Phoenix Point has been working toward release for a while now. The newest game to try and build on the X-COM legacy is coming out next month though, finally. Though the game did get delayed at one point, and then delayed a second time, things were still looking up. And even though some fans were disappointed by that news, the developers promise that the wait will be worth it.
The world of Phoenix Point is randomly generated, offering plenty of replayability in the tactical aspects. Another area that changes each time is the faction behavior on the strategic level. Since the factions remain largely the same, but are saddled with different behaviors and starting conditions, the visual style may not be a good indicator of what kind of enemy your facing. It’s these kinds of changes that break the genre mold just enough to make it interesting. Although without already interesting factions in their own right, the game world may feel a little flat. Julian Gollop, creator of the original X-COM, and team lead at Snapshot Games has just revealed a new human faction by the name of New Jericho.
Snapshot Games has shown off this new addition with a spiffy new gameplay trailer. The faction itself is pretty menacing, but I’ll let the developer talk through the finer points. Check out said new faction in the trailer down below.
Like X-COM, Phoenix Point will blend the core turn-based strategy with a rich and engrossing story, but having the creator of the original XCOM on this project means that this game will be so much more than that.
The game also borrows heavily from other games in the genre to deliver the ideal experience, For example, the in-mission UI is rather similar to Firaxis Games’ XCOM games, which use great system so why not use it. Another borrowed element comes in when we get into the new features and ideas that Phoenix Point experiments with. For one thing, there’s a new first-person aiming mood that reminds me of a few different games. But once that limb targeting system kicks in, one cannot help but notice the Fallout influence.
The development team even ran through some of these in another trailer, which can be seen below.
