Research uncovers new details on XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Less than a week after its big reveal, we've been drip-fed some more info about the upcoming reboot/remake of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, on its way from Firaxis.

While details are still pretty scarce, it does look like the developers are going out of their way to make old-school fans happy. They're aiming to maintain the depth of the original game, but at the same time, trimming off the bits and pieces of extra 'stuff' that cluttered the interface and took up valuable time.

Time Units are gone - instead, each character can be given a double move (or a move and an action) with each turn.

Not gone: Mutons, Cyberdiscs and Sectoids. Also introduced: Suppressive fire, destructible environments and procedurally-generated missions.

...and for the absolute purists, a nice touch: The most challenging difficulty setting has been named "Classic Mode".

There are 16 individual countries involved in XCOM, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Africa may be rich in natural resources, but poor when it comes to stacks of cash.

Dead soldiers remain dead forever - and if they're killed by something powerful enough, equipment can be damaged beyond repair. Goes without saying then that if you play poorly enough, you really will lose The Game!

In the shiny new information dump included in Game Informer (and summarised at NeoGAF, there are also suggestions that the PC version - at least - will include an "enhanced interface" so you can zoom all the way out and check out the field of play from a bird's eye perspective. Whether that stretches to the console versions or not is something we'll be keeping a close eye on.