At night, Dishonored's sprawling city of Dunwall looks particularly magnificent. Lit windows dot a canopy of angular roofs and spires, and stacks continuously belch out whale-oil smoke—a signature of the city's bustling industry. It's easy to forget about Corvo Attano's errand of revenge and simply drink in Dunwall's details, but Arkane's journey building Dunwall was a far more elaborate process. At a GDC talk (via Polygon), Art Director Sebastien Mitton describes how experiencing "the life of a city" visited by the team eventually shaped Dunwall's culture and identity.
Arkane trekked to well-known cities such as London and Edinburgh because of their mixture of preserved historical buildings and new construction. Instead of confining themselves to tourist routes, the team set a destination point and bee-lined for it using backstreets and alleyways. Mitton says such a method was instrumental in picking up on the essence of a city over simply gathering volumes of reference photographs.
"Making trips is not just going into a location and taking photographs of textures and more textures and more textures," he explains. "It's to feel the city, feel the life of the city. To be on location, to talk to people."
Mitton goes on to say Dishonored's artists were careful to pick up on subtle nuances during visits such as street light behavior to help furnish Dunwall with small touches of personality. Capturing a city's "mysticism" was the ultimate goal, Mitton states.
A more striking change for Dunwall's design was a shift from its original setting in feudal Japan. Arkane ultimately felt that its unfamiliarity with Japanese culture wouldn't align well with its intentions, so it settled on a "gap" between a 17th century appearance and a 20th century technology level. Mitton also brings up period artists such as Jean-Eugène Buland and John Atkinson Grimshaw as important sources of material.
We'll soon blink about its rooftops in the Knife of Dunwall DLC, but I hope for more subsequent adventures in the city and beyond—there's a whole Empire of Isles to explore.

Transcendent is a word that I don't usually like using in association with video games. It's not that it's a bad word, it's just that it always felt a little too pretentious, a little too forced to wave around. At least, that's what I thought. When I finally got to put on a pair of headphones so I could listen to Panoramical, the experience was revelatory. “Oh, so this is the kind of thing you call transcendent.”

If you've ever played Ed Key's Proteus, Panoramical is a little like that. Like Proteus, it's not so much of a game as it is an exploration of an idea: one person controls the procedurally-generated 'music' landscape on screen with the help of MIDI controller. The emergent symphony isn't always beautiful—sometimes, it can be just plain jarring—but when it's done just right, it's, well, transcendent.

Panoramical was part of one-day arcade Aaahcade which was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a hair's breadth away from Moscone Center where GDC takes place. Presented by BabyCastles, Glitchlab, and SFMOMA, the theme behind the event was the promotion of relaxation, cooperation, and open-world exploration.



Of the six games featured at the exhibit, Marvelous Melodies of Mutazione probably had the most cryptic and the most elaborate set-up. Contained within a large, beanbag-filled tent somewhere in the middle of the room, Marvelous Melodies of Mutazione didn't explain itself. You were just told to walk into the tent. Once inside, players were confronted by a constellation of hanging PS Move controllers, each alit with a different color, and ambient music. I remember sitting down and staring awkwardly at the other participants. What now? One person raised a hand to bat at a controller, triggering a collection of sounds. Another followed suit. It took a while, but by the time I exited the dim interior, people were touching controller to controller, laughing and talking—it was like a camp-out made out of friends rather than coincidental acquaintances.

Ian Bogost's Guru Meditation was about one thing: stillness. Sit on the balancing board. Don't move. Watch the counter go up. Fail, and, be sent back to zero. As anyone who has ever attempted meditation can tell you, it's extremely hard. Distractions are everywhere and it's even more difficult to maintain quiet focus when you're flanked by a dozen curious onlookers. Some would-be yogis were good; the first guy I saw sat gargoyle-like on the board for a good ten minutes. The others? They were more enthralled by the archaic equipment, the fat-pixeled practitioner on the screen.

