ShadowBlade

I wouldn't say they're already short on time...

Option 3. I believe the act of reloading is tactically far more important than the threat of running out of ammo altogether. You're far more likely to get shot in the ass due to an untimely need to reload than exhausting your clip supply. For me, in UFO Defense and TFTD, clips were okay, but just an element of book-keeping. I don't remember ever running out of conventional ammunition, with troopers carrying a loaded weapon and a couple of spare clips. Ultimately, the important thing is that, in XCOM:EU, the types of ammo that actually matter, that did tend to run out (i.e. missiles and likely grenades) will be limited. I get that, but X-COM isn't a survival horror game. You command a specialized organization with powerful backers. Clips themselves were either dirt cheap (early Terran weapons), unnecessary (lasers) or aliens dropped them like mad (plasma). If you had to conserve ammo that much and/or loot corpses for it, then that's likely the result of a gross yet easily-avoidable logistics mistake, or a conscious player choice.

How did you arrive to such conclusion? Because the testers had to play the PC build with controllers? That's probably because they're still working on the proper PC interface, and doesn't necessarily mean it'll be an "afterthought". I'd guess they worked on the console controls first since they're trickier to implement: you've to come up with intuitive button usage and combinations to compensate for the still-backward nature of controllers. A mouse-driven interface is inherently far more intuitive, so I bet it'll be squared away pretty quickly. And Firaxis' track record is 90% PC-only games, so I very much doubt they'll botch that.

Great interview, even if it seems we've mostly reached the limit of information disclosure allowed for this round. I've more or less the same concerns as Hobbes. While Jake makes a good point about totally destructible environments, he also implied buildings have only a couple of entry points. That's quite conservative, pretty much on the other end of the destructibility scale, given it potentially means you can't just blow any chunk of wall to make your way into a given building and have to stick with the game's pre-defined points. I hope they prove me wrong. And I was also disappointed at the fact day and night have been reduced to just cosmetics. Seems like a wasted gameplay opportunity there. I know about NV goggles, but those could've been explicitly implemented to counter-act the darkness in night-time missions, say, at the expense of other gear that would've otherwise used that equipment slot. Besides that, there could've been some alien species that were nocturnal, or some special missions that required you to carry them out during the day or the night.

People are quick to conclude the six-trooper cap is a negative change, but the truth is we won't know how that works in practice until we play the game. No remotely accurate speculation can result from taking and judging a single gameplay element out of context. May turn out to be a good thing.

Great find. Finally some new material!

All great stuff! Is that a problem? Were you going to play a strategy game on a console?

Yeah, that's right. Most people complaining about the new squad sizes are thinking in the original game's terms, in which entering a fight with six soldiers would be nuts. My guess is the troopers will be sturdier than the old ones and/or there will be less WTF situations. Situations like the random plasma shot lancing in from the dark and killing a guy in one shot in the first turn. But that is part of the classic X-COM experience, as I believe Jake said in one of the many interviews, so we'll just have to see how the remake's dynamics work in practice. It's not wise to panic about general concepts without seeing them in action first, and in synergy with the other elements of the game.

Yeah, probably. Jake obviously replied in jest, but it was the initial observation irked me, since it didn't make any sense to begin with (and it's not the first time it's brought up). Don't get me wrong, I've played Pokemon games and they're great, but there's a billion better comparisons.

Great find! Could've done without the nonsense Pokémon comparison, but RPS interviews seem to be the most informative so far.

No, wait, I said human, and not humanoid. The new Floater's organic part has no discernible alien features. I bet it is, in fact, not an alien. And I'm very familiar with the whole Starfish Aliens versus Rubber Forehead Aliens debate. I'm not expecting gaseous life forms nor hyper-intelligent shades of the colour blue. You went down a complicated tangent, FA. I simply want adversaries that you can look at them and say "hey, that's an alien!" (i.e. most X-COM aliens) as opposed to clearly repurposed humans. But as long as it's just the Floater and arguably the Muton, I'm fine with it. I just don't want half the enemy types to be cyborgized humans, and have the game thematically feel like Quake.

No, it's half-machine, half mutilated human. I don't see any "alien-ness" beyond the technology. And yeah, the old Floater wasn't really scary, but then again neither was the Muton, being just a purple guy in green spandex. But scariness isn't really the point I was trying to make. The problem is I want aliens! The occasional modded human slave of sorts is good, but I really hope it's not a trend. We have two specimens of that already. That's fantastic.

Might as well add a new question, in light of the Floater reveal: are Strogg-like "aliens" (forcibly cyborgized humans) going to be common in the alien forces or are the Mutons and Floaters some kind of exception? I hope so. It would kinda sorta suck if that (cyborgization) were the reason the aliens are abducting people.

Well, it's not horrible and the old Floater wasn't perfect either, but at least it was an alien as opposed to a stroggy cyborg-ish half thing. But I can live with it, I guess.

