XCOM director Jake Solomon has said that he is not currently working on a new entry in the critically-acclaimed strategy game franchise. Jake Solomon and Firaxis revitalized the dormant XCOM franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown in 2012, which earned rave reviews, won numerous awards, and helped renew interest in the long-running series.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown was followed up with a standalone expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within, and XCOM 2, which similarly earned acclaim from fans and critics alike. Solomon served as director for XCOM 2, but his latest project was something completely unrelated to the popular franchise. Solomon's latest game was Marvel's Midnight Suns, a new turn-based tactics game based on Marvel comic book characters that didn't earn quite the same level of praise as the XCOM games, but still earned mostly positive reviews when it launched last year.
Now that Midnight Suns is out, fans are naturally wondering what's next for Solomon and his team at Firaxis. In an interview with VGC, Solomon revealed that he knows fans want to see a new XCOM game, but that he does not have any information on such a project at this time. He said the most recent thing he worked on was Morbius' abbey outfits and that he is not currently working on a new XCOM game. "I don't know anything about XCOM at this point," Solomon claimed.
Understandably, this news may upset XCOM fans. If Solomon is telling the truth, it means that the next XCOM game is many years away from release, at minimum. And when one considers that XCOM 2 is nearly seven years old at this point, it makes sense that fans of the franchise are hungry for information on a potential XCOM 3 or new game in the series.
XCOM 2 was the last main series entry in the franchise so far, though there was also 2020's XCOM: Chimera Squad. The reception to XCOM: Chimera Squad was more mixed, with many franchise fans wanting something a bit more ambitious and in line with what the main series entries have on offer. XCOM: Chimera Squad still hasn't even seen a console port either, so its audience has been fairly limited compared to the main series XCOM games.
It's unclear if an XCOM 3 will ever happen at this point, but for now, Solomon and Firaxis are busy producing new content for Midnight Suns. Midnight Suns has plenty of DLC coming out this coming year that will add new characters and story content to the game, so fans of Firaxis' work will have to be satisfied with that for now.
Source: VGC