Players interact with Pixel Fireplace.

If you were to turn on your heel and move in the opposite direction, you'd find Ted Martens' Pixel Fireplace. In the dim, intimate lighting of SFMOMA's Schwab Room, it was surreal to see people clustered around a pixelated hearth, intent on even the faintest crackle of the flame. There was always someone in the middle, a keyboard in their hands. Words would fly up onto the screen. A quick drizzle of fingers on keys would follow, and then something would happen. Or was it the other way around? Regardless of what the actual order was, Fireplace never failed to sport a small, attentive crowd.

It was the same with Robin Arnott's SoundSelf, yet another psychedelic exploration title that uses your voice to weave the on-screen visual effects into something new. Consuming a corner of the Schwab Room, SoundSelf's participants and observers were somewhat quieter in their appreciation—only one person at a time would command the shifting patterns on the projector screen. I sat, watched, and occasionally contributed a covert, rebellious note.

Robin Arnott's SoundSelf.

Calling Aaahcade an oasis of calm would be somewhat inaccurate. People were still milling about in urgent circles. Though the volume of conversations was more modulated, they still existed in abundance. If there is any one thing that can be said about the event, it's probably that Aaahcade further shows that gargantuan guns, high tension, and familiar tropes are not essential in the creation of worthwhile experiences.

Gearbox has posted a list of what to expect in an upcoming free update for Borderlands 2 that prepares Pandora for its incoming Ultimate Vault Hunter DLC and a level cap increase to 61. Somewhat confusingly, a new Ultimate Vault Hunter mode will arrive in the patch everyone gets, but the similarly titled $5 DLC is where the extra levels, skill points, and weapons all reside.

Here's Gearbox's breakdown:

Changes in 4/2 Software Update (Free)

Adds new items to the Black Market:

One additional ammo upgrade for each ammo type at 50 Eridium each.
Two more backpack storage space upgrades at 50 and 100 Eridium respectively.
Two more bank storage space upgrades at 50 and 100 Eridium respectively.


Increases the maximum amount of Eridium players can hold from 99 to 500.
Adds a new playthrough balanced for top-tier play: Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.
Various bug fixes.

Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade Pack (Free with Season Pass or $5 separately)

Raises level cap to 61, allowing characters to gain 11 additional levels.
Characters gain a skill point with every level from 51 to 61, for a total of 11 more skill points.
Powerful new "Ancient" E-Tech relics and rare Pearlscent-grade weapons can be picked up in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.

Gearbox also delved into the specifics of Ultimate Vault Hunter mode in a separate post:

Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode is unlocked for a character once they have completed the main story missions in True Vault Hunter Mode and reached level 50.
Unlike other playthroughs, Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode can be replayed multiple times with players able to reset their overall mission progress at any time from the Main Menu.
No more tutorial missions—characters in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode begin in Southern Shelf with the "Cleaning Up the Berg" mission.
While playing in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, enemies and bosses will scale according to the player's current level or, if playing with others, the highest-level player in that party.
Gameplay changes in UVHM:

Enemy health generally increased 4x.
Enemies now have a moderate amount of health regeneration.
Increased duration of slag damage multiplier effect.
Upped the damage that slagged enemies take from 2x to 3x.
Weapon swap speed increased to better facilitate slag use.
Enemies now more likely to drop ammo.
Loot Midgets are now "Legendary Loot Midgets" that can drop Legendary and other top-tier gear.



Both the free patch and the DLC releases on April 2. The next DLC hits one month later, when that scary Krieg guy will jump down from his hiding spot and rip everyone's arms off.

When DayZ's Dean "Rocket" Hall told me that if there was one game I had to play on the show floor at PAX East, any game at all, it would have to be Outlast, I really didn't think about the implications. I took it for granted that it would be a good game, but I failed to realize just how terrifying that meant Outlast would be. I mean, really, it should have obvious.

