In development at 2K Marin is the newest installment in the XCOM legacy of games titled The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. With the success that the first game on this generation of consoles it was only a matter of time before another one would be on the way. This game is not a direct sequel, in fact it’s not even played from the same perspective. At it’s core, The Bureau is still an XCOM game, but a few changes have been added to make use of the first person perspective that the game is played in.
Here are a few details that have been released so far:
- Gameplay for The Bureau has been redesigned to make strategy, tactics and careful planning crucial
- Designers thought it would elegant to stick a single viewpoint, so the first-person view has been dropped in favor of a third-person tactical view
- Gameplay is likened to Gearbox’s Brother’s in Arms
- Players control William Carter, the main character, and must use the ‘Battle Focus’ command wheel to deal with enemies
- The wheel is split into three sections for Carter, the commander, and two agents
- Time slows when Battle Focus is activated and players can issue commands using a free-roaming, almost top-down camera. It feels like XCOM, but in real-time
- Battle Focus is primarily used to maneuver characters, but becomes very effective in conjunction with powers and combos, which are unlocked by capturing aliens
- Engineers can place turrets, Carter can then lift these up and hold them in the air to reach entrenched enemies
- In many respects, The system is a carryover from BioShock 2, which required players to use traps, weapons and plasmids in similar ways. 2K Marin wants players to experiment with powers, gadgets and weapons to cater play styles to themselves
- The Bureau is set in 1962, when aliens first arrive on Earth
- Players will see XCOM form as an offshoot of the FBI
- Art style mixes ’60s American nostalgia and modern sci-fi. The agents are described as what it would look like if Mad Men’s Don Draper joined the Ghostbusters
- Agents in The Bureau can be customized, named, individually leveled up, and they all have their own skill trees. Their deaths are permanent
- The story is “fully-formed”, and has interactive, branching dialogue, as well as environmental storytelling
- Not classic XCOM, but also not a shallow shooter
- The Bureau will have an explorable HQ, let players research and develop new weapons and powers
- There will also be side-missions, and a story affected by choice and consequence
And the first trailer, courtesy of CVG:
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So what do you all think of the first person perspective for this game? I know it’s not classic XCOM, but it could work really well.