#XCOM ENEMY WITHIN MEC SERIES#

Only the head poking out from the chest reminds you there's a person inside, a design choice that would carry through to the MEC's final iteration.ДЄs Gupta stated, we are still dealing with a 'living, breathing soldier,' so further iterations of the MEC tried to reflect this with a more humanlike appearance. The collapsed torso, inverted knee joints, and extended forearms-while visually striking-give the unit a very inhuman aesthetic. In the early piece of concept art shown above, the MEC takes on a very alien design. Since a MEC trooper's are retained, we're still dealing with a living, breathing soldier, one who has made some very deep sacrifices to protect the world from aliens.' Even the most materialistic among us-and I use 'materialistic' in the philosophical sense to refer to people who don't think there's any such thing as a 'mind' or a 'soul' or anything like that-tend to think that what makes one human, what gives one an identity, resides in the brain or the heart or somewhere in the core.

'There's philosophy to be discussed here,' said Gupta, 'but we don't say that a quadriplegic is less than human. It is a major sacrifice, but not a dehumanizing one. By working with lead artist Dave Black, Gupta devised a scenario in which the suits and the pilots were separate, but the pilots had to forfeit their arms and legs to interface with the suit. 'This is a good example where design by going to art for help can reframe a problem,' he said.

Gupta knew he didn't want to lock these people inside their suits, but there had to be some degree of sacrifice. It's an immensely powerful unit that comes with a heavy price: a MEC is extremely expensive to manufacture, and the pilot must undergo a radical transformation.Д®ven the most materialistic among us tend to think that what makes one human, what gives one an identity, resides in the brain or the heart or somewhere in the core.That transformation puts the soldier somewhere between an X-wing pilot and Robocop. When Enemy Within came around, Gupta and his team asked themselves, among other things, 'How can we further people's investment in their soldiers?' The answer, oddly enough, was robots.Д®nter the mechanized exoskeletal cybersuit, or MEC for short, XCOM: Enemy Within's newest soldier class. Enemy Unknown isn't one to dictate how you identify with your soldiers, if at all. You might also be disappointed to see Todd 'Butt-Kicker' Gunderson kick the bucket. And if you lost a decorated soldier in battle, it not only impacted the battle at hand, but could have far-reaching ramifications on your overall war effort. Switching to a class-based system got you invested in individual troops by giving them a distinct identity and play style.

#XCOM ENEMY WITHIN MEC SERIES#

This meant that losing a soldier, even an experienced one, was really no big deal-which is antithetical to a series known for asking you to face tough choices and accept the consequences. It was the guns that were special, not the people. If you wanted someone to use suppression, you gave that person a gun with suppression. If you needed a sniper, you gave a soldier a sniper rifle. A soldier's abilities were tied to his or her weapons. Prior to Gupta's arrival, Enemy Unknown didn't have the heavy, assault, support, and sniper classes. It fell to me to fix this problem, so I introduced character classes.' Part of their feedback after playing the game was they cared more about the guns than they did about the soldiers.

'My first week on the job was a week when 2K was visiting. 'When I joined in July of 2011, there were definitely some things that needed work,' said Gupta. XCOM has always been about men and women from all over the world doing whatever it takes to fight the aliens, and this image drives that home.' 'IвЂ™m really fond of this image,' said Gupta, 'because itвЂ™s not a common image: the idea of a woman having her limbs amputated so she can get into a giant robot suit to shoot aliens. Ananda Gupta, senior game designer on XCOM: Enemy Within, explains how his team created this two-ton war machine with a human touch. Clad in a massive suit of cybernetic armor, the mechanized exoskeletal cybersuit is designed to soak up damage and dish it out in kind.

They're minefields of alien weaponry and psychic talent that can quickly cut down even the most heavily armored soldier. The battlefields of XCOM: Enemy Unknown never reward brute force.

Xcom enemy within mec