00:03www.mesmerism.info
00:32It's basically, not a remake, but a reimagining of the original XCOM game.
00:38Well, core principles from the original that we wanted to build on was basically everything.
00:45XCOM is about Earth being threatened by an unknown enemy.
00:50The world bonds together and they form an elite military organization,
00:55the most elite in the history of the world, and that's where the player comes in.
00:59They are the commander of this organization.
01:01I think we were all fans of the original, you know, working for Firaxis,
01:05we're all fans of squad-based, turn-based strategy.
01:08So I've played just about every turn-based strategy game out there.
01:13I think we all had a lot of ideas and things that we wanted to do
01:16and things we liked about all of the games that we played in the past.
01:19Just really finding the fun things and eliminating the things that, you know, we didn't really care so much for.
01:24So we start with the original game and we play it and we say,
01:27okay, well, we find that new players or even us old diehards, like, we find this concept, we can improve
01:32this a little bit.
01:33And one of the first things we looked at was time units.
01:36And the idea was that your soldiers had a certain number of time units to move around the battlefield,
01:40to perform abilities, take shots, and things like that.
01:43And actually, it worked great in the sense that you had this resource that you were hoarding
01:48and that you had to be careful because when you spent too many, you could find yourself exposed and in
01:53dangerous situations.
01:54So there was this great risk-reward mechanic.
02:02We said, okay, how can we simplify that and sort of free up all that headspace that that takes up
02:08in the player's head?
02:09We sort of turned the time units into a simplified version where the player has a number of moves that
02:15they can perform per turn
02:17and they can choose to move, they can choose to move and shoot, they can choose to move really far.
02:22And then based on different abilities their soldiers have, maybe they can use those abilities to do different things.
02:27But it still has that great risk-reward mechanic.
02:29Look, I need to run really far this time.
02:31But when you do that, you're always taking the cost that you're not going to be able to shoot
02:35and then you're going to find yourself in the difficult tactical position.
02:43The other big thing I think that we did was we added cover to the game.
02:47Now tactically you have a lot more important decisions to make based off of being in low cover and high
02:52cover,
02:53flanking aliens.
02:55So in some ways we feel like we made the game more tactical.
02:58One of the advantages I think we have as a turn-based game is that we can move the camera
03:02around wherever we want.
03:03If you're making a game that has real-time response,
03:07players get really upset when you take control away from them.
03:09Well, we do that every other turn.
03:11There's been a very cinematic approach to the game that we're making now that wasn't available then
03:16simply because we can move the camera around and take advantage of the fact that we have a 3D game.
03:19We're still leveraging the 3D and the tech that we have available now
03:23to make it a much more compelling experience, I think, visually than they were able to do back then.
03:29The Glam Chem was our way of kind of making a turn-based strategy game sexy.
03:34It was a way for us to take the camera and put it in the environment
03:39in a way that kind of got you out of the normal gameplay mode
03:43but let you see things a little clearer and a little more up close
03:45and feel like you're a little more part of the action.
03:47The idea is that when your soldier goes to take a cool shot,
03:51then the camera can drop in.
03:53We've got these great dramatic scenes where, you know,
03:55your sniper's lining up this super long shot
03:57and you'll see it fall right down the barrel.
04:00And what that does is it allows a little more of an intimate connection
04:04between you and your soldiers.
04:05And, of course, it increases the drama of the actual combat.
04:08And the Glam Chem is a great way to do that.
04:11That's just one of the ways that we sort of get the camera down there
04:13so the player can sort of see combat from their soldier's perspective.
04:20The base was a really unique challenge for us to design.
04:23When we started on it, it was flat and more like a level in the game.
04:27And we really wanted to have base building,
04:29but we ran into some really difficult challenges on it being flat
04:32and working more like a level.
04:34And at a certain point, a couple of my guys had come in and they said,
04:37you know what, we keep talking about this as an ant farm.
04:40Why don't we make it like an ant farm?
04:42It is very much, you know, the G.I. Joe base that the kid down the street had
04:45that you didn't have, that you got to play with every once in a while
04:48if you went to his house.
04:49So when we made it, that was one of the things I think really, really stands out.
04:54I think it's a really unique feature to the game.
04:56It allows us a lot of flexibility for optimization
04:59and for the player to be able to build and expand.
05:01And it's a really different, I haven't seen represented that way really ever.
05:07And on top of that, they're actually expanding the structure,
05:10customizing the facilities that they're adding to their base.
05:13We want them to be able to see their soldiers interacting and their scientists.
05:17And so I think it's this really neat moment where you get into the game
05:22and you have this physical structure that you've customized
05:25and you've made the decisions about what you want to focus on.
05:28And then you can see your soldiers that you've leveled up
05:31and you've grown attached to, you can see them interacting.
05:34And it's something that I think we're really proud of.
05:36We're really excited for people to see.
05:42We're really excited for people to see.
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