XCOM: Enemy Within Interview

The Escapist is offering an article-style interview for XCOM: Enemy Within, the expansion to last year’s reboot of Microprose’s unforgiving tactical turn-based franchise from Firaxis. Here’s what lead designer Ananda Gupta had to say about MELD, the new resource introduced by the expansion:

With an idea of what MELD is, I was particularly curious to know just how it interacted with soldiers to allow for genetic modification. “Dr. Vahlen’s team discovers that MELD can be used to insert sequences of alien DNA into humans, giving them some of the abilities of that alien,” responded Gupta, “For example, the muscle fiber density of the Thin Man can be copied to give soldiers the ability to leap huge heights. Dissecting a Chryssalid allows you to learn the secrets of bioelectric skin.” So, in short, as you perform alien autopsies, you get access to their individual DNA, which opens up avenues for genmodding your troops with various abilities. From my understanding, these modifications are similar to skill trees, so you can choose one of two modifications for several body parts, like legs, eyes, etc. You won’t be able to create a genmod soldier with every modification, but you’ll get to customize your soldiers as you need for a given mission.

One thing that really worried me about MELD is the timer on collecting the resource. If you played Enemy Unknown, you’ll be familiar with the concept from the bomb disarm missions, where you had a specific number of turns to disable a number of bombs scattered around the map. MELD will be similar, in that you have to collect it before the timer expires, else it goes away. The burning question here is, “Why?” It could just as easily have been implemented like Alloy or Elerium, with passive collection. “Meld containers on timers were introduced, in part, as a way to reward players for taking a bolder approach to tactical missions,” said Gupta, mentioning that move/Overwatch strategies had taken some of the dynamism out of missions. “We wanted to give players a reward for breaking out of this safest strategy, and access to this resource which is helpful, but not required, turned out to be a very effective way to do that.” The narrative explanation isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it’s better than a random timer without justification, at least. “The idea is that the aliens view Meld as a valuable resource, and so the canisters have self-destruct timers that can prevent unauthorized elements (read: XCOM) from getting their hands on it,” Gupta explained.