The XCOM Creator: No Further Turn-Based Game

The director of Midnight Suns and XCOM, Jake Solomon, has said that he would not be working on turn-based strategy games in the foreseeable future.

Jake Solomon, the director of XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, is preparing to depart Firaxis Studios to start his own development business, which will not focus on creating an entirely new turn-based strategy game. According to a recent interview with Solomon, he has great ideas for his next project and is anxious to attempt something new.

Jake Solomon’s departure from Firaxis Games was formally announced a few weeks ago, with the parties involved parting on friendly terms. Solomon appears to have just been ready to move on, and the only apparent issue for his prior business is that the studio leader, Steve Martin, also left, which may or may not have resulted in a rough time for the developer of the Civilisation franchise.

Solomon’s tenure at Firaxis Games has served to establish the firm via numerous historic releases, the most noteworthy of which being the reboot of the venerable XCOM genre. Yet, it appears that the former Firaxis director now intends to explore wholly other genres. According to VGC, Solomon stated on the “My Ideal Console” podcast with writer Simon Parkin that “[he] realised that [he] wasn’t that thrilled about making another turn-based strategy game.” According to Solomon, the problem was not with the genre itself. He’d rather “do a brand new thing and be entirely in charge of it” than stick with something tried and proven.

Idea of XCOM Creator: System-based Game Design!!

Even if Marvel’s Midnight Suns bombed, it doesn’t appear to have had much of an impact on Solomon. Instead, Solomon stated that he was motivated by Sid Meier’s own success in the business and believed the moment had come for him to try something fresh and different. “I want to build a systems-based game,” Solomon explained, adding that it should be “more of a life simulator or a simulation-style game.” This might lead to something like to an immersive sim like Dishonored or Prey, though it’s still too early to tell.

While Jake Solomon is most recognised for his contributions to the XCOM and Midnight Suns games, he also worked on the foundational Civilisation series. Now that Firaxis has officially announced Civilisation 7, it will be interesting to watch how the franchise progresses without some of the studio’s longest-serving and most experienced personnel.

Solomon’s departure might be especially detrimental for the speculated XCOM 3 title, but no formal announcement is expected anytime soon. Because Solomon’s contributions shaped the XCOM games from the start, Firaxis may find it more difficult to create new features, systems, and concepts for the third mainstream release while preserving the feel of the prior entries.

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