XCOM 3 might not ever happen, but it looks like a new Star Wars tactics game by one of the former developers could scratch the same itch.
Despite what you might imagine, the Marvel and Star Wars licences do not print money. Both franchises have had massive hits (Spider-Man 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, for example) but there’s a litany of failures too.
Marvel’s Avengers, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Midnight Suns, for example. Or Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws or the recently cancelled Star Wars Hunters. Many of those were very good games but for some reason they just didn’t sell what you’d expect, given the size of their fanbases.
Just as it is with the movies and TV shows, the world of Star Wars video games seems to be in disarray at the moment, with very few confirmed titles currently in development. One that is on its way though, and has never been officially unveiled, is a new turn-based strategy game – and if this new leak is anything to go by it’s looking very promising indeed.
The unnamed new game was announced in January 2022, but all that is known for certain is that it’s by new develop Bit Reactor, which is headed by former Firaxis designer Greg Foerstch, who has worked on, amongst other things, XCOM.
Although XCOM 2 is one of our favourite games ever a third title is unlikely, as the franchise has never been that big a hit and Firaxis saw layoffs in 2023, following the failure of Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Although the Star Wars game has long been rumoured to be a turn-based title, nothing else has ever been leaked about it, but now images have emerged which show it to be heavily influenced by titles such as XCOM and Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope.
The game is set to be officially unveiled at the Star Wars Celebration event in Japan, on April 19, and that’s how these screenshot mock-ups (they don’t seem to be from an actual working build of the game) have leaked early.
It’s immediately clear from the images that the game must play very similarly to XCOM, with a default isometric view that switches to a more traditional third person view when aiming and selecting special abilities.
There doesn’t seem to be a grid system for aiming, like XCOM, and instead the game appears to allow for free movement within a set area, like Sparks Of Hope. There’s also what is clearly labelled as overwatch, which in XCOM allows your team to fire during the enemies’ movement phase.
The images, which were first noticed by MP1st, are from the portfolio of an indiscreet Bit Reactor artist and are at least a year and a half old, so the final game may look quite different.
In terms of the Star Wars setting, the image shows what is clearly a Phase II Clonetrooper, from near the end of the Clone Wars. The Mandalorians you see appear to be part of the Nite Owl sect (you can tell by the symbol on the shoulder pauldron – yes, we are Star Wars nerds).
The Nite Owls are led by Bo-Katan Kryze, who featured heavily in season three of The Mandalorian and who can clearly be seen in one of the images. The game may be set in and around the Siege of Mandalore storyline, from Season 7 of The Clone Wars animated show – when everyone was much younger.
A menu screen also shows what is clearly a Togruta, the same alien species as Ahsoka Tano, who was also heavily involved in that same story arc.
The Clonetroopers were allies of the Night Owls at that point though, so either this is from an earlier point in the story or the artist is just throwing in random characters, while designing the overall look for the game.
It shouldn’t be long till we find out for sure but a Star Wars game that both looks like XCOM and is from someone that was involved in the original games sounds like catnip to us.
Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
MORE: GTA 6 Trailer 2 is purposefully being left as late as possible admits Take-Two
MORE: Nintendo’s big new game reveal was more popular than Switch 2 in Japan
MORE: Nintendo Switch 2 ‘C’ button turns the Switch 1 into a Wii U says rumour