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XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be a really challenging game; not impossibly difficult or frustrating

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In a recent interview with VentureBeat, Jake Solomon, lead designer for Firaxis Games’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown, said that their upcoming remake of the legendary XCOM game will be a really challenging game. Jake wanted to differentiate this term and said that it would not be impossibly difficult or tedious to play, just challenging in so many other ways. Moreover, Jake said that they have a game that openly embraces the idea of challenge as a selling point and that’s exactly what will differentiate their game from all other previous frustrating parts of the series, like X-Com: Terror from the Deep.
When asked whether Firaxis could avoid the pitfall of making their game tedious to play, Jake said:
“We have a game that openly embraces the idea of challenge as a selling point, and I think you see a lot of games doing that now. And obviously we can manage that aspect through the different difficulty levels.”
Jake admitted later that Firaxis has a lot of ways to keep the player always engaged in the game. For example, as the player has the ability to hear the aliens, so do the they. Aliens in XCOM: Enemy Unknown will not be wandering around for the sake of it.
Jake concluded that the world of XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be a living battlefield:
“It’s not the sort of thing where you’re going to find yourself wandering in the dark, and you’re just in the wrong corner. It’s a living battlefield.”
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is currently slated for a 2013 release!