There are very few surprises these days in the games industry thanks to publishers not being able to keep a lid on their assets, but we have to say, we were genuinely surprised when 2K announced that Firaxis were working on a successor to the original XCOM.

Not to be confused with 2K Marin’s XCOM FPS, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is effectively Firaxis’ spiritual successor to the cult 1990s version. We caught up with the strategy king’s Lead Designer on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Jake Solomon, to see how the title has changed since the 90s, what they’ve learnt from Civ Rev, whether it’ll tie into the Marin FPS and how difficult it is to innovate while keeping the franchise familiar for the long-standing fans. All that and more are answered by Solomon!

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is scheduled for a 2012 release.