It’s only natural to be upset that we console players can’t sink our teeth into XCOM 2 for another few weeks. To be able to get our hands on the PC-exclusive so soon after its February 6 release date seemed almost too good to be true. Turns out, it was. And that’s just fine. We only have to wait three weeks longer, which is a better deal than PC players got. Considering the game’s controversial release history, maybe giving Firaxis a little more time to fine tune the port is a good idea anyway.
The case for embracing the delay is pretty easy to break down.
Patience is a Virtue
When the sequel to 2012’s excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown was announced, it was a mixed blessing. Where the original game was released simultaneously on console and PC, XCOM 2 was developed as a PC-exclusive. Sure, a port was almost inevitable, but Xbox One and PS4 players would just have to wait.
Then, a few months after the title was announced, Firaxis delayed its release four months, from late 2015 into February of this year. Their commitment to making the game great was cited as why, and the team remained solely focused on the PC experience.
The PC Release Debacle
When XCOM 2 finally did come to PCs, the result was somewhat controversial. Where critics acknowledged the core game was amazing, it was also virtually unplayable thanks to crippling performance issues. Some pointed out the game’s poor construction was shocking, considering XCOM 2’s graphics weren’t exactly hard on PCs.
It took a little over a month for Firaxis to release a patch. Once the fix went live, the game quickly became a welcomed addition to the series. Sure, its fundamental excellence is a pretty soothing balm to the frustration PC players felt in the month-long interim between being able to buy the game and being able to actually play it with few errors, but excellence doesn’t completely erase that ire.
We’ve Been Waiting This Long …
Console players have been waiting with bated breath for Firaxis to finally get around to gifting us another dose of their immersive strategy title. By all accounts, a properly debugged XCOM 2 experience is a brutal masterpiece in terms of both narrative and turn-based gameplay. The company just needs the opportunity to polish the experience to an aggravating extent before reaching that level.
Look on the bright side: in suffering this delay, we may well have avoided three to four weeks of irritation (and bitching on reddit) about how the console port desperately needs a patch.
