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Firaxis Wants You To Play PC-Only XCOM 2 Forever, With The Help Of Modders
Earlier this month, 2K and Firaxis announced a sequel to 2012's XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Unlike its predecessor though, XCOM 2 is (at least for now) a PC exclusive.
Speaking with IGN, XCOM 2 lead producer Garth DeAngelis and creative director Jake Solomon explain that the game they are making embraces the mod community. The studio plans to release a developer kit so users can work in the heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3 upon which XCOM 2 is built.
"Because we're a Firaxis game, we're committed to this idea of player value," Solomon told IGN. "We want our players to play our games forever, and so we want to have this sort of vibrant community around the game,” he said. “We want people to talk, to communicate with us, and for our games to have this really long life cycle, because that increases the value of our games.”
The team cites the work of a team behind the XCOM: Enemy Unknown mod The Long War as an example of the kind of initiative that extends the life of a game long after the developer is done crafting it. The last title didn't feature the kind of toolset that will be offered in XCOM 2, making The Long War's 20 player classes, updated perks, new weapons and gear, and need for soldier rest an even more impressive feat.
As Firaxis previously told IGN, it isn't completely ruling out a console release, but isn't on the table right now. If it ever were to come to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it would necessarily be missing mod support, which Firaxis views as one of the game's most important elements.
[Source: IGN (1), (2), NexusMods - The Long War]
Our Take
When you look at something like The Long War mod and realize it was done without an easy point of access to the game, it's easy to think big about what will be done with XCOM 2. If you've never modded a game (or investigated some of what's been created for popular titles), head over to NexusMods and browse. The options are staggering, making an enormous case of becoming a PC Gamer, even if (like me), you've spent most of your life with a console controller in hand.
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