Xcom 2

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hehe I knew this woulkd make ya happy it was interesting how the dev's were playing coy the whole time.


as stated here with vic since he was one of the last gamer news outlets (video news wise anyway)to speak with them where they showed how coy they can play it. It was always gonna come though.

here's the rundown


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EP Daily Rundown for June 7, 2016

Humans unite with another Rundown! Today, we have the first official news that XCOM 2 is coming to the PS4 and Xbox One,
have the latest rumors about unannounced games coming to E3 next week, find out when you'll get to play Persona 5
and another new Final Fantasy game, have an early look at the new comic series from Mark Millar and Greg Capullo, and finally, steal a glimpse of the latest update for Grand Theft Auto Online.

Console gamers will finally be able to join the resistance against the alien occupation. 2K and Firaxis Games have officially announced that XCOM 2 is coming to the PS4 and Xbox One. This is great news for fans. They’ve been demanding that the game make the jump to consoles ever since it launched on the PC back in February, but the developers played coy about the possibility until now. The console version will include the same content as the PC version, and all the DLC that’s been released since launch will once again be broken up into the same separate packs, although unlike on the PC, it will all be available on day one. XCOM 2 hits the PS4 and Xbox One on September 6.

E3 is almost here, and it looks like a few more big games that will be announced at the show have leaked a little early. Advertising images from the unannounced Dead Rising 4 have appeared online. We can’t show you the images for copyright reasons, but they appear to depict the first game’s protagonist Frank West in the same mall from the first game. This could mean that Dead Rising 4 is a remake of the original, but until there’s an official announcement from Capcom, we won’t know for sure.

In other E3 rumours, a remastered edition of 2011’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim might be announced by Bethesda. Like other remastered editions from the studio, this one would have better graphics and audio, and include all the extra DLC content that’s been released for the original version. If you’re looking for all-new games, Bethesda could also announced the long-rumoured Evil Within and Wolfenstein sequels, or a re-worked version of the cancelled Prey 2. We’ll just have to wait and see. Bethesda will hold their E3 press conference this Sunday, with the main E3 show officially kicking off next Tuesday. We’ll be there, so watch for coverage on our channel.

Nothing says Valentine’s Day like sulking around a Japanese highschool with superpowers. The long-awaited JRPG Persona 5 will hit North America on February 14, 2017, with the Japan release happening this September. This will be the first game in the main Persona series since Persona 4 was released back in 2008. Players will once again take control of a Japanese high school student who uses superpowers to battle demons and other fantasy creatures in turn-based combat, and publisher Atlus says there will be more environments to explore than ever before, making this the biggest game they’ve ever released. Like the previous games there will also be anime cutscenes, because it just wouldn’t be Japanese enough without them.
And speaking of JRPGs, with another day comes another Final Fantasy game to talk about. Square Enix has announced that the cutesy World of Final Fantasy hits the PS4 and Vita on October 25.


The game will tell a new story that includes heroes and villains from many of the different Final Fantasy games, all with a very cute visual style that’s meant to appeal to new and younger players. The October 25 release date means World of Final Fantasy will be launching less than a month after the much more prominent Final Fantasy 15, which arrives September 30. Although that one will also have some cute stuff, it’s aimed at a more adult crowd and probably shouldn’t be played by super young gamers.


Two of the best comic book creators working today are joining forces. Famed comic book author Mark Millar, who created Kick-Ass and Kingsman and wrote the Marvel Civil War comics, is teaming up with famed artist Greg Capullo for an all-new series called Reborn. They’ve only released one teaser image so far, saying that the series will take place in a fantasy world and chronicle a battle between good and evil. That’s about all we know for now. Reborn is being published by DC, and the first issue will hit shelves this October followed by a six-month run. Over on the big screen, Millar is producing the next Wolverine solo movie, due out in next year. Also due out next year is the sequel to Millar’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, which is currently shooting.

And before we go, we’ll remind you that Grand Theft Auto Online’s new Finance and Felony update launches today. It’s one of the biggest updates yet for the game, and gives you the ability to become CEO of your own criminal empire and then hire your friends to help you steal and traffic illegal merchandise across the state. New missions, abilities, vehicles, weapons, and property options are included, along with new PvP modes. Best of all, the update is free to download.


source:
EPN.tv

 
Hope y'all can wait for this a bit longer.


