• 1
• Dragonaged
• Tue 21st Jul 2026

With Star Wars Zero Company coming out soon, it got me thinking that the XCOM style game would fit well with other franchises. Which franchises would you like to see an XCOM style game made for? I am a Batman fan so I would like to see one with the Bat family. I also think Brandon Sandersons Mistborn series would work well. Lastly I love the Witcher so an XCOM Witcher would maje me happy.

Dragonaged

• 2
• GirlVersusGame
• Tue 21st Jul 2026

Judge Dredd. That's my answer to everything, I love the character, the system/rules and protocols, the world he inhabits and his stern approach to justice on the spot (it would fit the mechanics) Then there's all of the little off-shoots of his society and the many colourful characters. From the giant mega-cities to the cursed Earth I think It's a franchise that deserves a place in modern gaming, regardless of the genre. I never played Xcom but did Warhammer Mechanicus, which seems similar. BearEatsBeets mentioned the StarWars game, it definitely caught my eye. I do love Batman though, he's my favorite Superhero, though I don't know many others but for The Punisher and DareDevil, I could definitely see Batman working if it were kept dark and gritty.

• 3
• BearsEatBeets
• Tue 21st Jul 2026

@Dragonaged I actually dreamed of a Star Wars game in an X-Com style years ago but imagined it controlling a group of rebels fighting against the Empire. So this new game being during the Clone Wars is a mild dampener but I'm excited for it all the same.

I love the Witcher but not sure it would fit the game style as they tend to work alone. I'd be interested if you wished to expand on how you envisioned it as I'm always open to different interpretations of the genre.

For myself, the only other IP that's crossed my mind before was one based on The Division. I feel like that setting would work for having a squad of agents going out on missions in the City. They already have different builds/skill sets for different agents.

Another that has sprung to mind as I type - Assassins Creed.

I loved in AC 2 Brotherhood recruiting and calling other assassins in to help. Sending them off on missions to level up. That could work really well for turn-based infiltrations and assassinations utilizing different tools and trying to complete without being spotted. Maybe having to judge how many assassins you send on a mission, with more maybe giving you better odds of getting to the target but also increasing your odds of being seen/killed/caught. As an alternative to just permadeath you could have assassins getting captured if they can't escape then you can weigh up doing missions to try and free them.

As an X-Com lover it's an interesting topic. I'll be curious to see what else anyone came up with.

@GirlVersusGame I like the Judge Dredd idea. Having a team of judges in a crime riddled city. It would allow for an interesting morality system where you have certain missions where you have to pick judgements for different crimes. It could have a whole system with how you 'police' the city affecting public opinion of the judges.

• 4
• GirlVersusGame
• Tue 21st Jul 2026

@BearsEatBeets I was just thinking of that Assassin's Creed mechanic today. Palworld has an item you can unlock called an Expedition Center. It allows the player to send one-hundred Pals at a time to story dungeons that have been previously unlocked and completed. The number being so high means you can push the loot percentage up substantially and not only that but gain a lot of levels and experience for whomever you choose.

On the left is the list/roster of Pals I sent including the reward highlighted, on the right one of the Pals. I really liked that mechanic in Brotherhood and haven't seen it in many other games but for perhaps Rimworld and I use it all the time. It's a fun way to progress when when you aren't there, That's what I did last-night, sent them out and either I returned to collect the loot and send them off again of Someone else did it for me. I'd love to see that mechanic in other games.

Xcom is a game I've known about for quite some time and own possibly two of them but never played. Is there much freedom to the game/map or is it heavy on story and each mission is story chapter that needs to be completed to progress the story. I did play a game recently called Age of Wonders PlanetFall but the only thing that fell was me. I tried three playthroughs and every single time the game cheated by either sending infinite units or betraying me and siding with a friendly faction who then decided to turn against me and end the game. A game called Bannerlord 2 did something similar, everyone was an ally until the game decided they weren't. Would you say Xcom is more balanced with it's AI? it looks like it's primarily combat, there's no map? resources and assets?

I like the Judge Dredd idea. Having a team of judges in a crime riddled city. It would allow for an interesting morality system where you have certain missions where you have to pick judgements for different crimes. It could have a whole system with how you 'police' the city affecting public opinion of the judges.

• I've done it with Rimworld on PC by setting up the Ideology DLC to simulate that situation and then downloading a Judge Dredd pack from the Mod store.

That's the one, they had uniforms, armor and weapons. It complimented the game really well especially when I manually set their beliefs in justice/law/etc. Other than a Playstation One game and a Sega MegaDrive game it's as a franchise that hardly exists in gaming. Which is really strange because the whole 2000 AD universe is highly adaptable to video-games. Instead the holders of the rights just keep going with Sniper Elite, though Atomfall was a really good departure from the norm. Perhaps it will pave the way to Judge Dredd, I am more curious about Xcom now. I should probably try Mechanicus 2 also, I'm sure by now it's out and ready to play. I don't know much about Warhammer but Mechanicus wasn't bad and Inquistor was in my opinion better than Diablo 4, it felt more like it respected my time, the story/art and aesthetics were brilliant too.

