Legendary gaming franchise XCOM is to receive a long-awaited remake treatment at the hands of Firaxis Games.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown will take the series back to its strategy game roots, and put players in control of a global force defending the planet against alien invasion.
The first game in the series, UFO: Enemy Unknown, was first published in 1994 and is generally regarded as one of the finest video games ever made.
Since then the franchise has had mixed fortunes and several remakes. A 2010 announcement that the game would be remade as a first-person shooter remake did not go down well with fans, but is still set for a March 2012 release.
The all-new strategy game, trailed on the cover of February's edition of Game Informer, has received a much stronger reaction in just the first few hours since the announcement. Much of the excitement was down to the involvement of Firaxis, known for the Civilisation series - and thus recognised as one of the best strategy game developers in the world.
On Twitter fans were close to ecstatic:
Firaxis themselves were gushing with excitement:
"It’s been a dream of ours to recreate X-COM with our unique creative vision," said Steve Martin, president of Firaxis Games. "We were careful to keep XCOM: Enemy Unknown true to the elements that made X-COM such a revered game while delivering an entirely new story and gameplay experience for both die-hard X-COM fans and newcomers to the franchise."
The game will reportedly feature destructible environments, turn-based and real-time combat and, you know, aliens and stuff.
Check out the image from February's Game Informer cover below, and read the magazine for the whole feature.