PlayStation 4, Xbox One
[FONT=&quot]XCOM 2 for PS4, Xbox One delayed to September 27[/FONT]
Published 1 hour ago. 4 comments.
Strategy game no longer due out in early September.

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The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of XCOM 2 have been delayed from their previously planned early September release to September 27 in North America and September 30 internationally, 2K Games announced.


As previously announced, pre-orders will include the “Resistance Warrior Pack,” and a “Digital Deluxe Edition” will also be available. Read more here.






Read More

PlayStation 4, Xbox One, 2K Games, Delays, Firaxis Games, Release Dates, XCOM 2



source:
Gematsu
 
Ohhhh I picked this game up a couple of days ago and I'd be very surprised if it's not my favorite game for the year!

I'm still at the very early stage, building a team(s) and weeding out the weaker soldiers. The controls are familiar from Enemy Unknown which is nice. The gameplay is spectacular and unforgiving.

It's a good thing I warned my girlfriend about my love for this series in advance. The Earth's not going to liberate itself honey!
 
I picked this up on the 27th (pre-ordered it). I'm freaking loving it. I'm with ya James. This is awesome, just like the first one was, but honestly I like it even better.
 
Two articles from different places


Operation Screwed Over - an XCOM 2: The Long War 2 battle report


http://www.pcgamesn.com/xcom-2/long-war-2-mod



13 hours ago
Comments 2

Central Officer Bradford doesn’t believe in bad omens. If XCOM’s sensors ever picked up a red comet streaking across the sky, he’d simply...Read more



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source: PCGN&
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GameSpot

2 mins ·





XCOM Lead Explains Why Some Triple-A Games Fail
According to Jake Solomon, failure is a valuable and inevitable part of any creative process. But with massive budgets and expectations, developers must learn to "fail efficiently."
Read more
The precarious, unforgiving "tightrope" of triple-A development.


As Mass Effect: Andromeda recently showed, even games with massive budgets, schedules, and teams can sometimes come up short. According to XCOM Lead Jake Solomon--a man whose own forays into triple-A development have produced highly successful games like XCOM 2--that's not too surprising.
In a talk Solomon gave last month at PAX East, he explained that failure is as much a tool as it is a stumbling block, that the lessons we learn from it outweigh the toll it takes. In the world of triple-A game development, however, it can still be a liability. We recently caught up with Solomon to take a peek inside his high-stakes world in hopes of better understanding the people and processes behind some of our favorite games.
GameSpot: I wanted to start with something that you spoke about in your speech last month. One of the subjects you touched on was failure and how it's an important step in building toward success.

Solomon: Absolutely.
So my question is, do you think that triple-A development currently leaves room for failure? Is there time and money for people to iterate and experiment and fail on their way to creating something great?
Yes, I think so, but even in triple-A, the absolute top, most developers […] have some types of constraints and schedule and things like that, which of course makes sense. I think that there is an opportunity for failure, but I think […] the reaches that you take have to be planned to where anything you're innovating on, you have to plan for that type of failure in the schedule.
With sequels, typically, you don't have to reach as far. I think the real challenge is when you're either making something new or rebooting something. Just by the nature of it, you're going to have to take some really creatively risky reaches, attempts at things, and so when you do that, there's guaranteed to be big failures along the way. I think that the challenge is, I guess, having enough time.
But in terms of the industry as a whole, it's a tightrope. It is an absolute tightrope, I think because triple-A games are so hit driven. It's an interesting thing to think about. In this industry, I think your first failure is probably going to be your last one, too.
It certainly seems that way, yes.
It wasn't that way a while ago, but it's just the nature of [the industry]. And it makes total sense. There's nothing wrong with that. I think that if you're talking about tens of millions of dollars to make games, if you're talking about margins like that, then yeah, it's hard to recover from that.