Like Thorondor, I'm a bit concerned about the "strogg-ness" of some aliens, which might turn up to be more forcibly cyborgized humans than actual aliens. I thought it was just the Muton, but now the Floater as well... Cybernetic 'enhancement' and genetic manipulation were definitely in the aliens' doctrine in the original games, but they mostly did it among themselves. I'd rather they kept the assimilation to a minimum: we should primarily be fighting aliens, after all.

Any news, Pete?

Great summary! I've a question: given we'll only be able to take 4-6 troopers to a mission, what kind of advantages will more advanced transport aircraft (i.e. Lightning and Avenger) bring beyond speed and maybe weaponry, if any?

A tricky proposition. Ultimately preserving the mystery is a personal choice. You'd need the willpower to stop checking out preview material. Anyway, bit of a non-essential question: many alien items in the original game became usable straight away once your scientists researched them; will it be the same in XCOM:EU or will alien technology be the base for more advanced human weaponry (i.e. Terran plasma rifles as opposed to using the same aliens do)? Might make more sense, but who knows.

I think they've said that while you have unlimited ammo for main weapons, you still have to reload and that costs an action. Some special weapons have limited ammo, however: the rocket rauncher seems to be a one-shot weapon (per mission, I presume).

Yeah, I'm sorry. It's not like we've a billion questions already, so I kinda jumped the gun there. To be honest they've been elusive about everything they haven't shown on released videos or screenshots so far. Interviews lately seem to be about the same thing over and over, so I guess they'll start showing talking about new stuff (probably in batches) once they're 'cleared' to do so. With any luck, this interview will encourage them to spill the next bundle of information.

The inclusion of gunpowder seems too chaotic for me. Battles are long, and you could get killed at any time by a stray bullet. Sure, it's realistic, but I'm not sure if it's fun. Plus 250 actual players in a single multiplayer match sounds idyllic in theory, but like a brutal lagfest in practice. And bringing back the 'stray bullet' issue, half of them would likely spend half the match dead and waiting, as if in a gigantic Counter-Strike-esque game. But please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Guys, keep in mind that, if this interview is anything like the others, they won't have the time to answer 124 questions. Sorry if I seem to try to 'pre-answer' questions, but some can be discarded with safe speculation or common sense. I don't mean to sound snarky either. I'd say this is quite likely, considering how they've been stressing destructible environments. Though you'll probably need some serious explosives to breach the outer hull, as you did in the original. Still, might be worth the question to gain some more insight into terrain destruction. The Chrysalid's one of X-COM's most iconic aliens, so I really doubt it'll be skipped. We could ask for a sneak peek of its 'reimagined' look, however, and if there's any changes to its traditional modus operandi. And about the pairings, we have solid intel from one of the interviews: fixed pairings are gone, the alien species you encounter in a mission are randomized (presumably from those you can encounter at your current game stage), and there can be more than two species in a single op. Kret kind of covered this with one of his questions. But two things: the UFO AM/AS/AL series is completely unrelated to the X-COM series (just inspired by), and secondly it's obvious they won't say "oh, yeah, it's overpowered and completely game-breaking!" I'm not sure what FSW is, but we've seen cover be destroyed in all the gameplay footage they've released so far. Some more info about this would be nice. Though we've seen one in the early screenshots, looking like an unmanned, drone-like weapons platform. Essentially a gun on tracks as opposed to a mini-tank. They've already said there will be a number of difficulty levels, the hardest one called "Classic". Plus there's gonna be an "Iron Man" mode, independent of the difficulty setting, that will prevent exploity save-reloading.

There's an important difference between game replays and a recording that could be shown as standard video independently from the game (i.e. on YouTube). Replays tend to be much smaller than actual videos, as they're but a series of instructions and parameters that rebuild the mission in question and the events that made it happen the way it did, all within the game. To record real videos you'll very likely have to use Fraps or a similar program. But at any rate, asking about tactical replays sounds good. And about satellites, yes, technically "satellite" can mean a secondary thing. But in this case they've frequently used it in a "satellite coverage" context, so I doubt they're trying to use a non-evident definition of the word. OH! I have a good one! We should ask if trooper classes impose a physical stereotype on the soldier in question. In the videos we've seen, heavy weapons roles are always filled by big muscular types, assault soldiers look a bit more normal, snipers are skinny guys (we've only seen one, though), and women only seem to have one body type. Or are physical builds randomized on soldier recruitment? If so, are they customizable like other features, or do they depend on specific stats? Fixed body builds per class may be more recognizable at a glance, but it's more generic and boring as well.

Ah, wonderful. You know when you have lots of questions in mind, but when it comes the time to ask them said mind goes blank? This is it. The only thing I can recall right now is a bit snarky and picky: why use satellite instead of radar coverage, when in the face of an alien invasion the last thing you have is space superiority? But I had more productive questions in store, I swear! They'll come back to me eventually.

That's a great interview! Plenty of incisive questions about topics that hadn't been covered so far.