Outlast is Amnesia meets meets Mirror's Edge meets Cloverfield. I made it as far as standing next to the big-screen television showcasing the trailer (“So, tell me about—Whoah. WHOAH.”) while talking to the folk from Red Barrels. When I told David Chateauneuf I'd rather eat a durian unshelled than actually get a hands-on with Outlast, it brought a grin rather than a look of affront. The guys behind Red Barrels know what they want—they want to scare the stem cells out of your liver—and they know how to do it.

“We're huge, huge horror movie buffs,” Chateauneuf declares.

Chateauneuf claims he owns about 500 horror movies and that between the entirety of the 10-man team, they probably own just about every horror game in existence. According to him, Outlast was built out of those experiences and the data accrued from asylum-related media, psychologists, specialists, and people uncomfortably familiar with what goes on in such locations. The team had a two-pronged objective with this game. Not only were they aiming to make it the stuff of nightmares, they wanted to make Outlast as realistic as possible.

“These days, people are always recording something with their phones and their camcorders. So, we decided to use that to add to the experience of walking in the dark without a flashlight or a lighter—the idea is to keep things more grounded,” said Chateauneuf.



It's one of the reasons Red Barrels stayed away from outlandish-looking antagonists. "The enemies that you'll encounter are mostly just crazy patients. We didn't want to venture too far into the whole 'monster' thing. The guys you meet are supposed to be normal human beings—just crazy ones. Those guys are human beings and they might say something, might interact with you. We want players to feel like they might be in an actual asylum."

Chateauneuf goes on to describe how, in one instant, players might find themselves assaulted by a placid-looking individual in a corner and be completely ignored by the gibbering madman plowing down the corridor in the next. With Outlast, it seems, they're aiming to keep it both believable and unpredictable, to make an environment that is plausible enough for genuine terror.

To further accentuate that sense of realism, Red Barrels also drew some inspiration from the slick Mirror's Edge, an action-adventure game famous for its realistic first-person view. “As you climb over objects or sneak through passageways, you'll see your own hands and feet. It's something that we wanted to put forward so that players will feel like they have a body and are not just floating cameras—we want to put players into a complete state of immersion.

“Maybe, at one point, we might be like 'No battery for you!' and then, you have to find some and the moment you find one, it could be like, 'Agh! Monster in your face!'” Chateauneuf enthuses. “Right now, we're experimenting with things like having the lens broken at some point and playing with that. We're testing effects like broken glass, or, maybe, false images—we're trying to keep things from being 'ghostly' or anything like that, though. It's going to be a normal camcorder; there's not even going to be stuff that adds extra power and so on. Why? Because in our minds, all of this has to be what a normal human being and a normal camcorder can do.”



Things have gone well so far. Chateauneuf mentions a girl who had been so frightened, she broke the black-paneled booth in which the demo is being held by jumping into it.

"There was also this guy yesterday that was talking to me before he took on the demo," he remarks. "He was really calm and it didn't look like he isn't going to do anything specific or suspicious but as soon as he encountered an event, well, he was definitely screaming. People in the line were staring at me with this whole, 'What's happening?' When I peeked inside, the guy in there was just freaking out. He eventually came out, laughing, however, and told us he enjoyed himself but, yeah, that was kind of funny."

EA's reinforcement efforts for SimCity's shaky foundations continue shoring up the city-builder's lingering faults, with the most recent update smarting up SimDrivers on the existence of more than one SimRoad. On the official forums, Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis has outlined the next batch of issues the upcoming 2.0 patch addresses, including smarter Street Cars and squashing a particularly heavy Recycling Center glitch.

"We've been heads down addressing the key issues we’re seeing reported from our community," Katsarelis writes. "This includes city rollbacks, lost progress, and the return of features like Cheetah Speed and Leaderboards. Like you, we want all of these resolved ASAP, which is why they are the top priorities in our studio. Matter of fact, we have all of these in a QA environment, giving them a thorough test before we release them back to you, the fans."