 




"In this industry, I think your first failure is probably going to be your last one, too." -- Jake Solomon


You have to take risks, you have to innovate, otherwise you're not offering value and people will find it somewhere else. At the same time, those risks could sink you if you don't fail fast enough and get to the actual right answer, so I think it really is kind of a tightrope.
I think it's why people in my position typically don't stay relevant for that long. It doesn't bother me to say because it's just a fact. There are some people who stay at the absolute top of the game for a long time. Todd Howard's been making games for a long time, but you can think of any name from 10 years ago and you could say, "Oh yeah, they're not as big as they were 10 years ago, so in 10 years, what does that mean for me? What does that mean for a lot of people in my position?"
This word is going to sound harsh, but that almost makes developers sound disposable, to an extent. Is that true, and if so, how do you escape that mindset? How do you go into a project knowing, "Maybe this will be my last one; maybe I won't matter after this"?
I think that that is always my mindset. It's the sort of thing that I keep very, very present. It does not make for a really relaxed thought process, but it's something that I always try to keep present in my mind: the thought that when you're creating things, you're basically pulling ideas out of thin air. The only way you can offer value to people is coming up with something new.
When you try to come up with something new, failure is a big part of that, and so that means failure is a very big part of what I do. And so there's a very good chance that my failure could end up becoming big enough that maybe a game is my last game, for a long time or forever.
I don't know if developers are disposable so much as... It's like any business, basically, except that ours has a lot of turn over, really quick, and I think it's because our industry's still kind of in the early stages. We're still trying to find out what it is that provides the most value to players. I think that you just have to keep in mind that if you don't innovate, somebody else will, so you have to taking those risks, knowing that inherent in those risks, potentially, is your failure as well.
That's why I think you just can't dwell on failure. You have to fail efficiently, and that means that you can't dwell on failure as a personal thing. You can't dwell on it as an emotional thing. You have to be very cold-blooded about it and say, "We are going to fail. I'm going to fail." The key is to fail efficiently. When we fail, look at it right in the eyes and say, "What did that teach us?" And we very quickly need to get onto our next failure because we've got to get through these failures until, all of a sudden, we have something that we say, "Okay, this is good enough."
The scary part is that you can never predict. Eventually I think, as a designer, you have this sense of, "This will work out at some point," but you don't know how many failures that's going to take, and you only have so much runway. So it is kind of terrifying when you're in the middle of the process and you're like, "This is not good. This feature's not good, but it must be good," and you're like, "We've just got to get through. We've got to keep trying to find the right way."
To circle back to something you mentioned a little while ago, it seems like, ultimately, what raises the stakes, what makes failure such a potential liability for a developer, is money, really. It's an economic question. Like you said, you're investing tens of millions of dollars into a game. From an economic standpoint, it's hard to question publishers' need for guarantees.
Not at all.
The question is, what does that money actually allow you to do as a developer? Is that trade-off worth it? Is raising the stakes to that degree worth that kind of monetary investment?
It's kind of an industry question. Whatever game you're making has to have the audience to support your investment, obviously. Certain games have massive audiences, and so that means that they can support [bigger budgets]. I'm more of a standard developer. We have limits on what we do, and we have to be efficient with what we do, and we have to think about, "Is this really going to provide value to our audience? Should we really be doing this, because it's eating up time?"
I think that you rise to, basically, a breaking point. This is just industry wide. Everything has changed so much. When I started, something like Civilization III, it probably sold a couple million copies or something like that, but it cost nothing to make. But then eventually, a certain standard of quality is expected and your teams get larger and they continue to get larger and the quality of titles continues to be expected to go up, and all of that means that as the cost of development's going up, you either have to increase the revenue [or] increase your audience. It's all a question of which game you're making, because your return does justify the investment--and if it didn't, it'll be the last time you do it.
"The only way you can offer value to people is coming up with something new. When you try to come up with something new, failure is a big part of that." -- Jake Solomon
It's interesting because the return on hits are so big that you can certainly understand why people want to make these big, big games. I don't know what the return on Call of Duty is, but I'm sure it's really f**king great, so you certainly understand why people would want to make games like that. There are so many other games that exist in the middle. I was talking to a designer who's a really good friend of mine. He's more of an indie developer. I said, "How you guys doing?" He said, "Well, if we sold half of what we sold we'd be out of business. If we sold twice what we sold we'd be rich." And I'm like, "You basically just described all of us."
I think that holds for most people and the vast majority of game development. And so the tension, obviously, on the business side comes from rising costs and how can you recoup that. Because you can't just sit there and costs can't continue to rise if you're not also increasing your audience or revenue. Business is a really big part of what we do. It's just not something we talk about because most people find it dry, I suppose.
It's inescapable, though. Games are a business. And to hear you talk about it, it almost sounds like game development is somewhere between an arms race and a gold rush. Is the current system sustainable? Where does this end?
