News by Matt S.
Unfortunately, it’s not really. The original Phantom Doctrine was a particularly good “XCOM clone”; many would actually prefer it to XCOM itself. With its Cold War setting and espionage themes, Phantom Doctrine was a significant enough digression from XCOM to be its own thing, and showed that the base formula of that kind of tactics experience could be very flexible indeed.
The announcement that there would be a Phantom Doctrine II excited me a great deal on that basis… unfortunately then I started to read about it. Phantom Doctrine II: The Cabal is going to be a third-person shooter.
As per the press release:
Get ready for an exciting espionage thriller. This time your mission is to infiltrate and sabotage the mysterious, criminal intelligence agency The Cabal. You will have to spy, infiltrate, impersonate, and eliminate your enemies. As in any espionage intrigue, you will have to figure out who`s your ally and who’s the villain.
The story in the game Phantom Doctrine II: The Cabal presents an alternative version of the events in 1986 in which the Chernobyl explosion is the beginning of a series of terrorist attacks for which the Cabal is responsible, but are you sure …?
Phantom Doctrine II: The Cabal with new modes and gameplay options, allows you to gain a completely new experience from the game. This time you’ll be playing from the third person view in real-time. The gameplay mainly consists of elements of stealth, silent killings, impersonating enemies, hiding corpses, shootings, plot tracking, mission planning, and recruiting new agents. Each task will require tactical planning and skillful management of your team. The tactical pause system will help you play the missions in the most optimal way. You will decide how you want to accomplish the task by choosing from a large number of alternatives.
The most surreal thing about this is that it has already been done, in the sense that 2K Games itself took XCOM and decided to make a third-person shooter entry into the series. That game – The Bureau: XCOM Declassified – was most certainly not popular, nor well-received, and 2K went back to traditional XCOM immediately after that. It is so strange that the developers of Phantom Doctrine would do head down exactly the same path.
Then again… I was one of the few people that enjoyed The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, so perhaps this game is for me after all…
– Matt S.
Editor-in-Chief
Find me on Twitter: @mattsainsb
