Long War Studios, the team behind The Long War - one of the most comprehensive mod for Firaxis’ original XCOM reboot – has changed its name to Pavonis Interactive. The announcement was made in tandem with the reveal that the team’s next project is Long War 2 for XCOM 2, a sequel to the aforementioned mod for Firaxis’ strategy sequel.
As an indicator of the significance of this announcement, the reveal was made by Firaxis itself, rather than Pavonis Studios, through the XCOM 2 developer’s social media channels and website. It’s an example of how Firaxis recognises that its first XCOM was made even better through its mod scene, and so the developer seems to be lending official support to the sequel’s own budding mod teams.
Twitter.com
The official announcement reads:
“Long War Studios, the development outfit responsible for great XCOM 2 PC content such as the “Alien Pack” and the “Perk” and “Laser Pack” mods, has a new name: Pavonis Interactive, and a new web site. And the team has been working on something ambitious. We’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks so stay tuned.”
As for the reason behind the name change, Pavonis Interactive’s design lead John Lumpkin elaborates in a news post:
“...The name change is intended to mark that the company's future work will go beyond modding XCOM and focus on developing independent original titles, including Terra Invicta, a grand strategy alien invasion game. Going forward, "Long War" will remain exclusively linked with the XCOM franchise.”
Details on the Long War 2 mod are scarce, but one aspect that has been revealed is a new weapon class: the coilgun.
Twitter.com
Firaxis details:
“The engineers at Pavonis Interactive, creators of the upcoming Long War 2 mod for XCOM 2 on PC, have created a new suite of weapons for your soldiers, Commander. They’re calling these new armaments “Coilguns.” Coilguns represent a new tier of weaponry available to research during the XCOM 2 campaign on PC. This line of advanced magnetic hardware rests above the current Mag weapon tier offered by Chief Shen and her team, and directly under our top-tier Beam offerings.
Outfit your soldiers with these Coilguns and they’ll represent a very serious threat to any ADVENT or alien overlords you come across in your efforts to reclaim Earth; however, Coilguns aren’t cheap. Obviously, as the second-best weapon tier available to our soldiers, Coilguns will require a considerable investment before you can add them to your weapons cache.”
Long War 2 currently has no release date, however Pavonis Interactive says it will be the last XCOM 2 mod that it develops before moving onto independent projects.
I was hoping this would happen. This will definitely bring me back to XCOM2, that's for sure. Best of luck with future development, guys!
Damnit, everytime I leave XCOM 2 these guys bring me back in!
It's out.
On Steam Workshop.
Steamcommunity.com