Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
View
Trending
  • Summer Game Fest
  • New games for 2025
  • Upcoming Switch 2 games
  • Switch 2 stock

Recommended reading

The cover of Edge Magazine showing Cronos: The New Dawn spread across all the way to the back cover
Horror Games Edge 410 goes hands-on with Cronos: The New Dawn, the new survival horror from Silent Hill 2 studio Bloober Team
ILL screenshot showing
Horror Games Ill looks like a gnarly cross between Half-Life and The Thing, and its developer has just one goal: delivering "a good f**king horror game*
The party of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Games Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director found something that "makes the game feel 10 times better" mid-development, then painfully realized they had to apply it to "like 1,100" different attacks
Death Stranding 2
Action Games Legendary Metal Gear Solid artist Yoji Shinkawa pens exclusive Death Stranding 2 art for the latest issue of Edge Magazine
A boxy green cubey enemy attacks Remi in Hell is Us
Action Games With "multi-map spanning secrets" and "phantasmagorical" horrors, Hell is Us wages a brutal civil war that already has me on edge
Chains of Freedom appearing in the Future Games Show Spring Showcase 2025
Strategy Games Chains of Freedom is a brutal turn-based strategy game where nothing can be trusted, except the sharpness of a mutant's talons
Helldivers 2 board game demo models and cards
Board Games The Helldivers 2 board game leans into "the cooperative chaos of the video game," the designers promise
  1. Games
  2. Strategy

XCOM: Enemy Unknown interview and exclusive screens

Features
By Hollander Cooper published 10 August 2012

We talk about spaceships and X-Files and other cool stuff with Greg Foertsch

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The prettiest alien invasion in years

The prettiest alien invasion in years

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is one of the most interesting games of the year, both in terms of its turn-based strategy gameplay and its awesome artistic style. While we've covered the gameplay in our last preview, we never had a chance to really find out about the inspiration behind the game's art. Thankfully, we recently talked with Firaxis Games' Greg Foertsch, project art director for XCOM: Enemy Unknown, to fix that.

Oh! And we have some awesome, new, exclusive images to ogle, too!

Page 1 of 6
Page 1 of 6
GamesRadar: The game looks super slick what inspired the heavy, armored look of the soldiers?

GamesRadar: The game looks super slick what inspired the heavy, armored look of the soldiers?

Greg Foertsch: Thanks! We took our inspiration from modern military armor for the basic armor kits your soldiers start out wearing. With the Carapace Armor and Skeleton Suit, theyre based on your early studies of alien tech, but we intentionally made them angular and geometric, in contrast to the repeated organic curves of the alien equipment and armor (actually, the Muton armor provided a lot of direction for the alien look.) The most advanced armor in the game uses a lot of the aliens own tech, and that shares that organic look of the rest of the alien armor, so you know at a glance that your soldiers have gone past human technology and are now becoming like the aliens.

Page 2 of 6
Page 2 of 6
GR: The actual XCOM lab has a neat cross-section design, what inspired this look? Were there any other iterations?

GR: The actual XCOM lab has a neat cross-section design, what inspired this look? Were there any other iterations?

GF: We iterated a lot on the design of the base. Early on, it was kind of an isometric view, a bit like the combat angles you see, but it didnt feel right and there were gameplay and visibility problems with it, and nobody was entirely happy with it. Then my lead technical artist, Dave Black, mocked up the current side-on view and showed it at a meeting, and Jake Solomon, the lead designer, and the rest of the team all went Yes! Perfect! And it really was. It solved so many problems from a technical and artistic standpoint.

As for Dave Blacks inspirations, he said that as a kid he used to love books of cross-sections and cutaways.

Page 3 of 6
Page 3 of 6
GR: We get a Starship Troopers vibe from some of the designs, and a District 9 feel from others. Is that intentional?

GR: We get a Starship Troopers vibe from some of the designs, and a District 9 feel from others. Is that intentional?

GF: Were borrowing pretty heavily from UFO culture in general, and I think a lot of movies come to that material to draw inspiration. Thats good! It gives people a starting point to understand what youre showing them. The little gray alien is supposed to be kind of weedy, but maybe psychically dangerous, and the bug-like alien is always bad news if it gets too close. We can use what people already know from the pop culture to help them understand parts of our game.

