XCOM: Enemy Within "too big" to be DLC for 360 and PS3

XCOM: Enemy Unknown expansion XCOM: Enemy Within was "too large" to be released as a patch or DLC on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, developer Firaxis Games has said.

For 360 and PS3, Enemy Within will only be released as part of the disc-based Commander Edition of XCOM: Enemy Unknown in November.

"For the expansion on the PC, it was fairly straightforward," said Firaxis senior producer Garth DeAngelis in an interview with Joystiq at PAX. "But when it came to the consoles, it was too big. If we wanted to deliver the same content to the console players, we had to do it this way as a standalone expansion on a disc. We couldn't simply just patch it in."

DeAngelis added that the XCOM Commander Edition was only way all the Enemy Within content would be able to make it to console. "These things are tied deeply into Enemy Unknown so we wanted to release [the Commander Edition] as sort of the ultimate edition, with all the previous DLC on this one disc. It was either deliver it this way or not deliver it at all."

XCOM: Enemy Within, which was announced during Gamescom 2013 in August, will feature new unit types, skills, upgrades, and map features, and will be released for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 on November 12.

For more information on XCOM: Enemy Within, check out GameSpot's in-depth report into the new content.