Sadly, it doesn’t look like one is in the works just yet. That’s as per Firaxis’ Jake Solomon, who was the director of both XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2, not to mention the recently-released Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Speaking in a recent interview with VGC, Solomon said that he is not currently working on an XCOM 3, with his full attention on Marvel’s Midnight Suns and its post-launch support for now.

“I personally have no information on that right now and I say that because, truly, yesterday I was working on Morbius’ abbey outfits and recolours, so I am not working on it,” he said. “I don’t have any secret agenda, I don’t know anything about XCOM at this point.”

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Firaxis doesn’t intend to return to the strategy series. In fact, as recently as a few months ago, Solomon said that even though the studio was busy with Marvel’s Midnight Suns, XCOM “definitely” wasn’t dead.

How long we’ll have to wait before Firaxis is ready to come out with another new XCOM game remains to be seen, but if nothing else, fans can at least take solace in the fact that sooner or later, the series will be back.

Mein Leben! – Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein II rocked the shooter landscape by being a tight, narrative focused game where they wanted you to make America nazi free again and showing that shooters can have a place without a tacked on multiplayer. Wolfenstein II already makes you work for it, but if you want to finish that achievement list you need to take on the controller shatteringly frustrating “Mein Leben!” mode. Translating to “My life!”, as it says the player has a single life to complete the entire game, no save scumming allowed and the enemies are capable of goose-stepping all over the otherwise hardy “Terror Billy”.

XCOM 2 might be all the rage these days, but if you have not yet played the 2012 reboot yet, you now have a chance to do so again- XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus is an enhanced port of the reboot, and it is now available to play on the PlayStation Vita.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus was leaked multiple times last year, but it was never officially confirmed or announced- it still has not been confirmed or announced. But hey, it’s available to buy now, so who gives a crap about official announcements. The game is 2.2GB on PSN (it is only available as a downloadable game), and it sells for $19.99. Which makes it a pretty good deal, all said and done, especially since early reports seem to indicate that it plays rather well.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is also available on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iOS devices, so even if you don’t have a Vita, you have a whole host of other ways to play it, should you want to.

A while back, we reported that the Korean Rating Board had rated XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the excellent Firaxis reboot of the classic strategy franchise, for the PlayStation Vita, implying that the game was headed to Sony’s beleaguered handheld. Today, more evidence has surfaced that suggests that the game may indeed be headed for a small PlayStation screen near you.

It appears as though the ESRB has also rated XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the PS Vita, reiterating not just that the game is indeed coming to the handheld, but also that it will be releasing in the west too. The description makes it sound as though this will be the vanilla XCOM game – the Enemy Within expansion will probably not be included – so assuming this does well enough, we might see Enemy Within show up on the handheld too.

In addition to this, XCOM 2 will be launching exclusively on PC in February 2016.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown was one of the best games of last generation, rebooting the classic franchise in a great way, and bringing some incredible, nail biting turn based strategy gameplay to life. Now, it seems like we may be able to enjoy this modern classic wherever and whenever we want- apparently, the Korean Ratings Board has rated XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus for the PS Vita.

The Korean Rating Board has an incredible track record with these things- they leaked Resident Evil Revelations on consoles, for instance, as well as Crysis. So it’s a pretty good bet that this is happening.

It is also interesting that it is called ‘Enemy Unknown’ (as opposed to the Enemy Within moniker which would indicate that it includes the expansion), but it does have the ‘Plus’ suffix- does that mean it will have some of the additional content after all? Or is the Plus just to differentiate it from the console and PC releases?

Whatever the case, I would jump on this thing if it were real so hard… let’s hope this actually does happen.

A few days ago, Firaxis came out and announced XCOM 2, much to the delight of the millions of fans who had jumped on board with the series with the excellent Enemy Unknown, and its equally excellent expansion, Enemy Within. However, there was one surprising element in all of that- the game was announced to just be a PC exclusive, which came as a bit of a shock to everyone, considering that Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within had both been made available on consoles (and tablets too!).

Now, speaking to IGN, Firaxis’ Creative Director Jake Solomon explained why the game had to be a PC exclusive.

“When we looked at what we wanted to do with the sequel, we had all these very, very ambitious goals,” said Solomon. “To do that, we had to use all of our studio expertise … and our expertise here is PC. That’s our home, and that’s where we’re really comfortable.

“Internally, with a relatively small team for the size of the game that we are, to be able to say we can focus on our platform that the studio has a pedigree for, and that X-COM: UFO Defense has a pedigree for, as PC-only… it just made a lot of sense, and that’s how we wanted to dedicate our time.”

“When we have our meetings, when we talk about stuff, we only talk about PC,” said Solomon. “We talk about ‘What is the experience like on PC? What does the mouse feel like in this experience?’” The most obvious change resulting from those conversations is how the team is optimizing the interface to be mouse-and-keyboard friendly, moving UI elements and grouping them logically so that buttons we’re likely to press one after the other aren’t placed on opposite sides of the screen. “It will certainly be recognizable, but there isn’t one UI widget that’s the same.”

So, does all of this mean that the future of the series on consoles is finished? Not so fast, Solomon says. “We’re certainly not opposed to that, but I can assure that’s something we’re not even discussing yet,” he said, noting that the Xbox One and PS4 can technically run the game just fine, but that developing a game as ambitious and feature rich as XCOM 2 on three platforms simultaneously will be impossible for a team the size of Firaxis.

Honestly, I would rather take an excellent game on one platform than a diluted one on three. It’s good to know that a studio made a decision based on artistic and creative vision rather than the economics of it all, for once.

