Firaxis' summer is going to be quite busy. They just announced today at their PAX East panel that they'll be bringing the fantastic strategy game from the PC/consoles over to the iOS platform.
They showed off a quick demo of what the game will look like on your palm-friendly device, but we're told that it's basically the entire game carried over to mobile. We'll have impressions for you as soon as we can get our hands on it. No word on pricing yet.
UPDATE: I spoke with Firaxis' Jake Solomon on the show floor today while he showed me XCOM: Enemy Unknown on an iPad. He opened up the familiar map of the XCOM base, and swiping between locations seemed like a natural fit. So did the gameplay, which is predominantly cursor-driven and so perfect for taps and swipes on a touch screen.
But I got a few other interesting tidbits, too, so I'll share them here with some bullet points:
- Development—or the porting process—of the iOS edition started at the tail-end of development on the PC/console versions of XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
- The iOS versions feature the same UI as the game, with a few tweaks for things like swiping, but the iPhone version will differ from the iPad version for obvious reasons like the limitation of screen real estate. Can't squeeze in as much details on a tinier phone.
- Solomon couldn't say what iPad/iPhone editions the game will launch for, but he did say that he's seen the game run on multiple versions of the iPad.
- The total number of maps you can play on are less than what you'd find on the PC/console editions.
We'll share more when we learn more.