The industry is so varied now; even indie games have a really high level of polish now. I think the problem is that, every time you make a game, you have to look at [all these different games] and say, "Wow, they did this thing, and wow, they did that thing," and then there are all these reasons you're like, "Yeah, we could 20 more people to do all these neat things," and then you have to balance that against, "Okay, is that really going to be worth it?"
I'd love to try making a game where it doesn't f**king matter and I can be like, "You know what? I want to add this feature and this feature and this feature." But a lot of us have to think in terms of, "This is the most valuable feature to our audience. This is what they love, so this is what we're going to focus on. We can't just throw everything in there."
You have to be real smart about that, and obviously, that's another place where you can't make mistakes. You can't say, "The big feature for this next game is X," and if your audience is like, "We don't give a **** about X," then you're like, "Oh s**t" because we spent a lot of money making that.
Do you have a project or an idea that you would pursue if you didn't have to worry about money from publishers or even fan expectations?
Whenever I see people designing space sims and things like that, I'm like, "That sounds like so much fun." I think the best sim that's ever been made is Minecraft. Minecraft is so simple, but it feels so real. It feels so authentic, which is its power. I just think Minecraft is amazing, and I never would've been able to come up with an idea like that because I tend to think in incredibly complex simulations type stuff.
That would probably be the thing I'd work on. I joke about that, even with other developers I joke. That's what I would do. The kind of person I am, I would be happy spending 20 years working on some obscenely complicated universe simulation and then never release it, probably, and go f**king crazy by the end. I'd be the guy with the hair, pissing in bottles, telling people, "Er, go away. I'm working on the space simulation." There'd be websites about "Whatever happened to Jake Solomon?"
So what you're saying is, you're not going to make a space sim?
No, no. I'm not going to because I don't want to go crazy.
Your most recent game, XCOM 2, is a strategy game. Strategy's not really known for being a big triple-A seller. How do you approach making a triple-A strategy game knowing that it's not traditionally a high-selling genre?
XCOM would never exist without Civilization, because Civ is the proof. They're a very non-standard triple-A game, but they do amazingly, amazingly well because they have a loyal audience. I think that's what's important about strategy, and that's why I like making strategy games. Not only because I love strategy, but we have a relationship with our audience and it's probably more important to us than a lot of other titles.
Having a very distinct, loyal audience makes it easier as a developer to focus on, "Okay, this is what they like. This is what our relationship's like," and you get to a point where, when you're making Civ or when you're making XCOM and you're making sequels, the ownership shifts from me as a designer.
When you make your first game, you feel like you have creative ownership over it. When you make games that have an audience already, then you shift the ownership over to your audience. And now you're in a position where you're sort of curating this game for your audience, and you can have this back and forth with them in terms of understanding what it is they want. I think that that's how you have to approach a game like XCOM, or even a game like Civ--you feel like you have this shared ownership.
At the end of the day, whose opinion about what happens in the game is more important: the fans or the developers?
Unquestionably the fans, unquestionably. I always, always say that our players' values are our values. They have to be. I always have to project players' values onto my own, and when I'm designing a feature I have to try and say, "This is something they're going to appreciate or they're going to like," because if I don't, if I'm off this way, then the problem is, I'm going to have to readjust. It's not like the players are going to readjust what they like based on what I've said.
For a specific example, in XCOM 2, a lot of the missions are timed--like, you have to complete this mission in this many turns. And I did that because I was just thinking, "Okay, objectively, that's a better design because it forces players to make sub-optimal decisions. They don't have all the time in the world, so now they have to take risks." The good thing about that is that when players take risks, they have varied experiences from mission to mission. There's no optimal way to solve a mission. You can't just sit back and be real defensive.
The problem is, some players didn't like that kind of pressure on them, and it's not for me to then defend my design decisions. Another death trap for designers is to say, "Let me explain to you why I'm right and you're wrong." Instead, the goal is to say, "Okay, if that's what my players' values are, I need to readjust." It's one of the hardest things, but I really have to force myself to say, "I need to find a way to make this work with my players' values, not my own particular opinion about what's the best design."
At the same time, though, most fans are not developers. They don't necessarily know what's going to work in the context of the game. So if you're turning creative control over to people who don't know how to make games, could you ultimately end up with something that doesn't work or make sense?
Oh yeah, [but] I think the mechanics are up to the designer. It's more the broad strokes of, if the players don't like something, you're like, "Okay, well this is what I want to achieve, but if they didn't like this mechanic, I need to come up with another mechanic." Again, you just have to make sure your values are aligned with your players.
"I always, always say that our players' values are our values. They have to be." -- Jake Solomon
Again, it goes back even to the thought of money and development. The only things that matters are the things that bring players value. It's like if an artist was modeling a table and they spend a s**t load of time modeling the underside of the table and the player never sees the table. All that time is just money poured down a hole. That's the kind of thing we have to be careful about. Because if you're doing that, you're just wasting time. They'll never see it. They'll never care.
The only way to get around it is to make sure you understand your players' values well enough to say, "You know what? We shouldn't waste time on that. They're not going to give a s**t. We shouldn't worry about that. We should worry about this thing that they really care about, that they spend a lot of time on." That's why understanding your players is so, so important.