Flying saucers have been in a ton of science fiction movies and books and shows. Just think of all the movies where flying saucers are the alien ships from The Day the Earth Stood Still up through Mars Attacks or Independence Day and you can see that a lot of creative people know how to tap into that. If you see a UFO out there, then thats probably a bad sign for humans.

We did have some technical constraints that we were operating under for XCOM: EU, and the rounded shapes of the UFOs were a bit tricky to implement in the game. Our designers figured out how to implement them really well within the game itself, so we ended up with round UFOs that still work well with the underlying geometry of our game. Thats one of those great points of game development that makes both the artists and the engineers happy.

Page 4 of 6
Page 4 of 6
GR: Have there been any unorthodox inspirations outside of media or pop culture for the designs?

GR: Have there been any unorthodox inspirations outside of media or pop culture for the designs?

GF: We drew a lot of inspiration from the original X-com itself, and that game was very much a product of the UFO culture of the '90s, from Roswell conspiracy theories to the X-Files. A lot of times we would look at what was done in the original game, then iterate on a new design, and end up with something very close to the original because many of the artistic decisions they made were what was best for their game. We could be humble about what had come before in X-com, while still having the courage to push the design in some new ways.

Our design has always been there to support the gameplay of XCOM. Early on we made some fundamental decisions about the combat cameras and how our designs would need to look in order to look their best from the isometric combat camera and the up-close cinematic cameras. Once we had our viewpoints, we could design assets like armor and weapons that could communicate key information about the gameplay. You always know which soldier has the best armor (because its shiny and flowing, or possibly making him invisible) and which guy has the best gun (it glows green for plasma.)

Page 5 of 6
Page 5 of 6
The invasion begins

The invasion begins

So, what do you think about the game's art style? Does it remind you of anything? Let us know in the comments below!

And if you want more supernatural goodness, check out the Top 7... enemies that scuttle and jump at your face and read our reasons why Mass Effect 2 is one of the greatest games of all time.

Page 6 of 6
Page 6 of 6
CATEGORIES
PC Gaming PlayStation Xbox Platforms
PRODUCTS
XCOM: Enemy Unknown XCOM
Hollander Cooper
Hollander Cooper
Social Links Navigation

Hollander Cooper was the Lead Features Editor of GamesRadar+ between 2011 and 2014. After that lengthy stint managing GR's editorial calendar he moved behind the curtain and into the video game industry itself, working as social media manager for EA and as a communications lead at Riot Games. Hollander is currently stationed at Apple as an organic social lead for the App Store and Apple Arcade. 

