XCOM 2

coanda said:
I think it's probably a good sign that they have spoken so well about the independent Long War mod. The single biggest change Long War makes *is* rebalancing the strategic layer to add some nuance and depth, although there were limits in how far they could take that building off the XCOM: EU/EW foundation. Solomon also acknowledge in a few interviews that the strategic layer was a little shallow and could probably have been improved.

So if they're making XCOM 2, they have to have taken a good hard look at revamping and expanding the strategic layer of the game. And it's Firaxis; they *do* have some institutional knowledge about strategic turn-based games to draw on.
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Yes, there was only so much the long war team could do. But what they did do was amazing. I think thats why Xcom2 has been opened up to modders, because the original was'nt really (at least not at release). And that is a testament to Long Wars popularity and quality. Would be interested to know whether there is any sort of collaboration between the long war team and Firaxis. I know Solomon has mentioned them specifically and applauded their work.
 
Added modding preview article to OP.

XCOM 2's Mod Potential
“People will see the gameplay source, all the scripting,” [Solomon] promised. “This is the code that makes the game what the game is. Here's the editor and all the assets that went into this game.”

...

“We're basically a 20-hour tutorial for The Long War, and that's okay,” admitted Solomon. “I think Long War was cool, because I think that there is – especially in strategy games – there's always this desire to see more. They did this awesome job of adding a lot more. People will be sharing stories of XCOM and I'll be like ‘I don't even know what they're talking about, this game has changed so much!’ And that, to me, is cool."

“And that's like, the ultimate mutual respect,” added DeAngelis. “Again, we missed that on Enemy Unknown. It was the most rewarding thing to hear from the community how much they liked it, and for us to now say we respect that and appreciate that so much, here: go and do something we can love and play in return, and you guys can share with each other. I just think it's a really valuable relationship that we have.”

When asked what kind of XCOM 2 mods they expect to see, the team had a few ideas:

“We don’t have free-aiming. That will be one of the first mods, and that certainly will be fine,” said Solomon. “Maybe somebody will bring back time units,” he mused. “I'd be fine with that.”

Art Director Greg Foertsch had some words of encouragement for map makers: “If you want to make a completely static level, you can. If you want to make a basically completely procedural level - which is basically what our levels are in the game right now, that's 100% doable. It could be narrow; it could be square. It could be super big. And, again, it's super flexible. There's really no limit – you can do whatever you want. You could literally make an Enemy Unknown map.”
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Updated OP with new article: Why Impossible Ironman is Canon

The specifics of the canon version of the short war are intentionally left vague, so as not to trample on each of our individual stories of the time (or many, many times) our squads valiantly failed to fend off the invasion. “We've all had our losses with XCOM, and so we use kind of a light touch. But the idea is that XCOM never made it out of conventional weapons; that the aliens came in overwhelming force and overwhelming numbers,” he said. “To say Impossible Iron Man is canon is perfect. We think that’s basically the experience that XCOM had.”
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thecrazyscot said:
Updated OP with new article: Why Impossible Ironman is Canon
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Interesting that only 1.7% of people beat the original on ironman difficulty on classic or impossible. And 1.1% on impossible. I managed the former but not the latter. Ironman was a rule for me i strictly adhered to. The game just seemed less fun otherwise.

And Bradford is making a reappearance. I liked Bradford and Shen. Shen was actually quite thought provoking and had some interesting things to say. I hated Vhalen though. She pissed me off. She just moaned and complained all the time. Reminded me a bit of my wife.
 
sherbz said:
Interesting that only 1.7% of people beat the original on ironman difficulty on classic or impossible. And 1.1% on impossible. I managed the former but not the latter. Ironman was a rule for me i strictly adhered to. The game just seemed less fun otherwise.

