Watch: It's another Chris Bratt/Jake Solomon XCOM love-in
This time, on stage at EGX.
You're probably aware by now, but Eurogamer's Chris Bratt really loves XCOM and consequently has a bit of a man-crush on Jake Solomon, the designer who masterminded its rebirth at Firaxis with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and the recent XCOM 2.
Chris has spoken to Jake quite a few times now, most recently to provide some very candid background for a warts-and-all reveal of how Firaxis saved XCOM from complete disaster for Chris' video series Here's A Thing.
Chris asked Jake if he would mind reprising this topic live on stage at EGX this year, and to our surprise he didn't respond with a restraining order but said yes. It covers much the same ground as the episode of Here's A Thing, but there's some new, never before seen footage of early builds and concept videos for Enemy Unknown, plus you get to hear Solomon's self-effacing remarks straight from the horse's mouth. And there's a side order of awkward hero worship, if that's your thing. The cameras don't pick up the part where Chris almost fell over, sadly.
In seriousness, it's a very illuminating conversation and well worth watching in the embed below.
If you're up for more, Chris will be chairing another session with both Solomon and the designer of the original X-Com, Julian Gollop, at EGX at 5pm today. As with all the developer sessions, you can watch this live at twitch.tv/egx, after the fact on the EGX YouTube channel, and we'll be highlighting some of the YouTube uploads here on the site too.