The Recyling Center issue has seen widespread reporting from plenty mayors working towards greener waste management in their burgs and across region play. It's most definitely a bug: centers abruptly stop working if its truck force is greater than its waste-processing power. Once inoperable, the facility permanently bricks itself and refuses to recycle any more materials. The dirty solution, then, is to demolish and immediately rebuild the plant, but seeing as actual mayors don't go around repeatedly detonating buildings whenever something goes awry, I'm sure Maxis doesn't want SimCity players to have to resort to such measures either.

Katsarelis says other fixes and tweaks included in the patch's blueprints are an increase to the radius of river water and an adjustment to Casino revenue to make them more profitable.

"Keep in mind, if you don’t see a particular fix present in an update, this doesn't mean we’re not working on it, or we’re not aware of it," Katsarelis adds. "Our team is constantly getting reports about the top issues being raised, and this is helping us prioritize what we need to address. There are some issues that are more challenging and will take more time. If you have feedback, please visit our forums. In the meantime, we’ll continue to address the top issues in our updates. We’ll keep working while you’re playing."

Who doesn't love a story about trench-coated, cybernetic soldiers wearing sunglasses indoors and uncovering nefarious schemes from world-domineering organizations? Nobody, that's who. This explains how Deus Ex just keeps getting augmented with fantastic-looking mods. After a few years hidden in the development lab, Nihilum is ready to emerge on June 3 as a fully-voiced alternate tale involving the green-loving UNATCO and a mission to a futuristic Hong Kong.

Creator FastGamerr sets the scene: "In the wake of a sudden terrorist attack in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the neighboring Hong Kong is feared to be the next target. The discovery of international terrorist involvement in the case leads the Chinese into requesting UNATCO assistance with the investigation. UNATCO dispatches their first nano-augmented agent, Mad Ingram, to assist the Chinese and prevent the crisis from escalating any further. Little does he know that this mission is merely the beginning of larger events that will leave a definite mark on his life."

Mad Ingram definitely sounds like a name of someone more likely to allow tiny robots to swim around in his bloodstream than JC Denton. A few other locations show up on Ingram's global tour, including New York City and Hong Kong's Kowloon area. FastGamerr says the mod's content is made from scratch with a bit of help from texture and content tweak mods UNATCO Born and Revision, and it'll take around 7-9 hours to complete the story.

Shine your robot eyebeams at Nihilum's Mod DB page for more screens, and if you possess a deep, sultry delivery, FastGamerr wants you as the voice of Mad Ingram himself.

Piranhas get a bad rap. Contrary to popular belief, they're not actually all that interested in devouring human flesh – a misconception that renders the entirety of Piranha 3DD, and that bit in that one James Bond film, obsolete. You'll find that and more deceptive things in this week's Free Webgame Round-Up, which also features "Tim Schafer" (yeah, right) and a so-called "honest rogue". Enjoy!

Piranha Pop by This Is Pop Play it online here.

Each stage features rather a strict time limit.

So this is Angry Birds, but with piranhas and disco balls instead of fat little avians and explosive pig things. The goal in each stage is to fling the carnivorous sea-monsters at a glittering party globe, because, as everyone knows, piranhas hate disco almost as much as they love the work of avant-garde composer John Cage. Piranha Pop differs from Angry Birds in that it's a game of endurance; how long can you survive on your quest to eradicate an entire musical genre from history?

Host Master Deux: Quest For Identity by Major Bueno Play it online here.

This is Tim's ACTUAL mansion maybe perhaps.

A belated sequel to the 2009 game that cast you as Double Fine's Tim Schafer, prior to his GDC appearance of the same year. Host Master Deux sees Tim being rudely denied entry to the event, by a bouncer who doesn't believe he's the guy that invented adventure games and kickstarter and beards. So begins a funny, old-fashioned adventure game created by Major Bueno. You know, Major Bueno – who brought the world, and this column, the wonderful Caesar's Day Off and Drop a Beat, Giuseppe! (Via IndieGames)

Chaotic by amidos2006 Play it online here.

