XCOM: Enemy Unknown iOS Port Announced

Polygon is reporting that an iOS version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown is currently in development, and will be released this Summer. A few more details:

The game is being ported by 2K China with guidance from Firaxis. XCOM’s lead developer Jake Solomon tells Polygon that the iOS version is intended to be a complete port of the AAA console and PC experience.

“The idea was to port the game fully,” Solomon says. “The one exception we made was to the number of maps in the game, but we still have all the destructible environments, there’s the fog of war this is a full AAA game we’re porting. It really is XCOM.”

Solomon tells Polygon that work began on the iOS port almost a year ago, before the core game shipped on PC and consoles. He says Firaxis knew that an iOS port would work because the studio had experience porting Civilization Revolution to touchscreen devices, and they realized that “touch interface is sort of uniquely suited to strategy games, especially turn-based strategy games.”

According to Solomon, porting XCOM to iOS felt “natural,” and as soon as the studio tested out the controls, they knew it would work.

The link also contains a video of Jake Solomon showing off the new interface, in case you want to see how it controls first-hand.