KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[Infinitron]

New version of trailer:

 

[Latelistener]

Halo spin-off looks nice.

 

[The Anus Of Discontent]

I see zero differences in the 'new' trailer?

It does make me think more of Halo's Flood than anything else.

 

[Shog-goth]

They have only corrected some typos.

 

[ArchAngel]

Trailer says Early Access is now open. Is it? Why would they offer than without access to BB3?

 

[Shog-goth]

Usually "early access" means "Steam early access" but, in this case, they mean "access to early builds" aka "backer builds".

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, I noticed that too. I guess early access is a term outside of Steam now. Thanks Steam.

 

[PanteraNera]

Jesus Christ, and people are complaining about this game? It looks friggin' awesome. I get it that it could have looked even better if they sticked to the original artstyle, but it still looks great.

I partly agree.

It is about the context.

If the game was not made by Julian Gollop,
if it was not announced as the successor to X-Com,
if it was not advertised as "Phoenix Point Is The Fusion of XCOM And Fallout We All Want",
if it was not a crowdfunded project,
if they didn't completely scrapped the initial visualized vision,

than I would say it looks pretty interesting, for a modern game XCOM-clone.


It is not "just" about the art style, the mood of the whole game changed.

Honestly, think for a second about the backers that brought this project to life that were excited for:
- body horror / John Carpenter The Thing like aliens
- Virus like aliens (clip 1, clip 2)
- the post-apocalyptic tone / factions (Project Phoenix soldiers, New Jericho and Disciples of Anu)
- focus on a PC based experience
- release date 12/2018

Controls / GUI are now designed for game pads/consoles - streamlined
Visuals changed from something very different to XCOM to something similar - streamlined
Geoscape got "easier to read" - streamlined

It seems like that the main aim has become to make the game more accessible (money), contrary to what people expected back than, that Gollop had a clear vision and wanted to create a niche game. With the goal to sell as many copies as possible you have to streamline, to make sure that a broad audiences likes the game. But look all around you, movies, music, games, all is more of the same. If something sells well, it gets copied until it does not generate any more money. There is hardly any evolution or revolution in that. People hoped that the creator of X-Com would actually revolutionize the genre (by creating a "hybrid" all the possibilities of X-Com with the accessibility and graphics of XCOM).

I still think that the game-play of the final game might be pretty good and way above what XCOM 1&2 had to offer. But that is not certain at all and if the changes in development so far is anything to go by, I would actually say that the end product will have a pretty streamlined game-play as well.


To me the genre is dead, in my eyes there was no successor to Jagged Alliance 2 and X-Com (as there was never a successor to Fallout 1 & 2).
Sometimes I wonder if I am just a fucking old geezer, like my grandpa he always listened to the same old german folk music (Volksmusik) and everything else was crap to him. "Modern" music (like Led Zeppelin) was just noise to him.
To me most "modern" games are, boring, bland and stupid. Yeah graphics evolved, but that is it. Game play seems to get reduced to "push awesome button" and something awesome will happen. When I first played X-Com (when it was released) and later Jagged Alliance 2, I was joyfully looking into the future, all the possibilities with the fast evolving computers that get more and more powerful, all the complex, simulation-like games they could compute. I was young.

 

[Grotesque]

Geoscape got "easier to read"

Easier to read... from the couch?

 

[Mustawd]

if it was not advertised as "Phoenix Point Is The Fusion of XCOM And Fallout We All Want",

When was this said?

Also, I don’t think I ever saw it billed as the succesor of X-com.

Source?

 

[Latelistener]

To me the genre is dead, in my eyes there was no successor to Jagged Alliance 2 and X-Com (as there was never a successor to Fallout 1 & 2).

There are Silent Storm and E5 / 7.62. The two latter are RTwP, but they are still very detailed tactical games.
There is OpenXcom, which is currently being adapted for TftD.

Arcanum is the successor to Fallout, at the very least because it was developed by the same people. Did many things right, some things wrong. Overall, I enjoyed it more than Fallout 2.
Then there is also Underrail, which is a mix between Fallout and Ultima Underworld. It's not heavy on dialogues, but combat is superior to any isometric RPG I've played.

Overall, it's not that grim.

 

[PanteraNera]

When was this said?

