Irrational doing X-Com game?

By Tom Bramwell Published 19 February, 2007

A tale of lawyers and intrigue.

Irrational Games is known to be hard at work on BioShock at the moment, but our old pal Internet Reports has been digging about a bit and seems to have come up with some clues as to what else may be happening in the developer's US and Australian studios.

Shacknews documents the trail, which leads through to the website of law firm Fierst, Pucci & Kane, LLP. They handle accounts for a number of game companies and related individuals, including Irrational's Ken Levine and Jonathan Chey. What's interesting is that Irrational is linked, in cached versions of a Fierst, Pucci & Kane document, to "X-Com".

Other threads pointing to some sort of Irrational X-Com possibility include the detail that publisher Take-Two, which owns Irrational, actually acquired the X-Com property in 2005, and doesn't appear to have done much with it since. Then there's the fact that Ken Levine is known to be a big fan.

It's hardly conclusive, of course, but there's certainly more to go on than usual. Shacknews notes that its contact with Levine proved unhelpful, however, with the developer declining to comment. Meanwhile we spoke to Take-Two this morning, only to be told that clarification would have to come from "on high" - the publisher's corporate offices in New York - if it came at all. So stay tuned, because there might be more in this fittingly turn-based investigative saga!

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • The_Don #1 5 years ago

    Man I hope so, loved X-COM: UFO Defense, please please be working on it! ;-)

  • Carrybagma #2 5 years ago

    Nice if they got a Gollop on board.

  • Blerk #3 5 years ago

    I can't even guess how many hours I sank into the original UFO. A proper sequel to that would be brilliant.

    /closes eyes and wishes
    /opens eyes
    /sees 'first person shooter' X-COM game
    /cries

  • KingOfSpain #4 5 years ago

    Quick question....

    What was the name of the 3rd xcom?

    It was set in a 1950s style si-fi city and you could blow up shit loads of stuff. I think most fans dis-owned it at the time but i secretly loved it:)

  • jebus #5 5 years ago

    Apocolypse?

    Man this could be the best news of the year if it's true. Irrational could do it justice. I would imagine that they would use the Freedom Force engine if it was greenlit.

  • KingOfSpain #6 5 years ago

    Thank jebus.

    What did eveyone else think of apocolypse? Did anyone else like it or was it just me?

  • Clive_Dunn #7 5 years ago

    Stop opening your Christmas presents before the big day.

  • Phishy #8 5 years ago

    Get Back to work Dean!

  • KingOfSpain #9 5 years ago

    Yo Phil. Hows tricks dude?

  • alpha-0ne #10 5 years ago

    Well in an interview with levine about bioshock last week he said before they were bought out by 2kgames they only ha denough people to work on one project ata time, he then went on to say they are working on two projects at once now ... so bioshock and this i guess

  • strangeed #11 5 years ago

    woohoo! I loved the original x-com. Terror from the deep was brilliant too. After that it went a bit pear shaped I thought. I still bought them all but enjoyed them less. Cenega is the main developer on this kind of stuff. their newest seems to be ok, though shockingly they still don't have destructible environments....

    How would you do it though? Update it but retain the same quality, the amount of pitfalls are crazy. I don't know how optimistic I can be about it :(

  • cooper #12 5 years ago

    This sounds almost too good to be true. Other than the Gollops, Irrational would be my second best choice for a new X-COM developer.
    The first two are absolute classics, even though Terror from the Deep had the game-killing "research tree bug" at a time when getting patches wasn't easy at all.

    Since we're speculating, IMO X-COM would only work as a pure turn-based game as the originals (never as the horrible mess that was Apocalypse), but maybe it would be possible to make it work as an action/tactical/FPS game (something like a SWAT/System Shock hybrid).
    In an ideal world, they would do both ;-)

    BTW, are the Gollops planning to do anything after LSM and Rebelstar?

  • quantumsheep #13 5 years ago

    \o/

    Loved this series a lot - Even Interceptor with the rubbish space flight bits.

    I think it's the research and making/trying out new weapons that made it so addictive.

    Also, the way you could change the team members names to whatever your heart desired essentially made it feel more personal.

    I even played email X-Com with a mate - that was GENIUS!!!

    =)

  • gallow #14 5 years ago

    It won't a an X-COM game without the Gallop brothers on board.

  • Phishy #15 5 years ago

    Yeah good, just keeping upto date. Xcom eh? That must be some sort of Gaming Computer...

  • Blerk #16 5 years ago

    While I'd love to see a new Gollop-developed X-COM, remember it isn't actually a requirement in order to get a good game. Terror from the Deep wasn't a Gollop game, after all.

  • nick303 #17 5 years ago

    @ KingOfSpain, I thought Apocalypse was the best of the X-com series. I still occasionally play it now. In between playing UFO- Afterlight that is.

  • WrongShui #18 5 years ago

    Please please please be true.

    I thought Apocolypse was awesome, not quite UFO but awesome in its own way.

  • hamstand #19 5 years ago

    apocalypse was a sack of dog balls.

    FPS? you have to be joking!! Turn based or forget it. :)

  • WrongShui #20 5 years ago

    While I'm here..

    SYNDICATE 3!