You're the target-looking thing - next time you may look completely different.

A multidirectional shooter inspired by Super Hexagon – but with little in common when it comes to the actual game. Chaotic more closely resembles Geometry Wars and the like, with wave upon wave of enemy shapes encroaching on your personal space. You, by the way, are some sort of randomly generated doodad, and one which gradually evolves and devolves in effectiveness throughout the game. There appears to be quite a bit of roguelikey randomness going on here, so your every go on this simple little shooter will be slightly different, as if you've restarted in a subtle parallel dimension. (Via Free Indie Games)

A False Saint, An Honest Rogue by humbit Play it online here.

Socks to be you.

humbit's survivalist roguelike should be made mandatory in schools – the way our climate's going – along with the likes of Unreal World and Don't Starve. You're a little naked dude in the snow (and in the game), and because you're a little naked dude in the snow your first port of call should be to bag yourself an outfit, from the tattered scraps that have been mysteriously scattered over the frozen earth.

As this is a roguelike, and a hard one, you probably won't get too much further than that, particularly if (like me) you insist on wading through every freezing-cold puddle you come across. Still, this is an accomplished survival experience, and a more complex simulation than you might first realise – should you get lost, have a think about which way the shadows are facing. (Via Free Indie Games)

(Editor's note: The review below has been amended on 02/04/13 to better outline the game's combat system, and specifically the function of enemy Armour stats. This doesn't change our opinion of the game or the score.)

Review by James Archer.

For a game primarily starring chubby Vikings, The Banner Saga isn’t half a looker. This turn-based tactical RPG is the PvP component of Stoic’s upcoming The Banner Saga project, released early on a free-to-play basis, and they’ve deliberately and effectively designed it to look like a ’60s Disney film.

The muted shades and warm tones impressively convey a sense of place. Which, unfortunately, only serves to make the mere OK-ish-ness of the underlying game seem even more underwhelming.

"Characters become increasingly useless, unable to effectively retaliate once they’ve been hurt"

Take the combat. Mechanically, it’s an entirely serviceable axe-fest with enough individual classes to bounce each unit’s special moves against another’s in interesting ways. One of my opponents was fond of using a heavy shield-bash attack on a friendly archer, the minor damage an acceptable cost for shunting her several spaces across the board into a prime sniping position. But because health and damage stats are merged under a single ‘Strength’ figure, so that injured units hit for less, there’s little scope for drama. Characters just become increasingly useless, unable to effectively retaliate once they’ve been hurt, making surprise comebacks and tense stalemates almost impossible.

In addition to Strength, each unit has an Armour rating – damage done amounts to your Strength minus the target’s Armour. Whittling down this defence is only truly necessary for the heaviest tanks, though – it’s still a far more effective use of a turn to go for Strength directly, as it both hurts enemies and limits their ability to do health or armour damage back. This is the case even when a foe’s armour rating exceeds your attack’s strength, which will replace a guaranteed hit with a percentage chance. You could still try an Armour attack, which always hits, but the opportunity cost – even a small chance of much more valuable Strength damage – always feels a little too high.

The Armour/Strength system also creates a reliance on sheer luck that gets worse as matches go on. Once everyone’s been sufficiently impaled, their chances to hit drop to senselessly low percentages. And if you’re a hardened Norseman and you have only a 50/50 chance to hit a stationary enemy standing two feet away, it might be time to hang up the Dane axe. At this point the pace slows, miss followed by miss, to an extent that even the hand-drawn look will struggle to hold your attention.



It does work. Factions absolutely promotes wits over brute force, and there are no broken characters, overpowered abilities or particular team build or initiative strategies that dominate – but it’s rarely exciting, and that spells trouble for anything that demands so much time input. Characters are promoted to more advanced classes with Renown, Factions’ currency, which is earned via killing foes and post-match victory bonuses. There aren’t many ranks – fresh units start at zero, and can advance all the way up to a dizzying one – but even on a winning streak, it takes hours to accumulate enough Renown to upgrade a single class.