There’s been much discussion on the game since then but it’s interesting to think about the different games Bethesda can take inspiration from. We look at eight different game with eight different, interesting features that Fallout 4 could take inspiration from.

Borderlands

What can’t any game learn from Borderlands? Aside from the astronomical variables of loot, which still trump many of the random weapons seen in other similar games, Borderlands is a strong lesson in pacing and overall quest progression. Its Bad-Ass ranking system also functioned as a sort of challenge set that encouraged you to try new things (or keep lightning stuff on fire because there was more to be had than just merciless fun). We want those kinds of little rewards in Fallout 4 but more importantly, we also want each pieces of loot that feel more unique than others.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

This is of course obvious. Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim still stands today as one of the largest and most in-depth open world games ever created. Its in-game lore spans several books, its customization options are seemingly limitless, its world is ever expanding despite remaining static…and with mods, Skyrim feels more alive than ever. While Fallout 4 doesn’t need to copy it wholesale, we do want this kind of depth and attention to detail (updated visuals and excellent mod support wouldn’t hurt either).

Mass Effect

While its wide range of choices may not have led to the best series ending of all time, Mass Effect was still a giant smorgasbord of decisions that would come back to bite you at some point. Even if you didn’t notice it, something as small as deciding whether you took up a mission was enough to decide a character’s overall fate (and whether you’d have to kill them later on). Another quest may have influenced you to turn on someone you cared about. The potential was amazing and even if Fallout 4 isn’t a predominantly “party” driven RPG, we’d still like to be able to influence a cast of characters’ lives like in Mass Effect.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

No, we don’t want to run and gun and knife fools for instant kills in Fallout 4. Rather, we want the first person combat in Fallout 4 to take some nods from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in terms of evolution. We want Bethesda to look at their old engine and realize there are ways to improve upon and update it for a new generation. Because if Call of Duty can be significantly changed after so many years of doing the same thing, why not Fallout? Try new things in Fallout 4, Bethesda – that’s what today’s shooter market is saying.

Outlast

Fallout 3 was a scary game in many ways – the future was as accommodating as a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland full of mutants could be – but even horror needs an update. The psychological mind-f**kery of Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills would feel out of place for a Fallout title so we’ll go with the frenetic mad dashing and outright rush for survival that was Outlast. We’d love to have missions full of creepy characters that you need to outrun and outwit in order to survive. Quite frankly, Fallout has the creatures to make it work – imagine a mission where you need to navigate a torn down facility’s various ducts and obstacles to escape roaming Deathclaws.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

If there’s one thing we want in Fallout 4 (besides everything) that most likely won’t happen, it’s a chance to have a hybrid system akin to Dragon Age: Inquisition. The latter essentially lets you play it as a third person hack and slash RPG or to swing back, pause the game and command your troops from an overhead perspective. This is essentially a call back to the old Baldur’s Gate system wherein you could play the game in real time or turn based combat modes. If Fallout 4 took place from a first person perspective, it would be difficult to really figure out a turn based alternative (though Mass Effect’s system did a decent job). Maybe some variant on VATS?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within

If Bethesda somehow decides to go with an isometric perspective for Fallout 4, perhaps a tactical RPG approach, then there’s no better option that XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within. The tech trees, research, tactical decisions and whatnot make XCOM tons of fun to play and will actually be an homage to Fallout Tactics if properly harnessed in Fallout 4. It’s highly doubtful that Bethesda goes that route but we can always hope.

Far Cry 2

A more dynamic weapon degradation system in Fallout 4 would be interesting. We’re not talking about weapons that degrade and immediately become useless. We’re talking about machine guns that get jammed depending on their settings or guns that can’t be shot underwater. The degradation system can also depend on maintenance and the longer you use your weapon in harsh settings, the higher the chance of it failing in the middle of combat. Can we also get an active reload system from Gears of War in those situations as a sort of mini-game that needs to be completed in order to get your weapon working again?

After an excellent translation on to iOS, especially to the Apple iPad, Firaxis’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown is now available for Android devices today through the Google Play Store.

It currently retails for £7.14/$11.99 and will require 3.6GB of free storage space. We would assume that Firaxis translated the same touch-screen based controls to the Android version. Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown was originally released for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in late 2012 and faithfully recaptured the excellence and tactical turn-based nature of the series while updating the visuals and gameplay for a new generation. It was followed by an expansion called Enemy Within which served to further expand on gameplay options by offering new missions, a new faction to face, a new Class, new enemy types, and much more.

Can we hope that Enemy Within makes its way to mobiles in the coming year? Stay tuned.

Retailing for $20, the game is a straight port of the PC and console hit, but optimized for iPad and iPhone with touch-screen controls. It was critically acclaimed and managed to make it to the Apple top 10 charts for iPad apps. Zelnick stated that, “The success of XCOM: Enemey Unknown for iOS illustrates that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for a premium entertainment experience on any platform. This bodes well for the opportunity to deliver profitably our most immersive new AAA titles to mobile platforms as they evolve.”

Future plans include having mobile versions of AAA games arriving alongside PC and console releases. Given the increasing power of mobile platforms, with Nvidia’s Tegra 4 incoming, it certainly seems possible.

Despite this, it won’t feature head-to-head multiplayer at launch, which will be released later as a free update. The game’s controls have been reworked to support a touch interface along with GameCenter support and iCloud functionality for saving one’s game across multiple iOS devices. This enables you to leave off from a particular point and immediately pick resume playing when switching devices.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown currently supports iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPod Touch 5th Generation.