxis has finally opened up on why the game has been marked for a PC release, in a recent interview with IGN.
Firaxis' Creative Director Jake Solomon explained: "When we looked at what we wanted to do with the sequel, we had all these very, very ambitious goals. To do that, we had to use all of our studio expertise ... and our expertise here is PC. That's our home, and that's where we're really comfortable."
He added: "Internally, with a relatively small team for the size of the game that we are, to be able to say we can focus on our platform that the studio has a pedigree for, and that X-COM: UFO Defense has a pedigree for, as PC-only... it just made a lot of sense, and that's how we wanted to dedicate our time.
"When we have our meetings, when we talk about stuff, we only talk about PC. We talk about 'What is the experience like on PC? What does the mouse feel like in this experience?' The most obvious change resulting from those conversations is how the team is optimizing the interface to be mouse-and-keyboard friendly, moving UI elements and grouping them logically so that buttons we're likely to press one after the other aren't placed on opposite sides of the screen. It will certainly be recognizable, but there isn't one UI widget that's the same."
Does that mean we will never get to see another XCOM on consoles, going ahead? Well, Solomon thinks otherwise. "We're certainly not opposed to that, but I can assure that's something we're not even discussing yet," he said.
He also noted that while the Xbox One and PS4 can technically run the game, developing a game as ambitious and feature-rich as XCOM 2 on three platforms simultaneously would be next to impossible for a team the size of Firaxis.
Are you excited about the new XCOM? Let us know in the comments section below.
[Source: Gamingbolt]
