Classic X-COM collides with pop-culture Classic X-COM collides with pop-culture

While Foertsch cites everything from action figures to ant farms in discussing the title's familiar, yet slightly twisted look, it tends to be this mix of old and new that players most identify with. Whether it's old-school strategists noticing Enemy Unknown's Skyrangers look not-so-suspiciously like UFO Defense's similar troop transports or newcomers comparing XCOM's Sectoids to a little gray menace they once saw in an X-Filesepisode, connections happen often.

As DeAngelis explains, finding the sweet spot that satisfies seasoned strategy fans who still hold a 17-year-old title near and dear to their hearts, while also turning the heads of those who'd rather shotgun zombies in the face than manage resources, is no cake walk.

"The art of the original game is the seed for almost every decision we made," he says. "And it might have grown or just turned into something wildly different, but we always started with that source material, the original UFO Defense. The alien designs are great examples of that, where you can see that the art team would look at that original 2D sprite and understand what the design of it was, what the spirit of the alien was. But then how do we modernize it almost 18 years later to make it feel appropriate in 2012, yet still retain the spirit of that 2D image?"

"THE ART OF THE ORIGINAL GAME IS THE SEED FOR ALMOST EVERY DECISION WE MADE."

For Foertsch and his team, meeting this challenge meant not just staying true to the original spirit, but also drawing on the familiar in much the same way UFO Defense did back in 1994. "The one thing we really have in common with the original game is not so much that our Sectoid looks like their Sectoid; it's that their Sectoid is rooted in UFO lore," he says. "So more than us having something in common with the original X-COM, it's that the original X-COM had something in common with pop culture. We played more on that aspect of it, so the first alien you encounter has to be a little alien because that's what everyone knows an alien as. We wanted to enter into things that people already know how to relate with ... things that resonated with them. Just like the game's first map with the gas station ... everybody knows where the gas station down the street is ... everybody's got one."

The motivation behind Foertsch's approach is far more sinister than it sounds. Sure, it seems like he's inviting players into a familiar world with its mom and pop filling stations and neighborhood bars, but he's actually enticing them into a state of comfort or complacency in the hopes of scaring the skivvies off them when they least expect it. "We figured if we started the player with things they knew, then we could start twisting things as the game goes along," he says. "We really wanted to play off that. So, the first UFO you encounter will be a saucer, but that doesn't mean the last one is going to be a saucer."