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The Art Of XCOM: Enemy Unknown

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by Ben Hanson on January 11, 2012 at 11:00 AM
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After years of creating barbarians and Mahatma Ghandis for the Civilization series, art director Greg Foertsch was given the task of reimagining the look of X-COM. Shedding the original's Saturday-morning-graphic-novel look for one of slightly stylized "miniatures", Greg Foertsch and his team of artists have pored over the details of everything from the insectoids to the Skyranger. Check out the video below to see concept art and screens from the game and to learn more about how the new game takes advantage of an active camera.

In addition, we've got three more screenshots from the game in the media gallery below for your viewing pleasure.

To learn more about XCOM: Enemy Unknown, please click on the link to our content hub below.

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  • by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 11:11 AM
    First image on the main page looks just like my car... I wish. Aren't we supposed to have flying cars by now?
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    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 11:17 AM
    I wonder if the points where the camera comes into to focus on the action will be implemented well. I'm not sure if it would meld well with the top-down camera angle.
  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 11:19 AM
    I usually hate cartooney designs and games but these characters and weapons look sweeet...

    Firaxis always pulls it off, never dissapointed me before.
  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 12:01 PM

    I have to say, the art for this game looks really, really impressive.  I think the style is perfect for a modern X-COM (the original style would look too cartoony in 3D, and an ulta-realistic one would look funny with sectoids running around)  I thought they did an amazing job with the art in Civilization V as well.

  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 12:07 PM

    Huh, they've got some crazy doors in that office.

  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 03:09 PM

    fourth line. word number 8.

    there were no "insectoids" in ufo: enemy unknown.

    you should know what i am talking about if you played the game and loved it.

  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 03:52 PM

    Looks like a cool art style.

  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 05:01 PM

    Anyone else see the Gameinformer Magazines at 3:27? Dead Space for the Win!

  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 05:47 PM

    this looks amazing! man i cant wait to pick this up. thank you firaxis

  •
    by Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 06:31 PM
    Ooooh, I see destructible terrain on that second screenshot.
    Hopefully, the blaster launcher will make a comeback :)

    Oh and, will you be able to spot Adam Baldwin at 1:55? :p
  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 12:07 AM

    pretty cool looking

  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 01:13 AM
    Oh man those mutons look so much better than the original's purple-skinned green spandex monsters!
  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 02:52 AM

    Hey at 2:11 there is a marine with the Bulgarian flag on the suit :)

  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 05:23 AM

    Great video and awesome design work there. So far, I'm really liking what I see.

  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 10:34 AM

    The simplicity is a great touch

  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 01:35 PM

    Game is looking more and more promising after initially being kinda disappointed by the first screenshot reveal with the forest and slender men. It just looked like a game from 2002 graphically, but I think that was just poor resolution.

    I'm really reassured that it's not being dumbed down too much after watching and reading the main article in my February digital issue of GameInformer. The team at Firaxis seem to be pretty hardcore fans of the game and are including features that would've been easy for them to avoid to make the game "easier". It would've been tempting I'm sure to not include permadeath or force choices on players in global view about who to save. I can't wait, I hope it's as good as it's looking with all these features on the site and in the magazine itself!

    Also: I agree with eeowdah. I know it's the writer of the article and not the Firaxis team, but with all this over the top reassuring about how the development team is hardcore fans maybe we shouldn't have writers writing about "insectoids". Small thing, not a big deal if this didn't seem to be the enormous deal with splash pages and everything that GameInformer and Firaxis want it to be. Reassure hardcore fans, use the correct fictional terminology. :D

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    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 02:59 PM
    if only this game was NOT turn based...
  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 03:58 PM

    the art style looks nice and crisp

  •
    by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 08:21 PM

    Game is looking solid. Sid Miere and Firaxis make a deadly combo when it comes to terms to a turn-by-turn strategy and have been known to add an amazing level of depth. If anything, it'd be pretty much like Civilization Revolution for the consoles, and even those strategy games hit the consoles pretty hard. Granted, it was no Civilization V, but it was still something for us who play consoles.

  • by Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 08:36 PM

    Heh, Who else wants a wallpaper of the large sketch on the whiteboard? :)

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