“We're going all-out with modding on XCOM 2

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“ We want our players to play our games forever.

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“ When people can replay a game again and again, then they want the ability to change the way it plays. And that's why mods are huge.

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“ Enemy Unknown is basically a 20-hour tutorial for The Long War, and that's okay.

“People will see the gameplay source, all the scripting,” he promised. “This is the code that makes the game what the game is. Here's the editor and all the assets that went into this game.”That’s all music to the ears of modders and fans of modding alike – especially since XCOM 2 will have Steam Workshop integration to make browsing, downloading, and installing the mods talented people create a one-click process. Sadly, we seldom see this level of support and open access to a game’s inner workings these days, so it’s terrifically refreshing to hear developers express such enthusiasm for embracing the mod community.It’s no coincidence that many of the games that stay on top of the Steam charts for extended periods (outside of free-to-play and/or eSport games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike) are popular playgrounds for modders: GTA 5 (which is still new), Firaxis’ own Civilization 5, Skyrim, Team Fortress 2, and ARMA 3 are all played by tens of thousands of PC gamers every single day, even years after their original release. That’s thanks in large part to the work of modders who make games feel new again by changing their look and their gameplay in interesting ways. Firaxis would like nothing more than to have two games high on that list.“The whole modding component is very exciting to me,” said DeAngelis, who fondly recalls his own early days of downloading mods for Doom. “After you feel like you've exhausted what we've designed what we've built for you, you're going to see a lot more from the community now.”The proof of the potential is in The Long War mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within. Even without official modding tools from Firaxis, a team of modders took XCOM to a new level by revamping the balance, doubling the number of classes, adding new equipment, and of course lengthening the campaign. At least a good chunk of the longevity Enemy Unknown has enjoyed on Steam (it still has thousands of daily players) is thanks to those determined modders, and the XCOM dev team is in legitimate awe.“It's unbelievable what they did,” said DeAngelis. “The Long War was my go-to recommendation when our hardcore fans would come up to us at shows and would say, ‘I beat Impossible Iron Man three times. I want more.’ There's absolutely an awesome challenge there for you.”“And that's like, the ultimate mutual respect,” added DeAngelis. “Again, we missed that on Enemy Unknown. It was the most rewarding thing to hear from the community how much they liked it, and for us to now say we respect that and appreciate that so much, here: go and do something we can love and play in return, and you guys can share with each other. I just think it's a really valuable relationship that we have.”When asked what kind of XCOM 2 mods they expect to see, the team had a few ideas:“We don’t have free-aiming. That will be one of the first mods, and that certainly will be fine,” said Solomon. “Maybe somebody will bring back time units,” he mused. “I'd be fine with that.”

Art Director Greg Foertsch had some words of encouragement for map makers: “If you want to make a completely static level, you can. If you want to make a basically completely procedural level - which is basically what our levels are in the game right now, that's 100% doable. It could be narrow; it could be square. It could be super big. And, again, it's super flexible. There's really no limit – you can do whatever you want. You could literally make an Enemy Unknown map.”

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For my part? I’ll just leave you prospective modders with far more artistic talent than I have with the above gallery of images for inspiration, and commend Firaxis for its exemplary attitude toward modding and working with the community to enhance the value of its games.

Dan Stapleton is IGN's Reviews Editor. You can follow him on Twitter to hear all about how awesome gaming is, plus a healthy dose of random Simpsons references.