"my store-bought crew was being pitted against vastly more experienced foes, getting thoroughly trounced each time"

Of course, as Stoic’s accountants might argue, you could always just buy boosters, Renown itself or readily-promoted characters from the in-game store. Since there’s nothing available that can’t be attained for free (albeit much, much more slowly), the shop appears to avoid the pay-to-win mentality that microtransactions are frequently charged with enabling. Yet I learned – having coughed up $8 for a character pack – that it does this a little too well. Levelled-up characters add points to your team’s power level, which is used in matchmaking (rather than kills, time spent playing, etc), so my store-bought crew was being pitted against vastly more experienced foes, getting thoroughly trounced each time. It wasn’t until I reverted to the basic, weaker classes that I was finally matched with someone I could feasibly challenge. Pay to win? I’d paid to lose.

It is genuinely cool that a big chunk of an unreleased project is being made available, at no initial cost, while work on the singleplayer mini-series continues. Perhaps Factions’ rougher edges won’t prove as frustrating when battling an AI. For now, however, it might be wiser to treat this standalone multiplayer effort as an extended demo.


Expect to pay: Free-to-play, with items ranging from $1-$20
Release: Out now
Developer: Stoic Studio
Publisher: In-house
Multiplayer: 2 player PvP
Link: The Banner Saga site

Dragon Age Senior Writer David Gaider gave a talk at GDC yesterday titled "Sex in Video Games." It wasn't about "boobies and penises," as Gaider jokingly put it, but about how sex and gender are portrayed in games, and why the industry should take responsibility for the messages it sends. His conclusion is that the industry, at the very least, needs to stop actively repelling women and minorities, and is responsible for setting a tone which condones sexism.

Gaider began by criticizing some of the early decisions he made while working on romance options—he started with Baldur's Gate II, so he's had a lot of experience. "We censored ourselves," said Gaider, chastising the studio for initial trepidation over the idea of including same-sex relationships. Since then, he says BioWare has learned how its choices impact players.

"The moment broached the subject of romance and sex, we were saying something about what was acceptable, and what was normal, and who we thought our audience was," said Gaider. "We said that whether we wanted to say anything or not. We said it by virtue of what we included, as well as what we didn't include. Those were statements."

Gaider went on to say that portraying sex in games is difficult because the public views gamers as "mostly children," while the industry views them as teenage boys who want sexualized female characters. He counters these perceptions with stats about BioWare's playerbase and the ESA's demographics survey, which indicate a large female audience.

"Are we still marketing our games primarily to that 18 to 25 demographic?" he asked. "Are we all fighting for the same piece of that same slice of that pie? As nice as it must be to be that demographic—when you've got everyone banging on your door, trying to court you, it must be very pleasant—what's it like for someone who isn't in that demographic? We know they play our games. We can see that they do. OK, there's support for that, but it's not because anyone invited them to play. In fact, in a lot of cases, it's clear they play despite it being made plainly obvious to them that they're not the intended audience."



The problem, says Gaider, comes from falsely held industry standards and the phenomenon of privilege. Regarding the former, Gaider made no concessions for "conventional industry wisdom." It's "bull****," he said, after ridiculing the idea that games with female protagonists aren't marketable.

"Are we supposed to accept the opposite, that a game which has a male protagonist and sells well, sells well because it has a male protagonist?" asked Gaider. "What about the ones with male protagonists that don't sell well? Are those for other reasons? What would be the bar at which the industry would change its mind about female protagonists? Would we need a title to sell 10 million copies? Is that the bar?"

On privilege, Gaider recognized that it's a sensitive claim, but explained that's it's not about being sexist or racist—it's intrinsic ignorance.

