The game had been announced back in E3 2010 as simply XCOM, which generated ire, since fans of the series were upset that the game was being developed as a first person shooter, despite having all of the elements of an XCOM game, such as scouting for tech and clues in levels for research.
The game was revamped by E3 2011, with much of the enemies and gameplay changed to something more standard.
Senior product manager Nik Karlsson related, ”In 2010 and 2011 the devs were still fine tuning the concept for what an XCOM shooter really is. It’s hard to consistently tell fans what to expect of a game when the concept for that game is still being baked.”
“Once we knew The Bureau was a very challenging, very tactical, very calculated third-person shooter we went to work telling the world about it. I feel like we’ve finally overcome the education hurdle that was in front of us, for the most part people understand that this game is no longer a FPS, and it’s no longer a detective game, it’s a tactical third-person shooter that’s reflective of the core XCOM tenants.”
The developers think that the final product is worth the long development cycle, which was put on hold when members of the studio were pulled to help on BioShock Infinite with Irrational.
”Third person gave us a lot in terms of gameplay benefits. With the focus on tactical combat third person let’s you see yourself, your team, the enemy, and grok the battlefield all in a single eye scan. But it was a hard change, the chief difficulties came from work done on cover mechanics, and player animations,” stated creative director Morgan Gray.
“There is lot more to create when you are moving away from disembodied hands holding guns. The other major benefit, is it let us put our main character, William Carter, front in center all the time, which helped cement him as a proper character in the game world and in the narrative,” Gray added.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is due to be released tomorrow, the 20th August on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America, and the 23rd August in Europe.