In the build we play, only the tip of what Gollop promises is visible. The difficulty is that, for now, the strategic game is something of an iceberg. There are three factions living in the outposts scattered across the game’s ‘geoscape’ map of Earth, all with their own objectives and diplomatic relationships with the player and each other. "Gollop talks about economic systems, and taking inspiration from grand strategy games like Civilization and Stellaris" The main strategic opponents in Phoenix Point aren’t the amphibious alien forces, but your fellow man. Gollop’s proposed evolution, which he first experimented with in 1997’s X-COM Apocalypse and was advancing in Dreamland Chronicles until its cancellation, is to make pushing against AI opponents as big a part of the strategic game as it is the tactical battles. Julian Gollop, creator of legendary strategy game X-COM This is the real link between X-COM, XCOM and Phoenix Point: what Gollop calls “the concept that the battle you’re fighting is part of this bigger context, and what feeds into the strategy layer will also feed back into the tactical layer, which is that core addictive game loop.” “You could say that, from about 1999, I’ve been trying to find ways to evolve the big X-COM idea.” That evolution comes in the strategy meta-game that exists outside of the individual battles, and how the two interact. “Some of the ideas from Dreamland are actually in Phoenix Point,” he says. He points instead to The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge (opens in new tab) – a game which was cancelled during development, resulting in the 2001 closure of Gollop’s Mythos Games studio. "Each character can dual-class, with an additional personal progression track of randomised abilities"Īs far as Gollop is concerned, though, neither the first X-COM or any of Firaxis’ reimaginings are the main influence on Phoenix Point. So how does the team find a balance between old and new, complex and streamlined? “With lots of arguments and testing, I guess.” It’s telling that, on the question of character classes, Snapshot landed on a compromise: each character can dual-class, with an additional personal progression track of randomised abilities – the simplicity of one game’s systems, without giving up the other’s breadth of choices. They just want to see some simple information, clearly represented, about the likely outcome,” says Gollop. “There are players who like and demand lots of stats – percentages, damage types, all this kind of stuff – and then there are other players who are much more visually inclined. Phoenix Point is currently playable in early access for buyers of the $60 Platinum Edition (opens in new tab)Įvery successful hit is followed by a string of tiny updates that reflects this stats-first approach: not just the amount of damage, but which body parts were disabled or equipment damaged, whether the target is bleeding or took a hit to their willpower. There’s more than an echo of XCOM’s slick cinematic presentation in, for example, the smooth pan of the camera as it slides from soldier to soldier, each rattling off overwatch shots. The tactical battles in particular show the influence of Firaxis and the way it managed to, in Gollop’s words, “make turn-based strategy games sexy again”. And then there are a few people in the middle, who want some mixture of both, somehow.” He’s talking specifically about the game’s approach to character classes, which were absent from the original but a major part of the reboot – but it applies to almost every element of Phoenix Point. “The other camp is people who want the Firaxis (opens in new tab) XCOM. There are those who want something more like the original X-COM but spruced up,” he says. “There are basically two groups in our backers. This feature is taken from Edge magazine and you can save up to 55% on a print and digital subscription (opens in new tab)
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