2K Games and Firaxis surprised a lot of people earlier this week when they announced that XCOM 2 would be released exclusively for the PC this November. Even though its predecessor, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, received a simultaneous PC/PS3/Xbox 360 release, developers at Firaxis told IGN the sequel had to be PC exclusive.
“When we looked at what we wanted to do with the sequel, we had all these very, very ambitious goals,” said Creative Director Jake Solomon.
Solomon, and Lead Producer Garth DeAngelis, also said that XCOM 2’s heavy focus on “high-fidelity characters and environments, better-looking destruction, physically based rendering and, […] procedurally generated maps” required staying close to home. And for Firaxis, the PC is home. This allowed the team to optimize the control scheme for keyboard-and-mouse as well as add more detailed tactical information to the on-screen action.
Finally, Solomon confirmed that XCOM 2 may come to the PS4 and Xbox One sometime in the future (“We’re certainly not opposed to that”), but he went on to say, “I can assure [you] that’s something we’re not even discussing yet.”
