Plus, there are strategic elements in the game anyway.In an interview, Hartmann stated, ”The ‘90s generation of gamers all love Xcom and we own the IP, so we thought OK, what do we do with it? Every studio we had wanted to do it and each one had its own spin on it. But the problem was that turn-based strategy games were no longer the hottest thing on planet Earth. But this is not just a commercial thing – strategy games are just not contemporary.
I use the example of music artists. Look at someone old school like Ray Charles, if he would make music today it would still be Ray Charles but he would probably do it more in the style of Kanye West. Bringing Ray Charles back is all fine and good, but it just needs to move on, although the core essence will still be the same.
That’s what we are trying to do. To renew Xcom but in line with what this generation of gamers want.”
Of course, that analogy is pure bunkum, for several reasons. For one, there are musical artists who remain faithful to an older style of music, and are successful - Harry Connick, Jr., for one. For another, there are plenty of strategy games that have been released in the last year or two that are megapopular: Starcraft II, Civilization V, Total War: Shogun 2, and Dawn of War II can attest to that (and that’s ignoring casual games like Plants Vs. Zombies.)
Perhaps a game will feature more processing power than an old game, but it still is a part of that genre; L.A. Noire is an example of a really advanced graphic adventure game - and even so, Telltale Games is still releasing old-style point-and-click games anyway.
So, if you want to justify making XCOM a first-person shooter, that’s fine, but don’t make it sound like strategy games are somehow passe now, because that’ll just make people turn against XCOM undeservedly.