At the beginning of their fig, it is still there
https://www.fig.co/campaigns/phoenix-point/about

Also, I don’t think I ever saw it billed as the succesor of X-com.

Source?

Official FAQ on the official PP website:

 

[Luka-boy]

There is OpenXcom, which is currently being adapted for TftD.

Quick clarification. TFTD has been perfectly playable for years in OpenXcom using the nightly builds.

 

[Shog-goth]

I really don't get it: as has been proved out many times, this kind of games are a no-go on consoles and casual/softcore gamers aren't interested in complex strategy/tactical titles like PP should be. Why Snapshot is cleary aiming at them, so? There isn't a single case in which a similar game has been successfull on console, while the opposite happened sometimes (looking at you, Valkyria Chronicles), but nonetheless they are wasting time and (limited) resources chasing a ghost, risking to follow this mesmerizing song of a rat-chatcher just down the cliff. How much money M$ could have given them, to justify all this crap?

Previously I called this turnabout a betrayal, but now it's clear that it'a also a gullible and delusional one.

 

[GrainWetski]

I really don't get it: as has been proved out many times, this kind of games are a no-go on consoles and casual/softcore gamers aren't interested in complex strategy/tactical titles like PP should be. Why Snapshot is cleary aiming at them, so? There isn't a single case in which a similar game has been successfull on console, while the opposite happened sometimes (looking at you, Valkyria Chronicles), but nonetheless they are wasting time and (limited) resources chasing a ghost, risking to follow this mesmerizing song of a rat-chatcher just down the cliff. How much money M$ could have given them, to justify all this crap?

Previously I called this turnabout a betrayal, but now it's clear that it'a also a gullible and delusional one.

They must think the simplistic FiraXCOMs did well on consoles when in reality they didn't.

You have to dumb down and streamline your games even further than Firaxis to get the console audience.

 

[Stavrophore]

First the UI suffer with console gaming using TVs that are quite distant from the viewer, so small scale UI is absolutely no go.Controls have to be grid based for easier controller use, minimising the diagonal/free movement, that is hard on pad. This leads to sacrificing gameplay elements, because gameplay is accomodated to UI -in normal development mode, the UI is accomodated to gameplay, not ther other way around!. Features that do not adhere to this philosophy will be scrapped or abandoned[like free aiming on consoles will be used so rarely].

 

[Shog-goth]

They must think the simplistic FiraXCOMs did well on consoles when in reality they didn't.

Yes, but how is this possible? We're talking about Julian Gollop, a revered veteran with decades of experience, and I just can't believe that he doesn't realize something so obvious.

 

[Mustawd]

When was this said?

At the beginning of their fig, it is still there
https://www.fig.co/campaigns/phoenix-point/about

Also, I don’t think I ever saw it billed as the succesor of X-com.

Source?

Official FAQ on the official PP website:

So the first part is a quote from a backer, and not mentioned anywhere else. And the second part is hardly saying PP is a succesor to x-com.

Regardless, this is always crazy to me. When you buy a game do you not read the details? Do you just read the taglines in marketing materials?

It’s weird to focus so much on what some marketing drone put in the fig campaign and compltely ignore all the other details they included which made it apparent it was going to borrow heavily from nuXCOM.

You keep pushing this narrative that the game was billed as a true X-com successor. This simply isn’t true. Do you think repeating it over and over will make it true?

Read the entire fig campaign again. All of it. How can you ever come away thinking it wasn’t going to be nuXCOM-like??

EDIT: I will say that I did share your sense of optimism due to Julian being involved. But crowdfunding and professional studios are a weird mix.


Studio: We’re gonna make some changes to help us be more commercially successful!!

Backers: Yah, we don’t care about that. Just make the game we gave you money to make in the first place...

 

[Shog-goth]

You keep pushing this narrative that the game was billed as a true X-com successor. This simply isn’t true. Do you think repeating it over and over will make it true?

I'm sure PanteraNera can "defend" himself more than fine, but I'd just like to point out that "created by original designer of X-Com", "spiritual successor", "same feeling and atmosphere" and "retaining many gameplay mechanics" all count towards the definition, in my opinion, of "true successor" or, at least, is what they wanted you to believe during the crowdfunding.

Studio: We’re gonna make some changes to help us be more commercially successful!!

