It’s hard to believe, but today is the tenth anniversary XCOM: Unknown Enemy Initial Release. A lot has changed in the gaming world over the next decade & NoBreak; but as far as I’m concerned, Firaxis’ vision for a modern XCOM game remains the best reboot of a video game franchise ever made.
Still the high standard for video game remakes, Enemy Unknown has reimagined 1994’s X-COM: UFO Defense, dropping the dash from the name and dragging this unique strategy game originally developed by MicroProse into the modern era.
Honestly, what makes XCOM great is magic & NoBreak; or, if we’re not so romantic, maybe chemistry. Here’s the takeaway: XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a rare pitch-perfect game that sheds light on the terrific challenges of any video game remake or reboot. It retains the things that made the original a well-loved and fondly remembered cult classic, but draws a wealth of threads and ideas from the games released in the interim. Sure, many games have attempted this, but few have been so successful at making it all work.
This seems to become more clear when you do some research into the development of Enemy Unknown. First off, despite being a reboot of an older IP and being a Firaxis game without Gandi, the XCOM project got a sizable budget. But what’s even more interesting is that the team apparently initially prototyped a full remake of the 1994 original, and then worked outward from there - tinkering with the game, tweaking features, flow and balance to essentially make Enemy Unknown more of a An evolution of its ancient predecessor, not a revolutionary reimagining.
I figured if it wasn’t broken, don’t fix it. This mantra is best expressed by one of Firaxis’ rules: to join the XCOM team, you must have played the original. If you were drawn to the project and didn’t, your first task as a member of the team was to complete the brutal original.
Of course, brutality is part of the XCOM DNA, and that’s another key piece of the puzzle. That’s still the case now, but when XCOM is in deep development, games often become more forgiving. This was after Demon’s Souls gained a cult following, but before Dark Souls’ massive mainstream success reshaped the entire difficulty debate. So they’ve easily made modern XCOM easy—and it does have an easy difficulty mode—but Firaxis retains the tough elements of the original, namely permanent death and losing your valued squad members.
As I said before, the interesting thing about all of this is the balance. Enemy Unknown references the original XCOM, but it doesn’t worship it — so it’s shaping its own identity into a very different game. It carries the spirit of the original so perfectly, however—the combination of those two things brings it to incredible heights of splendor.
Like I said, it mixes the different elements so precisely that it looks like magic—but maybe that’s because anything advanced enough is akin to magic, as the saying goes. In fact, XCOM is a work of art, and it only makes sense that there is a mathematical formula behind its balance. It just works.
What’s more surprising is that Firaxis followed XCOM’s heels to easily 2012’s Game of the Year, and the sequel improves upon it in almost every way. Formula set, the development team was able to go to town with new ideas—and XCOM 2 truly is one of the best games of the past decade.
Of course, XCOM 2 ends with a tantalizing sequel to another returning element from the classic game—Terror from the Abyss. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is ten years old, and it’s hard not to think about this, and the future of the franchise. Firaxis is now working on Midnight Sun, a Marvel game with XCOM DNA. This looks good. But, to be honest, what I really want is XCOM 3. I can’t wait for this to inevitably happen. In the meantime…maybe it’s time for a replay? Impossible/Iron Man clearance, here I come…