"Privilege is when you think that something's not a problem because it's not a problem for you personally," he said. "If you're part of a group that's being catered to, you believe that's the way it should be. 'It's always been that way, why would that be a problem for anyone?'

"I want you to indulge me for a moment, imagine that since video games were first made, all major characters are black. Every hero. Everyone who does something virtuous, they're all black. Good white characters? Few and far between. Mostly minor—the white guy on the team. White female characters? Unheard of...If your response to that is, 'Actually I wouldn't mind,' I'm pretty sure if you talked to somebody who is in that position, they could tell you that you would. You don't have the context to understand what someone's going to...you have to recognize that, because that's privilege. Because you have the privilege to not have to understand."

Quotes from a forum poster upset that he is no longer the "sole proprietor" of gaming help Gaider make his point.

So, what should the industry do? Gaider doesn't think all games should have female protagonists, or be made to appeal to everyone. That's reductio absurdum, he says—pushing the issue to an illogical absurd where Call of Duty is a hippie commune. Being inclusive isn't about creating "a carefully constructed pastiche of genders, ethnicities, and sexualities," he said.

"I'm not talking about needing to go out and say, 'Oh, how do we attract women?' How about we just decide how not to repel women? I think that's all they're asking for, really! That's how you invite them, because we see they're already interested in playing, so welcome them to the table.

"And remember, even if you say, 'We're not interested, we're happy having this audience that we currently have. We sell a bajillion copies, we don't need—obviously our products do pretty well.' Consider that we influence the way our audience thinks. Even if you're not engaging in the discussion with that other audience you think you don't need, you are talking to the audience you currently have, you are influencing their attitudes. And those attitudes affect others."

Throughout his talk, Gaider fairly acknowledged BioWare's role in the issue, and criticized the industry's passive acceptance of sexist behavior. He also acknowledged that he has "plenty of privilege," and suggested everyone pay attention to others talking about the issue.

ALIEN MOVEMENT. Firaxis teased more XCOM at PAX East recently. This triggered a series of quick sensations. First: the flashbacks. I saw all the soldiers I'd lost last October when I ploughed through XCOM: Enemy Unknown. So many dead. Then there was happiness as I remembered how Enemy Unknown successfully modernised a classic turn based strategy while keeping its soul intact. Then - excitement, and questions. So many questions. Will it be an expansion, or a sequel? What could they improve? What would we want from more XCOM?
More hero customisation
I remember when John Keats was a rookie with little more than a basic assault rifle to his name. By the end of the invasion he was a bright yellow bus with a plasma rifle. He lost friends along the way. William Blake died on the asphalt outside a shop in some nameless American town. Sergeant Balls Balls died in the mud at the entrance to a crashed alien spaceship. Keats endured. Just when I thought he couldn't get any more powerful, he went psychic.

But all his comrades were dead, replaced by a procession of fresh-faced strangers. They feared their bright yellow leader more than the alien menace. Silenced by loss, Keats had become a scarred, paranormal monster. In my head, that is. That XCOM soldier stared back with the same blank face from mission to mission. In my head Keats' armour became scuffed and worn. His faceplate became flecked with dull green alien bloodstains. Mind's-eye Keats lashed a circlet of crooked Thin Man fingers to his belt - trophies of foes killed in the name of fallen Sergeant B. Balls.

I'd like to see a bit of that realised in-game. Perhaps veterancy could be represented visually to differentiate weathered vets from trembling newbies. More squad customisation options would give players a chance to personalise their favourite soldiers and impose their own sense of order on the squad. In the PC Gamer office we all ended up colour coding our soldiers differently, some by role, others by seniority, others by each soldiers' perceived personality. You spend a lot of time looking at your soldiers in XCOM, greater control over their appearance would build stronger bonds player/squaddy and make every dramatic perma-death even more nyoooooo-worthy.


