X-COM (Video Game)/Trivia

• Hey Its That Voice:
  • The Council Spokesman/Informant in XCOM: EU/EW and XCOM 2 is played by Jon Bailey. Aka, the Honest Trailers guy.
  • Dr. Shen was previously seen on Lost as that one guy in the Dharma Initiative films. He was also known as Vagabond in Wing Commander.
  • Bradford in XCOM 2 is Matt Horner on both a good and bad day. He's also BJ Blazkowisz in Wolfenstein: The New Order.
  • The ADVENT Speaker in XCOM 2 is basically Garrus Vakarian as a "perfected" Thin Man.
• Promoted Fanboy: The Firaxis devs who took charge of XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within are fans of the original X-COM games. While the mod team behind XCOM: Long War also got involved in the development of XCOM 2.
• Troubled Production: The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is this in a nutshell, being the ultimate fate of the original XCOM Reboot concept.
• What Could Have Been: a few canceled games...
  • X-Com Alliance, a squad-based FPS where a team of X-COM soldiers got teleported away to another world, where they have to work together with the friendly aliens to survive against hostile aliens. An unfinished build of the game was discovered in late 2011.
  • X-Com Genesis, returning to the gameplay of UFO Defense.
  • Dreamland Chronicles, Julian Gollop's Spiritual Successor to X-COM which according to Word of God would have similar gameplay to Valkyria Chronicles.
  • The original XCOM Reboot concept, Enemy Unknown, which would have turned the game into a squad-based FPS set in The Fifties and serving as a prequel to the original X-COM games. The controversial and negative reception meant that it never saw the light of day. Eventually, Firaxis took charge of rebooting the series with XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within, while the original concept was retooled into The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.
  • According to earlier drafts for EU/EW, Dr. Shen and Dr. Vahlen were originally supposed to be married.
  • Early development concepts for XCOM 2 included a number of elements and story details that never made the cut, such as additional ADVENT units and a voiced Commander. In addition, the actual game's data files contain a few hidden gems that didn't quite make it into the game either.
• Wiki Rule: UFOpaedia