XCOM: Enemy Unknown PC packs mod support, unique UI

Firaxis is ticking a lot of the right boxes in "reimagining" the much-loved tactical series X-COM for modern audiences with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, certainly more than the FPS XCOM. The developer's shared a few details on the PC edition now, ticking more boxes with support for modding and a "unique" UI especially for PC.

Asked by PC Gamer whether the PC edition would use the controller-based interface seen so far, lead designer Jake Solomon's answer was clear: "No, no, no. Nooo. Oh man, no. I wouldn't do that to you, are you kidding me? No."

"We have a team that's doing the PC UI, and there are some elements where it can make sense to use the base, like when we have menus and things like that, but our tactical UI is a standalone PC tactical UI."

He added, "And so we have a PC tactical UI that we're working on that is distinct, because obviously mouse driven with a tactical game – being able to select objects of interest - as opposed to a gamepad, where you're cycling through objects of interest."

Firaxis also plans to support mods in Enemy Unknown, much as it has with the core Civilization series. "We have a great legacy of that at Firaxis," Solomon said.

"The idea is that there is the ability for modability," he explained. "It won't be anything that we're committing to for release, but it's very very easy using Unreal titles. I write almost all my game code in the scripts, and that's very easy to give to people."

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is due on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this fall.