The Bureau: XCOM Declassified was a really disappointing game, there is no doubt about that. The game was developed by 2K Marin and according to an ex-Irrational Games developer, the publisher is to blamed for the game’s disappointing state.
According to Irrational Games’ former developer, 2K Games tried to get its hands dirty with the development, and that had a huge negative effect on the game itself.
The developer claimed that 2K Games turned the product around several times for reboots, and completely took creative control out of the hands of the developers.
As this ex-Irrational Games dev wrote at Medium:
“By the way, does anyone know why XCOM tanked? I know?—?I was there: It is because out of the above titles, it is the only title where 2K HQ felt obliged to get their hands dirty with the development. They turned the product around several times for reboots, and completely took creative control out of the hands of the developers, even going so far as to change the name of the lead studio to “2K Marin, Australia”?—?just so the Australian studio knew they were no longer in charge.”
What’s really interesting here is that 2K Games was not involved at all in the development of other successful titles – that were developed by Irrational Games and its 2K studios – such as BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.
This further proves that publishers should stay away from a game’s development. They should not try to force their ideas and take creative control. They should not interfere at all as they will, eventually, do more harm than good. We’ve seen this in the past with other studios, and 2K Marin’s case is no different.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Amen.
^to that last paragraph.
lol, our extra comments ruined your ^
While I get that opinion (about staying away), I think’s a rather comfortable attitude when it’s not your billions of dollars that’s at stake. Making a AAA-game is a huge investment so obviously the investors will want to know what’s being done with their money.
Generally I agree, tampering with the creative process is a bad thing but there are examples where sound minds oughta step it and stop certain “creative” minds from some of their ideas.
Peter Molneyux and 22cans is one example. Interstellar Marines and ZPS is another.
I have to agree somewhat. Especially if the dev studio holds claims of having an “Auteur” at the helm, which is to say, a leader who’s name and influence is so great that they get all the credit for a game that was in fac developed by hundreds. Molneyux is a great example, I’d add Kojima and Irrational games own Ken Levine to that list too.
It almost always increases the risk, sometimes it pays off like with MGS V, and sometimes it bankrupts a studio like Bioshock Infinite did to Irrational Games, where the dev time, remakes and general resources used to make the title became so expensive that it became next to impossible for the publisher to recoup the losses and turn a profit, despite beings a critical success which sold well.
It was a interesting idea, bad execution though.
“The developer claimed that 2K Games turned the product around several times for reboots”
We know that, originally it was a stylized fps.
Look, doom was good because they listened to the fans, maybe do that?
“Square Enix and the Hitman Ripoff” – by Shamus Young
Some really great thoughts on the relationship between devs, publishers and the public (though the last part focusing on Hitman is now a bit outdated).
Basically, what once was help to developers taking risks now the big publishers just try to own everything and devs are still with their necks on the line (and sometimes even the consumer).
I still like the game.
What did you think about that weird 180° they did with the main character ?
Please explain further
Did you finish the game ? I don’t want to spoil it in here for people who plan to play the game and are gonna read this comments section.
Ahh, I take it some type of late game twist, say no more sir. I didn’t finish, but I’ll hit up a wiki to find out. You are right no need to spoil in the comment section.
Well I’m not sure this will be revelead in a wiki though. Hit me up on Discord if you can’t find out.
Thought it would have been better with more controllable characters/enemies and bigger areas but it was ok, better then mass effect gameplay for sure.
I had no interest in the fps they originally showed i preferred tactics and strategy in a xcom game.
I quite like it too, I thought it had a really fun mix of strategy and action. I liked the queue system, that was so satisfying when your strategy works.
You enjoy trash then.
100% true,publishers ruin the game success and turn them into dumpster.
Wrong.
add an eventually in there and i’ll agree…somewhat…maybe..maybe 84%?..If nintendo gets its hands in there, it might make for some magic…if Sony touches it..you got 50/50 it’ll be sick..i wish they had touched No Man’s Sky a little more…man that game was boring.
Nintendo’s turned into a plague, they’re a f*cking joke that barely manages to be any good these days.
Sony might do something good, but eh. Probably better chances of Ubisoft doing something good, really, though I agree, they should have supervised No Man’s Lie far better than they did. I mean, we’re not talking about From Software or Naughty Dog here, it’s a brand-new studio working on an entirely new IP, with an AAA budget – what the f*ck?
No wonder the entire company’s drowning in the gutters right now, struggling to occasionally come up for breath while it figures out what the f*ck it’s going to do next for a steady cash influx (cue the sad, pathetic band-aid that is the PS4 Pro >.>)
Microsoft….. “DX12!” Though I admit, on a technical level, much like Naughty Dog’s various technical PlayStation marvels, they’ve managed to do some really visually stunning project. Now if only they could get 343 to STOP APING the Haloverse.
Electronic Arts will buy you out, defile you, & then disband you unless you somehow manage to remain independent of them through continuous massive financial successes (Respawn -> Titanfall).
Activision might give you something good, but yeah.
ZeniMax will blackmail you into oblivion once you’ve got something good going in order to force you to sell to them, so they can turn you into another slave-labour camp, even if it means they have to cancel your epic Open World Sandbox Sci-Fi FPS game in order to do so, & almost bankrupt your company.
2K Games (i.e. Take-Two) are idiots. If it wasn’t for Rockstar’s continued nuclear explosion-level profits, they’d have gone the way of THQ ages ago.
Warner Bros. will turn you inside-out & release a half-baked mess riddled with moronic problems nowadays, apparently, with mandatory WBID integration & a massive host of bugs to go with it all. I truly expect the Mad Max game to be the exception to the rule, rather than the standard in terms of quality, etc. Not to mention the bullsh*t with the PC ports.
Square Enix spent 2015 & 2016 pushing out either completely broken or just flat-out incomplete games due to their ridiculously stupid overwhelming focus on online-only games (Just Cause 3 is obviously an online-only F2P converted over), & episodic titles (Hitman, & obviously Mankind Divided – another half-assed joke converted over to a full-price pay-to-play title because they (hopefully) realised what a f*cked up idea the original concept was).
Ironically, beneath the various levels of sh*t, Hitman, Just Cause 3 & Mankind Divided are all actually really good games (well, Mankind Divided does need a Director’s Cut, but that aside, the gameplay & environments are excellent), so if they’d actually been done by another publisher, they could have come out far better than they actually did in the end.
Konami…… Kojima. ‘Nuff said.
CAPCOM….. Hm. Well, I suppose Resident Evil 7 will reveal if they did actually manage to learn anything from all the feedback we’ve been giving them about how we want them to go back to RE4 or not, but until then – bleh.
Bandai Namco – ugh.
Did I miss anyone?
deep silver
I can’t decide what’s more pathetic about Deep Silver; their remaster mania (especially when you realise that Metro OG is actually better than Metro Redux), considering how limited the library of IP’s actually is, or their actually new releases; Homefront: The Revolution, Dead Island: Riptide, etc.
they can’t help but suck…but they have personality! heart….all there games are flawed as a mofo..but charming..kinda..
Much like Ubisoft, they do occasionally manage to do something right, indeed; the Metro OG duology, Saints Row III (& IV if you insist), etc.
I can believe that. Publishers stifle innovation, they want devs to copy other successful games instead f listening to the fanbase.
It’s wasn’t like people hated the game since its reveal or anything…Nope.
Even though The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is a different game compared to XCOM, I still had a good time with it.
If by disappointing you guys mean technical issues, I had no such problems.
I like the efforts you have put in this, regards for all the great content.