XCOM 2 notes from Firaxicon

I took some notes during the XCOM 2 panel at Firaxicon today, so I figured I'd share. Lots of juicy new (at least to me) morsels shared. This is mostly from memory and the game is still very much in development, so accuracy in the final product may vary.

Major focus on replayability:

- Maps are now fully procedurally generated: there are multiple environments (they showed city and small town examples) and biomes (we saw wilderness, arid and tundra). These mostly just seem to affect the look and feel, although factors like amounts of different types of cover, and likelihood of presence of certain unit types were also factors mentioned. Weaponry is also customizable now.

- The game relies more on open-ended strategies, and less on an overarching narrative and its associated rails. Missions are now based on varying major and minor objectives, which will be a welcome departure from the 'Gather meld, kill bugs! Gather meld, kill more bugs!' cycle. Interestingly, the enemy AI now also has variable objectives and win conditions which will inform the tactics it employs against you. In short, you are facing a subtly different opponent each time you start a new playthrough.

- At certain intervals the enemy will build up to a 'dark event' which will alter the story in progress in their favor. XCOM can catch wind of these events before they happen, in which case you'll need to decide whether investing the time and resources to prevent it is worth it. There will also be random and unpredictable 'world events' that can tip the balance in either direction.

- Extremely extensive mod support will be present out of the gate in the form of a Steam Workshop toolkit for the game similar to what was released for Civ V. It will contain the unreal editor used in game development, as well as all script sources and game assets. The kit is specifically intended to drastically lower the barrier to entry for modding the game, allowing even inexperienced modern to 'kit bash' mods together with minimal effort.

Many engine and gameplay enhancements:

- Updated graphics with an emphasis on camera and materials improvements. Skin and clothing/equipment textures look more real, and the environment has a much higher degree of fidelity. In-engine cinematics that were originally staged for E3 worked so well that they decided to make them a regular part of the game. The fixed action camera perspective is gone, the action cam now travels and pans appropriately. Time of day is now dynamic and accurately represented (if you hit a mission site while it is on the night side of the globe, you get a night mission). Weather is also dynamic on each map.

- Tactics have been overhauled with an eye to accommodating different play styles and new abilities such as melee and hacking. The hacking ability is a percentage roll based on skill, and at least one new class was added that provides a skill bonus; the traditional 'hacking minigame' was explicitly avoided. The overwatch code was overhauled so radically that the devs refer to it as Overwatch 2.0; one immediate benefit is that OW is now truly sequential, so if multiple soldiers in OW spot the same moving enemy, they will fire one at a time, and if the enemy is taken down any soldiers that have not yet fired will not do so and remain in overwatch.

New enemies announced at Firaxicon:

- Advent Shieldbearer: this is a heavily armored Advent unit capable of 'casting' an additional layer of shielding around all nearby units making them significantly more damage resistant. This will be the 'kill him *first*' unit of XCOM 2 - if he manages to get the shield up, it can be taken down by killing him.
- Archon: this is the evolved, and much better looking, version of the Floater. In addition to its old tricks it now wields a staff capable of both melee and beam attacks, and it can also take off and launch a devastating series of mortar attacks called 'pinion strike'.

Last but not least, they showed a little more backstory footage, in which the Commander (i.e. you) is extracted from a stasis pod and awoken after having some unspecified but highly unpleasant alien implants removed.

All in all, I thought I could not possibly be more excited about XCOM 2 before attending this panel, but I was wrong. The team's enthusiasm for their project was infectious, and the work shown looked amazing. I can't wait till February.

They said they will be releasing about 45GB of art assets with the modding kit. "Lots of tabletop napkin holders".

XCOM 2 is pretty high on my list of anticipated titles, and this doesn't help.

One of their over-arching principles was to avoid doing a one-to-one translation of the first game with added bits and bobs. They started with the idea that XCOM 2 is what happens 20 years after you lost the first game. So in a sense, it's an homage to all the *failed* games.

I also spoke with a fan of The Long War, who had discussed that with the lead creative guy. He believes that that mod heavily influenced the sequel, and the producer definitely mentioned it a few times with admiration. So expect some similarities with that.

Gremlin wrote:

XCOM 2 is pretty high on my list of anticipated titles, and this doesn't help. :D

Glad to be of filthy enabling service.

It's my #1 anticipated title!!!!

Work from here on out to the end of the year was gonna be relatively low key, so I was really looking forward to a november release, but alas, I know the push is only gonna make this better.

All the tidbits you mentioned sound awesome, and I'm even more excited for it now. So much so, that I downloaded the Long War beta 15f3 now, and started another campaign.

Very cool stuff. Thanks for the update.

Good job Fire. It's a shame I'm on media blackout for this game but it looks well written as I scrolled down quickly.

Maps are now fully procedurally generated

Sold.

garion333 wrote:
Maps are now fully procedurally generated

Sold.

The maps are not fully procedurally generated. We have hand crafted small 'parcels' (think buildings) that are then randomly chosen to be stitched together to build the full map. So you will start recognizing individual buildings, but you will never know what is beyond each building. This allows us to get the quality of handcrafted levels while maintaining randomness in the maps to facilitate replayability.

Tkyl wrote:
garion333 wrote:
Maps are now fully procedurally generated

Sold.

The maps are not fully procedurally generated. We have hand crafted small 'parcels' (think buildings) that are then randomly chosen to be stitched together to build the full map. So you will start recognizing individual buildings, but you will never know what is beyond each building. This allows us to get the quality of handcrafted levels while maintaining randomness in the maps to facilitate replayability.

So pretty much like Diablo 3?

Still sold.

I just came back to iPhone (after a year on Windows Phone) and downloaded XCOM-EW for it. Reminds me of my enjoyable playthrough of EU where I lost my fully upgraded hovering sniper dude that had over a 100 kills. Yeah, stopped playing after that devastating loss.

That said, I just learned about XCOM2 and watched the E3 trailer. I'm hungry for more gameplay video! SHOW US THE GOODS!

Tkyl wrote:

The maps are not fully procedurally generated. We have hand crafted small 'parcels' (think buildings) that are then randomly chosen to be stitched together to build the full map. So you will start recognizing individual buildings, but you will never know what is beyond each building. This allows us to get the quality of handcrafted levels while maintaining randomness in the maps to facilitate replayability.

This is just like the original X-Com so I'mokaywiththis.

one immediate benefit is that OW is now truly sequential, so if multiple soldiers in OW spot the same moving enemy, they will fire one at a time, and if the enemy is taken down any soldiers that have not yet fired will not do so and remain in overwatch.

Sweet.

Man, I really need to get around to actually finishing a campaign in the original XCOM. I'd feel awfully silly buying the sequel without having finished one, but the sequel is sounding really good.

Chaz wrote:

Man, I really need to get around to actually finishing a campaign in the original XCOM. I'd feel awfully silly buying the sequel without having finished one, but the sequel is sounding really good.

Well, given that the second game presumes that you lost the first game...

Tkyl wrote:
garion333 wrote:
Maps are now fully procedurally generated

Sold.

The maps are not fully procedurally generated. We have hand crafted small 'parcels' (think buildings) that are then randomly chosen to be stitched together to build the full map. So you will start recognizing individual buildings, but you will never know what is beyond each building. This allows us to get the quality of handcrafted levels while maintaining randomness in the maps to facilitate replayability.

So no 2x2 house? Boo.