Backers: Yah, we don’t care about that. Just make the game we gave you money to make in the first place...

I believe that these two aspects don't have to be necessarily in contrast, take a look at Divinity: Original Sin 1/2, for example.

 

[Mustawd]

I'd just like to point out that "created by original designer of X-Com", "spiritual successor", "same feeling and atmosphere" and "retaining many gameplay mechanics" all count towards the definition, in my opinion, of "true successor" or, at least, is what they wanted you to believe during the crowdfunding.

Fine. They're also fluff and outweighed by the actual facts of the games as they were described in the campaign.

I believe that these two aspects don't have to be necessarily in contrast, take a look at Divinity: Original Sin 1/2, for example.

I used to think like this, but more and more I'm coming to the conclusion that crowdfunding a company that wants to make profits and wants to be commercially successful is always going to create conflicts with backers. Backers want their Project X, as this thread implies. A company wants to make Project X but also stay in business. With KS projects, more often than not, these goals do not align.

 

[PanteraNera]

So the first part is a quote from a backer, and not mentioned anywhere else.

Wrong.
It is not advertised as from some backer, but kotaku.
Also this quote is one of the first things you see when you visit their Fig page:

And the second part is hardly saying PP is a succesor to x-com.

What?
But it just does say that.
"Phoenix Point is a spiritual successor of the original X-Com"

But let's see how others perceive it:

X-Com successor Phoenix Point is getting a special discount for EGX

source

Even though Julian Gollop’s X-COM successor Phoenix Point has been pushed back to 2019

source

New Phoenix Point trailer shows off the X-Com successor's weird-ass aliens

source

Phoenix Point is a new strategy game from Julian Gollop, creator of the originalX-Com. Unlike his last game, Chaos Reborn, this one’s a spiritual successor to X-Com, on which the modern XCOM series is based. It’s still very much in development and is seeking funding on Fig.

source

X-COM Spiritual Successor Phoenix Point Gets Brand New Trailer

source

XCOM SUCCESSOR PHOENIX POINT SHOWS OFF FREAKY ALIEN BASES

source

Well countless different sources (there are more!), all call it successor of X-Com, damn Snapshot did a great job to make clear that Phoenix Point is not X-Com's successor.

Regardless, this is always crazy to me. When you buy a game do you not read the details? Do you just read the taglines in marketing materials?

I didn't bought it.

You keep pushing this narrative that the game was billed as a true X-com successor. This simply isn’t true. Do you think repeating it over and over will make it true?

So you think if you keep repeating that it isn't true it will not be true?

Read the entire fig campaign again. All of it.

I just recently did, when it was stated that PP is not a "body horror" game anymore. And I must really say, they did a great job with their fig page, because they did not promise anything in detail. This lead to people hoping for the best, but also that Snapshot can streamline the game as much as they want and always be able to state that it does not contradict the initial pitch.

But hey, you know there is articles where Julian Gollop stated himself that it is a horror game, that they are aiming for something "The Thing"-like. Or that he will focus on a PC experience.

 

[Mustawd]

Oh read that wrong. Yah that’s pretty misleading, but all the game info with xcom inspiration is still there as well.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

UnstableVoltage

How destructive are the weapons?

Is it like: "Well, a blaster bomb can destroy a quarter of a small map."

Or more like: "The heaviest weapons can remove up to 30% of the total hit points of a light unit in a single shot, but the shooter has to be stationary."

 

[Shog-goth]

Backers want their Project X, as this thread implies. A company wants to make Project X but also stay in business. With KS projects, more often than not, these goals do not align

I think that backers just want what was promised during the campaign and not much more, obviously there may be some changes but not a copernican revolution of initial premises and vision. The goals don't align if developers think of backers just like a necessary nuisance to collect the starting capital and not their strong point, as they are, and if you want to go your own way don't ask for crowdfunding but use your own money, instead.

 

[Latelistener]

Yes, but how is this possible? We're talking about Julian Gollop, a revered veteran with decades of experience, and I just can't believe that he doesn't realize something so obvious.

Perhaps people should support modern creators more often rather than those who made something great 20 years ago and were never heard from again. I noticed that many crowdfunding projects with famous names receive much more money than devs who are offering a finished product right now.