Interesting air combat
Shooting down alien ships was more of an extension of the research and development metagame than a contest in its own right. Success and failure depended entirely on the quality of your vessel, and whether or not you chose to boost a ship during combat - a resource spend action that never felt worthwhile. If air combat is going to have its own interface system and require the attendance of the player during conflict then there should be some interesting decision-making going on.

It could become a game about organising good planetary coverage, placing launch sites and refeulling depots around the world map. If you wanted something more involved, this excellent little flash game, SteamBirds, shows how accessible turn based air combat could be presented. If you wanted to go even further, the pilots themselves could become characters and hang around your base getting into fights with the infantry, Starship Troopers style.
More mission types
More of everything would be nice, of course. More aliens, more weapons, more armour types, more weird alien tech to assimilate. That's a given, but I'd especially like to see more varied missions. Terror missions, crash/landing sites, Bomb defusal and escort targets provided a good range of objectives initially, but lost their novelty value before the campaign was through. More high-stakes events like terror missions could offer commanders a way to rescue a despondent country on the verge of quitting the XCOM project. Rescuing the Queen from an alien attack on Buckingham Palace would do wonders for XCOM's reputation in the UK, for example. Battlegrounds could also do more to differentiate between the continents they're set in.


Emergent soldier personalities
XCOM is a good story generator, but it could be better. Every XCOM player I've spoken to has stories about the heroes and dunces that lived and died in service of their XCOM project. Additions that allow for more complex narrative arcs will only strengthen the player's natural tendency to weave combat happenings into epic war stories. Emergent events could do more to turn your faceless squaddies into individuals. Soldiers could risk picking up lasting war wounds, for example, or gain terror/vengeance penalties/bonuses toward the alien hybrid that scarred them. Randomised personality traits could denote how they react when panicked. String enough little milestones like this together and you get a varied and interesting backstory for your surviving characters.

Soldiers could also interact with each other a bit more. If a rookie panics near a vet, the experienced soldier could calm them with a barked order. "Get your head back in the game, soldier!" Fighters could bond on the battlefield. If a soldier rescues a fellow rookie on the verge of death, they could enjoy improved morale when fighting together. There are much more elegant ideas out there, I'm sure. What would you like to see?
International Accents
XCOM's campaign is a heartening story about nations coming together for once to kick the vital goo out of greater foe. It's not a new story, sure, but it's effective, especially when the tide starts to turn in humanity's favour. It's like the bit in Independence day when the aliens' weakness has been discovered and everyone in the world phones everyone else, only without all the horrendous cultural stereotyping.

I loved having a squad made up of the best of the best from armies around the world, but it's a shame they all spoke in the same generic US voices. It sounds like a minor gripe, and an it's an expensive fix given all the extra voice talent you'd need to make it happen, but accents inflections from other countries would do much to sell the fantasy of assembling a group of transglobal superheroes.


Mod support and a map maker utility
Firaxis backed up Civilization V with a map making tool and Steam Workshop support. A similar show for XCOM would be most welcome. I enjoyed the range of maps XCOM provided, but any scarcity problems would swiftly be solved by a busy modding community. Think of all the new new aliens, weapons, missions, texture packs, visual tweaks and voice packs we'd get. Modding is a great way to give a game extra legs and XCOM could be a great canvas for player creativity.
Multiple endings
Every XCOM campaign filters into the same slipstream for the grand finale. Multiple endgames would encourage more replays and could present consequences that reflect how well you've done. The story could so easily end horribly. When countries leave the XCOM project, you lose resources and they effectively vanish from the map. It would be easy to imagine them descending into in-fighting or forming their own competing defence force.

And on top of all that, there are the ideas that the XCOM series has explored before, like the aquatic warfare of Terror from the Deep. What would you like to see from a new Firaxis XCOM? Underwater battles? A return to multiple bases? A black market that lets you sell weapons of destruction en-masse on the black market for huge profits? Aliens the size of skyscrapers? Let us know.
IN MEMORY OF SGT. B. BALLS. GOD REST HIS BALLS.