• 5
• DemonStar89
• Thu 23rd Jul 2026

'It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life." - Captain Picard

• 6
• johncalmc
• Thu 23rd Jul 2026

Mass Effect. It would also work nicely with the permadeath thing XCOM games have going on.

• 7
• GirlVersusGame
• Thu 23rd Jul 2026

@DemonStar89 Landscapes too like The Cursed Earth for bandits, outlaws and the Angel Family. Then for a more unique twist Deadworld the home of the Dark Judges, there are some great books and audio-books about Judge Death and his friends. It would offer a whole supernatural twist to the environment and to combat/tools and features. I don't like 3D but you're right Dredd was a big exception, the Director knew how to make those scenes pop without making them feel cliche. Another has been done already and that's Aliens but I'd go further and say Predator, or rather Aliens versus Predator, Terminator too. Basically anything from that era/roster. I really like reading all of the spin-offs and collaborations, there's so much room for video-game adaption.

• 8
• BearsEatBeets
• Fri 24th Jul 2026

@GirlVersusGame The general game structure for X-Com is a story campaign against alien invaders that slowly progresses through time. There are set story missions but in between them there are chances to search for intel/resources and build up a network across the globe to find things and build up perks and your base. You also get randomly occurring side missions where you usually have to pick from 3 missions to do. Each will have a reward for successfully completing but also a negative if not done so you really have to weigh up which is best to do.
In between missions you also research new tech, buy gear, recruit new squad mates and expand your base to unlock new features.

There are a lot of ways/orders to do things and a lot of the maps outside of main story missions are randomly generated so there is a lot of replayability.

Also the customising and leveling of your squad is very varied. You have to choose between taking the same squad frequently to level quicker against levelling up a wider set of soldiers to give you better back-ups if members get badly injured or worse killed.

Almost forgot, as time passes the enemy is also getting stronger so waiting too long to do a story mission to try and do other stuff might make the mission even harder. It's all very tactical.

Hopefully my (jumbled) description gives you a reasonable idea of the game. You mention you might own a couple so maybe you will be tempted to give one a go. The first Firaxis one is good but X-Com 2 improved a lot of things and has some great expansions that introduce new mechanics.

Typing this out has given me an inclining to have another playthrough soon.

@johncalmc I like that idea too. A squad mix of custom Asari, Krogans, Turians etc. would be great.

• 9
• GirlVersusGame
• Fri 24th Jul 2026

@BearsEatBeets Thank you, that clock you mentioned sounds like what I ran into with Mechanicus and Aliens Dark Descent. I forget the name of the clock on both games but it's there and counts-down between missions. I think it's there to keep things interesting and possibly to add replayability too. I was talking about it a couple nights ago with a friend and they said Pathfinder has a similar clock, the one I did play didn't. Wrath of The Righteous, it wasn't bad but it's hard to recommend because it did have some hiccups and I'm not sure if people would enjoy the map/battle system that lands further into mid-game. I suppose you could call it a strategy game too, with RPG and fantasy elements. Your jumbled description was great and I do see it mentioned every now and then, Xcom, not your jumbledness.

That clock system seems to be very popular with certain games, I do have the first Pathfinder game and all of the DLCs but never did make the jump, I may have read about crashes on PS5 and I find PC very anti-social, I prefer to play the PS5 out in the open than rooms away sat at a desk. I know people talk about 'I'll move to PC because', it's very hard to want to play at a desk when you can be comfy on the floor or sofa. I do really like research trees though, they offer so much reason to come back to a game and try a new approach. I'm sure I said it before but there was (is?) a lack of strategy games on console. When mixing with retro I only found a handful and R.U.S.E. was by far my favorite, it was less about force and more about using cunning and planning to win. A lot like the biblical 'Be'tachbulot ta'aseh lecha milchamah' by deception and counsel we wage war, that's what the game was to me, it used so many clever tactics, I'd love a PS5 remaster. End War was brilliant too, a Tom Clancy game, I played that quite a lot. I'd like to try the Red Alert games and I think I have them on Steam but again I prefer console. Also when you say building up a base, makes me think it has a basic base-building/HUB to design/customize, another reason I might have to try it.

That timing was really weird, I went on Youtube to find a trailer of the original and it's just landed on Steam and looks remastered, perhaps console will be next. I hope so.

