Enemy Within is a "robust, deep expansion"

At this year's Gamescom we caught up with senior producer Garth DeAngelis and found out more about the expansion coming to the Xcom universe later this year, Enemy Within.

Firaxis has a particular way of delivering DLC, and we wanted to know what their plans were for Enemy Within, and what was going to be new: "There's a lot new, and in typical Firaxis fashion we wanted to make this really robust, deep expansion pack that could add on to the framework of Xcom: Enemy Unknown, sort of what they do with the Civilization series."

One of the most notable new inclusions is going to be the addition of mech units: "It's extremely unique beyond any other classes from Enemy Unknown," DeAngelis explained. "I don't know if you saw the Kinetic Strike or, basically, the rocket-powered fist? You now have melee gameplay in Xcom: Enemy Within, and we didn't have anything like that in Enemy Unknown. Unless you were getting your face bitten off by a Chryssalid. Now you can fight back with the mech units. It's extremely gratifying to take on a Berserker, matching him with his own size and power."

Another significant addition, and the factor that explains the "Enemy Within" subtitle, is the inclusion of Gene Mods, that allow players to genetically modify their soldiers so as to better battle the invading alien force: "Now you can do alien autopsies, and take pieces of alien DNA and actually integrate them into your body. You can update the brain, the eyes, the skin, the legs, and the chest or the heart."

DeAngelis gave a couple of examples of new powers granted by Gene Mods, including the Medic skin ("which renders them invisible in high cover") and the Bioelectric skin ("which lets them almost mentally scout out in the fog of war").

Xcom: Enemy Within is set to launch on PC and Mac as downloadable content, and as a disc-based expansion on PS3 and Xbox 360. It'll be available in Europe on November 15. See below for the new War Machines trailer.