Interviews

XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead Jake Solomon on why console games belong on iOS, and why premium is 'fairer' than free-to-play

Plus, Civilization V on iPad?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead Jake Solomon on why console games belong on iOS, and why premium is 'fairer' than free-to-play
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iOS
| XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Firaxis's Jake Solomon is the lead designer of the acclaimed console and PC title XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Though many fans were worried that a modern take on the 1994 classic X-COM: UFO Defence would sully the game's legacy, the 2012 re-imagining was almost universally praised.

If successfully resurrecting a beloved classic wasn't enough of a challenge, Firaxis recently announced that it would be delivering the complete XCOM: Enemy Unknown experience to iPhone and iPad.

To find out just how such a thing is possible, I sat down with Solomon to talk about XCOM: Enemy Unknown's iOS translation, why the premium model is "fairer" than free-to-play, and when we can expect to see Civilization V on our iPads.

Pocket Gamer: So, with the iOS version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you've taken a 20GB game and crammed it onto an iPhone. How exactly have you managed that?

Jake Solomon: You've basically highlighted in one sentence the major technical challenge. We weren't sure we'd be able to do it, in terms of the game running from a performance standpoint. But once we solved that, the question became 'how do we take a game this big and put it on iTunes?'

There's a lot of down-rezzing of textures and material, things like that. But the way we've got the vast majority of our space savings is by cutting the map count of the base game quite a bit.

You can still play through the game once and not see a repeat level, but through cutting the map count down we've made the game a somewhat more palatable size for mobile gaming.

If you're familiar with the PC or console version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, what are the biggest differences you're going to notice in this iOS version?

Well, they're identical in terms of gameplay. All the features are there on iOS. So, environment, destruction, fog of war - all of that is still there. I don't think that you'd notice anything outside the positive things.

There are a couple of things that give developers pause when they think about, let's say, a tablet as another gaming platform. I think the first thing is the storage requirements, but's that's a soluble problem.

I think the other major element to consider when porting is the control scheme. For a lot of developers, that's difficult. For us (and it's not because we're so smart; it's a happy accident), however, and because of the type of game we're making here, i.e. a turn-based strategy game, touch actually works better than mouse or keyboard or gamepad.

Touch feels incredibly natural for whatever you're doing: grabbing soldiers, moving them around the battlefield in a turn-based fashion, etc. It works really, really well. I think that's what people will probably notice first - how natural it is to control XCOM in this way.

It's really exciting because I play The Walking Dead, I play Minecraft - Pocket Edition on my tablet. And I would play everything, anything. If developers would put good, long, big games on the tablet, I would be in heaven. I game more now than ever before because I have my iPad with me wherever I go.

I understand that you're not using the free-to-play model for XCOM: Enemy Unknown on iOS. Why not?

Well, I mean... I have to be careful. I don't mean to disparage a game that is designed with that model in place, because it makes a lot of sense. But as a designer, and with the game we've made, I feel that upfront purchasing is a much fairer model.

I think the funny thing about it, at the end of the day, is that everybody goes home happy [with a premium game], right? I mean, so long as it's a good game.

You as a game maker do a lot of work, and say, 'this is what we think is a fair price'.

The player buys it, and he says, 'okay, this is my game now. Everything in this game is mine and I own it, and I'm happy now.'

So, you sort of have a virtual handshake when you exchange money at the beginning. I think that's a much fairer model.

For me, freemium is a very hard design. It's not very comfortable for me. I'm much happier doing the upfront model. Of course, the question is: does that work?

Did you consider producing a stripped-down companion XCOM: Enemy Unknown game for iOS, rather than porting the full experience?

Oh, sure, yeah. We looked at all those options. But with things like companion apps, well, it's just harder to see the value there - as a developer, and for the players.

The question would be, 'well, what if we couldn't get XCOM to actually run on iOS? What if, either performance-wise or storage-wise, we couldn't get the game to work?' Then, I think you say, 'well, we've got this platform, we've got to move the brand onto that platform. How do we do it?'

But for us, it's hard to see the value in that if we can offer the full game. That was the thing that we were most happy about. We thought, 'if we can bring the full game to people, we can be the first to do something like that.'

Did you draw inspiration from any other iOS titles when working on XCOM: Enemy Unknown's touchscreen controls?

Well, the actual port was handled by 2K China. It's handled ports of our titles in the past. One that it's done is Civilization Revolution. On a superficial level, that has the turn-based movement over multiple tiles.

We didn't look very far for inspiration, because it's something with which we have a lot of experience. Pretty quickly, we were able to home in on what we wanted. There was a lot of overlap at first with the PC mouse controls.

Are there any differences between the iPhone and iPad interfaces in XCOM: Enemy Unknown?

There are separate UIs. You play it on the iPhone with your thumbs, you see, so, yeah, the iPhone version's UI is different [from the iPad's one]. But that's the only change.

A lot of this experience was very exciting to me - you know, watching the port get made. But the craziest moment was holding an iPhone 5 and playing the exact same XCOM: Enemy Unknown game as the - barely 6-month-old - PC version with your thumbs on a phone.

I could not stop showing everybody!

Will XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS be a Universal app?

This is something on which we are making a decision very soon. But I think a Universal build is something that we want, for sure.

Will multiplayer be present in the iOS version?

It's not going to be available at release, but it is definitely going to be coming.

And the DLC?

That's not included in the current app. We're just starting to think about how we're going to deliver something like that. I don't know if that would be an in-app purchase. I shouldn't say that because I don't know for sure.

Right now, though, that DLC is not included in this version, and how we deliver that content later is still up in the air.

Any plans to port XCOM: Enemy Unknown to other platforms? Vita? Android?

You know what's funny: people are very passionate about Vita. I've got more messages asking for this on Vita than I have on Android. I've been shocked by that.

At the moment, no, we don't have any plans for an Android or Vita version. The basic plan is to put it out on iOS and see how people respond.

And if the response to XCOM: Enemy Unknown on iOS is positive, would you consider porting another full PC title over to Apple's mobile platform. Civilization V, for example?

I think so. It really depends on how people respond to what we're doing here. But it's very hard for me - as a gamer, as a developer - to go forward and not consider tablets and smartphones as major platforms.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is due to arrive on iPhone and iPad this summer. A price has yet to be confirmed.
James Gilmour
James Gilmour
James pivoted to video so hard that he permanently damaged his spine, which now doubles as a Cronenbergian mic stand. If the pictures are moving, he's the one to blame.