• 10
• Werehog
• Fri 24th Jul 2026

I reckon Star Trek (a franchise currently promising to make a big return to the gaming space) would work well, perhaps almost too well. The shows' habit of beaming Away Teams down to various planets fits like a glove, as do the divisions of your average Starfleet crew (command, tactical, medical, and science). Could get some variety in mission objectives, obviously have robust combat with phasers set to kill an' all that, but also a shared focus on exploration and "boldly going" around the galaxy.

"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"

• 11
• BearsEatBeets
• Sat 25th Jul 2026

Despite not being a Trekkie, I like the sound of that one too @Werehog. Another IP that fits the gameplay style well. You could even have a trophy for 'phasers to stun' only run.

It would just have to have a 'Red shirt' trophy for first crew member to be killed 😁.

All of this is just making me wish the genre was a bit more popular, lots of potential.

• 12
• Werehog
• Tue 28th Jul 2026

@BearsEatBeets Honestly, it fits so darn well, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire genre / gameplay system was dreamed up by Trekkies after binge-watching the show. I can't believe I forgot to mention the fifth division, which is engineering and again, makes perfect sense.

Did a little reading over the weekend because I suspected somebody must have already taken a crack at this and I was right, there was a game called Star Trek: Away Team released back in the early 2000s, when Activision had the licence. It's exclusive to PC but still available on GOG. Reviews are unfortunately average to poor, however, with many praising the concept but criticising its execution.

Which just means it's time to do it properly! Beam me down with a crew of red shirts and let's see how long they survive. If they all make it back to the ship, it's not authentic enough!

"If I let not knowing anything stop me from doing something, I'd never do everything!"

• 13
• BearsEatBeets
• Tue 11th Aug 2026

Seeing as we don't seem to have a general Star Wars thread this seemed like an appropriate place to post this.

My excitement (which was already reasonable) is growing for this the more I see/hear.

• 14
• Pizzamorg
• Tue 11th Aug 2026

@BearsEatBeets I've honestly had my eyes so firmly set on the Fire Emblem horizon that I sorta not like forgot about this exactly? But it was just something on the way to the destination that was Fortunes Weave for me. However, actually seeing the previews for this has got me insanely hyped that this is more than just a temporary piss break on my journey. I love XCom, don't get me wrong, but the stuff outside of the customisation and the combat were always my least favourite parts, its why I absolutely fell in love with Midnight Suns, because its one of the few games in this genre where I actually enjoyed and looked forward to the out of combat shenans. Hearing this is much closer to something like a MSs, or even a FE, with a heavy focus on narrative, on building relationships with your crew, making choices. Like "its Xcom with Star Wars" was absolutely a game for me, but the specific type of Xcom with Star Wars sounds like its even more of a game for me than I realised.

Life to the living, death to the dead.

• 15
• BearsEatBeets
• Wed 12th Aug 2026

@Pizzamorg yeah I wasn't expecting the 'go around and talk to your crew at base' aspect so that is a pleasant surprise. Seeing it has third-person walking around between combat encounters was also an interesting addition.

It seems quite a few people got hands on as I've seen a few vids recommended now. This one covers similar ground of course but has some different footage/views of the hands on.

• 16
• Pizzamorg
• Wed 12th Aug 2026

@BearsEatBeets Ooo I learnt from this video you can disable permadeath. Deffo gonna do that for the first playthrough to get a full experience that first time.

Life to the living, death to the dead.

• 17
• cainhurst94
• Thu 13th Aug 2026

Going to be an insane one but I think Guerilla's Horizon could be a great candidate for the XCOM treatment. They've already got the Mass Effect style hub thing in the second game. And a team of Ragtag people fighting the Machines and Shadow Carja etc or escape the Thunderjaw in "x" turns could actually work.

Either way very excited for Zero Company.

cainhurst94

• 18
• GirlVersusGame
• Thu 13th Aug 2026

• 19
• JohnnyShoulder
• Thu 13th Aug 2026

@GirlVersusGame X-com 2 is ace, one on my fave games that gen. I always wanna try Midnight Suns and Mutant Year Zero, both have been on my wishlist for an age. Got the demo downloaded for the former on my ps5, just have not been in the mood to start it yet.

• 20
• GirlVersusGame
• Thu 13th Aug 2026

@JohnnyShoulder I never did try Midnight Suns, I didn't know it was a card game. I'd gotten it mixed up with that other game, the really bad DC one that failed, it had a shark in it or something, I don't even remember the name. Midnight Suns must have briefly been on Plus+ because I'm sure I had the option to download it and I'm certain I didn't buy it. I can't say I've heard of Mutant Year Zero but now that you mention it X-Men would make a very good X-Com style game too. Recently while trying more Mega-Drive games I did come across an X-men one and it was really good. Hulk too actually, but I didn't get far, I'd take damage, turn human, and that was pretty much the end of the game. I'll have to try X-Com or 2 sooner than later, it would be nice to remove some of the sting from Planetfall, and it's cheating A.I.