Firaxis Games launches XCOM: Enemy Unknown, biggest game produced to date

Tuesday was a big day for Firaxis Games, in which the Sparks, Md.-based company released XCOM: Enemy Unknown, its video game “about an elite, multinational military force called together to battle an alien invasion,” reports the Baltimore Sun.

From the article:

“You’re talking about a big investment to reach a lot of people with a high end production product,” said Steve Martin, Firaxis’ president, [to the Baltimore Sun]. “It’s the biggest game Firaxis has ever produced. … It is a Herculean effort to make something this big.” …
Artists, designers and engineers worked together for years to craft the game, he said. The company even has a professional cinematographer who helped frame the different views and perspectives in the game’s realistic world, to give the player the look and feel of being immersed in a movie. [more]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is available for the Xbox, PlayStation and PCs. Firaxis itself, whose parent company is California-based 2K Games, is “part of a thriving Maryland video game industry that first took root in the 1980s,” according to the Sun.

A state Department of Business and Economic Development report two years ago estimated the video game industry was part of a larger digital media sector in the state that had $5.5 billion in direct sales. The video game industry grew for years, exceeding even movies in sales, but peaked in 2008 at $21.7 billion. [more]

Sid Meier, creator of the Civilization series of video games, is co-founder of Firaxis, and was one of the judges at the Art Bytes hackathon hosted by the Walters Art Museum this summer.