All official evidence that developer 2K Marin is working on a shooter set in the XCOM universe is vanishing from the Internet. Surprisingly, extraterrestrials aren’t responsible for this … 2K is.
Publisher 2K has dropped the official XCOM website that teased the shooter’s eventual release. The company also removed the official video preview from its YouTube page, according to Quarter To Three.
A recent, unconfirmed report from Kotaku’s rumormonger Superannuation suggests that 2K may rebrand the XCOM shooter as The Bureau. That is based on recent domain registrations by the publisher.
We reached out to the company and a spokesperson provided the following statement: “2K has no comment on the web sites coming down. Also, it is official company policy to not comment on rumors or speculation.
“That said, thank you for your interest in the XCOM shooter.”
That’s not much, but it is a spokesperson officially recognizing that the XCOM shooter is still a thing. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
The XCOM series is in a strong position these days. The updated strategy release, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, was one of the best-reviewed games of 2012. It reinvigorated the series. The publisher is preparing to release the title on iPad, and a sequel is definitely in the cards.
It’s possible that 2K would want to rebrand the 2K Marin shooter as something other than XCOM so it doesn’t distract from the core product. That could explain why the website is down, but it’s not the only possible explanation.