XCOM: Enemy Unknown Screens Show a Glorious Return to Form

The first batch of screens from Firaxis' upcoming XCOM: Enemy Unknown are out, and fans can now breathe a huge sigh of relief. There are no gross perversions of your franchise nostalgia here, just a gorgeous facelift for the mechanics that made the old X-COM games great.

Though there are just three screens here, they hit all the right notes. One showcases a combat scene, with all the trimmings of a faithful reimagining. The big changes — a greatly streamlined interface and hex tiles — should modernize things without making them feel too foreign to fans of the classic game.

Another screen shows off one of the game's bases, constructed out of modular rooms. The only real change that's visible here is the shift from horizontal bases to vertical, subterranean ones. That'll probably prove more cosmetic than anything else.

Additionally, Game Informer has published a few new details about the game, confirming that the combination of real-time global gameplay and turn-based combat remains intact. Soldiers will be still be able to die permanently, line of sight and fog of war will still be crucial to combat, and you'll still have the option of losing the game outright if you muck up your strategy.

The article notes very few changes, though apparently your team will be governed by a different set of stats. In addition, it seems that Enemy Unknown will take place in the same universe as 2K Marin's XCOM FPS, albeit many decades later. The Game Informer cover reveal appeared to feature one of the more classic Gray aliens, but one of the in-game shots features enemies with a human appearance, poiting to the shapeshifting aliens from the upcoming reboot.

XCOM: Enemy Unkown will be out later this year on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.