And Bradford is making a reappearance. I liked Bradford and Shen. Shen was actually quite thought provoking and had some interesting things to say. I hated Vhalen though. She pissed me off. She just moaned and complained all the time. Reminded me a bit of my wife.
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I started playing again for the first time in a while and was surprised that I didn't have that achievement; I usually play as though on Ironman because it always feels like cheating to reload games, so I've certainly won the game without reloads - but apparently not on the Ironman setting.

I found all three of the story characters caricatured, and my main memories of Bradford are the bad animation of his introduction (with his exaggerated pointing) and how improbably slow on the uptake a soldier was when presented with the idea of interrogating aliens.
 
PhilBowles said:
Hadn't seen any of these before - makes the game sound very interesting, though naming a cobra-woman a viper annoys me as a herpetologist...
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I would think you'd be more bothered by the fact that they're snakes but they have boobs. There is just no zoological accuracy here at all!
 
Wolfbeckett said:
I would think you'd be more bothered by the fact that they're snakes but they have boobs. There is just no zoological accuracy here at all!
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That too.

More seriously, the only qualm I have is with 'scuttling' - specifically, the fact that it's still there but easier for the player to circumvent the advantages it gives the aliens.

No mention of the downside for the aliens, which is more a cause for complaints that I've seen (no true XCOM player ever complains about features that make the game more difficult). Aliens still won't shoot when revealed (if Itchy Trigger Tentacle is implemented again, I hope aliens going into overwatch will trigger more often) and, more importantly, aliens revealed by their own move on their turn rather than XCOM's will presumably still get a 'scuttle' move that will place them badly to fire in the same turn.

If this is the case, there will still be that tendency to avoid triggering spawns by creeping overwatch moves, which led to static and repetitive gameplay over time in XCOM 1. Adding new timer-based rewards to discourage this sort of thing was a compromise solution in Enemy Within; XCOM 2 should have fixed the core problem with alien behaviour.
 
By far more hyped about this than anything else I've seen recently. XCOM 2 is looking like a solid game in it's own right, and the much hyped opening up to modders will hopefully mean an XCOM 2 version of Long War that's even better than the original.
 
SupremacyKing2 said:
Watching the XCOM2 gameplay demo now on IGN. XCOM2 looks amazing!!
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Looks much the same as XCOM as we know it - which is no bad thing at all (started a recent Classic Ironman game that I'm thoroughly enjoying, though have lost a couple of key characters and was very slow to catch an alien for interrogation). I prefer the XCOM 1 interface.

I like the hit-and-run approach of calling for extraction, the secondary objectives and hacking. I am concerned that the snakewoman went down so easily after all the hype about needing a coordinated team to take down even individual aliens, but I won't read too much into what appears to have been a scripted tutorial mission.
 
PhilBowles said:
Looks much the same as XCOM as we know it - which is no bad thing at all (started a recent Classic Ironman game that I'm thoroughly enjoying, though have lost a couple of key characters and was very slow to catch an alien for interrogation). I prefer the XCOM 1 interface.
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XCOM2 seems to take the same XCOM model and just goes bigger, and with more cool things to do. And, you can really see the difference with the game being PC only. I was impressed by what I saw.
 
SupremacyKing2 said:
XCOM2 seems to take the same XCOM model and just goes bigger, and with more cool things to do.
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Which is exactly the way it should be (and the way Enemy Within expanded the game), since the core is a very strong tactical game. Though I suspect I'm not alone in wanting more information on how the strategic layer will work (and particularly whether they will implement a system with more randomised UFO appearances, and the opportunity to prevent the equivalents of terror attacks and abductions if you detect and shoot down the equivalents of UFOs in advance).
 
PhilBowles said:
. Though I suspect I'm not alone in wanting more information on how the strategic layer will work (and particularly whether they will implement a system with more randomised UFO appearances, and the opportunity to prevent the equivalents of terror attacks and abductions if you detect and shoot down the equivalents of UFOs in advance).
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The strategic layer should be interesting, especially since XCOM2 flips the story on its head, with the XCOM unit being the "invaders" trying to overthrow an established alien presence.
 
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