Firaxis announced a partnership with indie studio Long War today aimed at ensuring XCOM 2 mods from the team will be readily available when the game launches next month.

It's a rare to see a studio working with external developers who are producing mods for its games, and even rarer to see them make a show of doing so ahead of a game's release.

But that's exactly what Firaxis and parent company 2K are doing, as they plan to bring Long War's John Lumpkin onto their XCOM 2 panel at PAX South later this month to talk about (among other things) the game's modding tools.

This is also intriguing because developers may recall Long War Studios was formed late last month by modders best known for creating the popular "Long War" mod for XCOM. The team has stated their intent to Kickstart an original game of their own, Terra Invicta, but has yet to embark on a crowdfunding campaign for the project.