I’m sorry to do this to you, but XCOM 2 came out nine years ago. The world was young, my passport said “European Union” on it, and I had a full head of hair (I still do, but I also did then).
Not only did XCOM 2 come out nearly a decade ago, but it was really good. So good that a sequel seems like a total no-brainer. But here we are, collectively lost as we wait for an XCOM 3 that may never come. No, Chimera Squad doesn’t count.
But you and I aren’t the only ones waiting. The actual creator of original XCOM, Julian Gollop, is just as keen to play it and just as perplexed by its absence. In a chat with PCG about his new game, Chip ‘n Clawz vs The Brainioids, Gollop said that, though there’s been “A resurgence of RTS games” in the recent past, he doesn’t know what’s happened to XCOM 3.
“I’m sure there’s an audience for it,” Gollop said, “but, you know, you have to accept the reality that strategy games are still a niche.” It’s a “pretty big niche,” but still a niche, and even a game like XCOM 3 might fall flat on its face.
“It can be a bit difficult, you know, as in the case of Civ 7, perhaps.” Gollop’s referring to the recent mixed response to Civ 7‘s myriad changes to the series’ age-old formula—even Firaxis puts a foot wrong in fans’ eyes sometimes.
Rather than heavy hitters like Firaxis, Gollop reckons that a lot of innovation and interesting work in strategy these days comes from smaller indie games, pointing at games like Factorio, Tactical Breach Wizards, The Last Spell, and as games that have successfully mixed up the genre in recent years, even if they lack the budgets and marketing oomph of the once-dominant strategy games of the ’90s.
But there’s still no XCOM 3, just games that fold some of those familiar XCOM mechanics into other genres entirely. “Jagged Alliance 3 has very much more of an XCOM style to its gameplay,” says Gollop, “Or the [Warhammer 40k] Rogue Trader game. So there’s some pretty good examples still around which are good. But, sadly, no XCOM 3 yet.”