XCOM: Enemy Unknown was turned into a deeper and more challenging experience with The Long War mod. The team responsible for what turned out to be the most popular XCOM mod has now formed a studio with plans to make its own strategy game about aliens invading earth. Don’t expect a copy of Firaxis Games’ XCOM though.
The new studio is appropriately named Long War Studios and is currently developing a “grand strategy” title called Terra Invicta. The official description of the game makes it sound like something more on the scale of a Paradox Interactive strategy game, such as Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis set in space.
“An alien force has arrived in the far reaches of Solar System and begun probing Earth’s defenses and building an invasion fleet. The player must assemble a council of scientists, politicians, military leaders and operatives who can unite Earth’s squabbling nations with the ultimate goal of taking the fight to the aliens in the high ground of outer space.”
Details on Terra Invicta are scarce beyond that, but we should know more soon. The current status of the game is in “pre-Kickstarter development.” In other words, the studio is getting all its ducks in a row before making a crowd-funding pitch.
It’s always great to see developers from the modding scene jump fully into game development. Over the years, we’ve seen developers from popular mods such as Counter-Strike and Garry’s Mod, just to name a couple, turn their experience into full-time careers. Best of luck to the guys at Long War Studios.
Meanwhile, Firaxis Games is still set to release XCOM 2 on February 5, 2016. You check out the Attack of the Fanboy preview here. The studio has improved on the original 2011 effort with procedurally-generated maps, new units, and much more.
[Image via Nexus Mods; H/T: NeoGAF]