Filed under: XCOM: Enemy Within XCOM 2



source:https://www.gamespot.com/
 


PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
[FONT=&quot]XCOM 2 expansion ‘War of the Chosen’ announced[/FONT]

Published 4 hours ago. 3 comments.

Due out on August 29 for consoles and PC.
XCOM-2-War-Chosen-DLC-Ann.jpg




2K Games and Firaxis announced XCOM 2 expansion ‘War of the Chosen’ during the PC Gaming Show at E3 2017. It will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on August 29.




Here’s an overview of the expansion, via its official website:
About
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen adds extensive new content in the fight against ADVENT when additional resistance factions form in order to eliminate the alien threat on Earth. In response, a new enemy, known as the “Chosen,” emerges with one goal: recapture the Commander. The expansion includes new Hero classes to counter the “Chosen”, new enemies, missions,environments and increased depth in strategic gameplay.
New Factions and Hero Classes
Three additional factions have emerged to strengthen Earth’s resistance – the Reapers, Skirmishers and Templars – each with its own unique abilities and contrasting philosophies. These factions provide powerful hero class soldiers to aid in missions and new opportunities for the strategy layer.
The Chosen
The Chosen are the most cunning enemies XCOM has ever faced, each with unique strengths and weaknesses that will be introduced with each new campaign. The Chosen are on the hunt for the Commander and will kidnap, interrogate, and kill XCOM’s soldiers to complete their objective. The Chosen can also invade the strategy layer and ravage XCOM’s global operations. Find and raid the Chosen’s strongholds to defeat the enemy for good.
New Alien and Advent Threats
A deadly new alien known as the Spectre, capable of creating dark copies of XCOM soldiers, has snuck onto the battlefield. Adopt new tactics to counter it as well as the explosive attacks of the ADVENT Purifier and the psionically charged ADVENT Priest.
New Environment and Mission Objectives
Engage in tactical missions across new environments from abandoned cities devastated by alien bioweapons during the original invasion, to underground tunnels and xenoformed wilderness regions.
Enhanced Strategy Layer
Manage XCOM’s relations with factions and counter The Chosen’s operations from the Avenger. Employ new Resistance Orders to prioritize your personal strategy. Soldiers, scientists, and engineers can now be deployed for Covert Actions that award supplies and boost faction favor if successfully completed.
Greater Customization and Replayability
Soldiers can develop bonds with compatible teammates for new abilities and perks. The SITREP system dynamically adds new modifiers to the tactical layer to make sure every mission provides a unique challenge. Advanced campaign options allow for finer adjustments to game length and difficulty.
Challenge Mode
Utilize the perfect strategy in new regular one-shot community challenges to claim the top spot on the global leaderboard.
Watch the announcement trailer below.

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PC, PlayStation 4,Xbox One,2K Games,Clips,DLC,E3 2017,Firaxis Games,Screenshots,Trailers,XCOM 2
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source:
Gematsu
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I'm excited, but I'm also hoping this expansion is a continuation rather than an add-on. Ergo, that you can carry on from the end of the game rather than having to start a whole new campaign.
 
I'm excited, but I'm also hoping this expansion is a continuation rather than an add-on. Ergo, that you can carry on from the end of the game rather than having to start a whole new campaign.
There's an awesome video interview with Jake Solomon with the people from twitch. the VOD will be put up later I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a version of it on you tube.
 

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