Once upon a time, 2K had two XCOM games in the pipeline. One was XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a strategy game developed by Firaxis in the style of the original games. The other was a XCOM first person shooter in development at 2K Marin. After the initial announcement of the shooter, 2K was loathe to reveal much else. It didn’t look good.
In October last year, 2K revealed that the XCOM first person shooter may be changing into a third person shooter, according to a 2K marketing survey. According to the survey, 2K was also considering turning the title into a cheaper, downloadable title for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.
Now, according to a Superannuation post, it appears that Take-Two (2K’s parent company) has registered a bevy of domains: “Last week, Take-Two registered the domains thebureau-game.com, thebureau-game.net, whathappenedin62.com, and whathappenedin62.net,” read the post. “These domains seem to hint at a rebranding of 2K's beleaguered XCOM shooter, which places players in the shoes of an FBI agent in 1962. Given the success of Firaxis' XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I wouldn't be surprised if 2K thought having two very different games in different genres could dilute the franchise's brand.”
And let’s not forget that not too long ago, there’d been another first person reboot of a strategy series called Syndicate. It ended up doing not too hot, critically or in sales. 2K’s probably weighed most of the pros and cons of developing such a title and come to the conclusion that, considering the difficulties the game’s having in development, it might be a better move to scrap the whole thing and redub it as a fresh IP.