See more PC Gaming Features
Read more
The cover of Edge Magazine showing Cronos: The New Dawn spread across all the way to the back cover
Edge 410 goes hands-on with Cronos: The New Dawn, the new survival horror from Silent Hill 2 studio Bloober Team
ILL screenshot showing
Ill looks like a gnarly cross between Half-Life and The Thing, and its developer has just one goal: delivering "a good f**king horror game*
The party of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director found something that "makes the game feel 10 times better" mid-development, then painfully realized they had to apply it to "like 1,100" different attacks
Death Stranding 2
Legendary Metal Gear Solid artist Yoji Shinkawa pens exclusive Death Stranding 2 art for the latest issue of Edge Magazine
A boxy green cubey enemy attacks Remi in Hell is Us
With "multi-map spanning secrets" and "phantasmagorical" horrors, Hell is Us wages a brutal civil war that already has me on edge
Chains of Freedom appearing in the Future Games Show Spring Showcase 2025
Chains of Freedom is a brutal turn-based strategy game where nothing can be trusted, except the sharpness of a mutant's talons
Latest in Strategy
Pikmin 3 Deluxe
No Pikmin games got Switch 2 upgrades, and fans say Pikmin 3 Deluxe is "borderline broken" thanks to crashes, bizarre visual bugs, and screen flickering
a knight in a helmet with iron crosses decorating the cheeks
New strategy game Chronicles Medieval has you fight third-person battles with Tom Hardy narrating in a surprisingly normal accent for once
Lords Mobile x Pacific Rim
Lords Mobile launches Pacific Rim collaboration and celebrates 19th anniversary of developer IGG
Pikmin 4
Despite being the father of Mario, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has once again affirmed Pikmin is his favourite child: "I spent a lot of time the past 5, 6 years really wanting to grow Pikmin"
A bronze woman dancing during the Civilization 7 trailer.
Civilization 7's choice of leaders came down to "authenticity and not accuracy" - "The goal is not 'is wrong wrong?' But rather 'Does wrong feel wrong?'"
Flick Shot Rogues in Future Games Show
Line up the perfect shot to launch your hero spinning through their enemies in Flick Shot Rogues
Latest in Features
The Outer Worlds 2 screenshot of the Spectrum Dance Saber being used against an enemy
The Outer Worlds 2 is fixing the first RPG's biggest weakness by improving guns "in every way", and the sci-fi nerd in me is already screaming about the Shrink Ray
A screenshot from Pragmata shows a blonde girl shooting out lasers from her hand while an orange border identifies it as part of GamesRadar's summer previews
Capcom's android apocalypse Pragmata is such a genius mix of shooters and puzzle games, both of which I normally hate, and I'm starting to rethink my entire existence
The Grave Seasons protagonist waters seeds in a plot of soil and an orange border says Summer Preview 2025
With Haunted Chocolatier still miles away, farming sim with serial killers Grave Seasons is here to scratch that cozy horror itch until it bleeds
Onimusha Way of the Sword Summer Preview
Onimusha: Way of the Sword looks like an incredible PS2 throwback in all the right ways, but with a modern feel and a swaggering protagonist I already love
Resident Evil Requiem Summer Preview
Resident Evil Requiem's demo tops the series' scariest moments with what might be the most upsetting monster Capcom’s ever devised, and as a horror baby I'm afraid of how much I want to play it
Resident Evil Requiem screenshot showing Grace Ashcroft walking down a dark hallway with a lighter in hand. The GR+ Summer Preview 2025 banner frames the image
In just 30 minutes, Resident Evil Requiem scared me more than anything in the series' 29-year history
  1. Jan sadly presses a hand on a screen that says 'deceased' in The Alters
    1
    The Alters review: "More tactile and story-heavy than the Frostpunk dev's earlier games, but the fight for survival is just as fierce"
  2. 2
    Splitgate 2 review: "A slick and enjoyable free-to-play FPS, but a disappointing sequel"
  3. 3
    Date Everything review: "A masterclass in character design full of wonderful faces I love meeting, but juggling so many means sacrificing depth"
  4. 4
    Deltarune review: "This Undertale successor is an unapologetically weird RPG epic, where each chapter is a new canvas that doesn't have to conform to any rigid rules, style, or logic"
  5. 5
    Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege X review: "Bigger, better, and more user friendly than it's ever been – it's the perfect time to dive in"
  1. The Yautja in Dan Trachtenberg's animated movie Predator: Killer of Killers
    1
    Predator: Killer of Killers review: "Great characters, thrilling action, and gorgeous Arcane-esque animation"
  2. 2
    From the World of John Wick: Ballerina review: "Brilliant action, even if the plot gives you a sense of déjà vu"
  3. 3
    Karate Kid: Legends review: "Better than Karate Kid (2010), nothing on Karate Kid (1984)"
  4. 4
    Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning review: "Wraps up this spy franchise in spectacular style with Tom Cruise in peak condition, even if its villain lacks terror"
  5. 5
    Final Destination Bloodlines Review: "Meticulous murderous mayhem"
  1. Alexander Devrient as Colonel Ibrahim, Ruth Madeley as Shirley, Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge Stewart, Varada Sethu as Belinda, Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, Millie Gibson as Ruby, Bonnie Langford as Mel, Susan Twist as Susan Triad, and Yasmin Finney as Rose Noble in Doctor Who: 'The Reality War.'
    1
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 8 spoiler review: 'The Reality War' is "a mix of the good, the bad, and the truly baffling"
  2. 2
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 7 spoiler review: 'Wish World' is "an exciting and ambitious" start to the season finale, with hints of WandaVision
  3. 3
    Rick and Morty season 8 review: "Largely plays it too safe after years of crossing boundaries"
  4. 4
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 6 spoiler review: 'The Interstellar Song Contest' is "a blast and sets the stage for a thrilling season finale"
  5. 5
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 5 spoiler review: 'The Story & The Engine' is "one of the most original and ambitious episodes this show has produced in years"

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...