XCOM 2 Dev "Working Furiously" on Performance Issue Fixes

XCOM 2 lead designer Jake Solomon has discussed the game's ongoing technical issues and assured players that fixing them is developer Firaxis Games' primary concern.

The turn-based strategy sequel was released on February 5 and players have reported numerous problems running the game. These range from long loading times, to low framerates, and hiccups with the cinematic camera.

Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, Solomon said the team is taking these issues "incredibly seriously."

"Me and all the leads, that's all we work on all day and that's what we're committed to right now," he said.

The prevalence of these technical problems came as a surprise to Firaxis, Solomon explained, and they weren't identified prior to launch because they're "not across the board." Instead, he described them as "sporadic."

"I can honestly say that we didn't know it would would be this way at launch," he said.

"Maybe this is damning on me, but I'm sitting here talking to you now on the laptop I use to play it on and I didn't see these issues," he added. "We didn't catch this stuff in compatibility testing. We're fully, fully accountable for the product in people's hands, so we certainly take responsibility for it.

"To people who are suffering them, if they're frustrated, I'm as frustrated and more. We will continue to update the game, and we do have some workarounds ... but we definitely have fixes coming soon"

Although Solomon said fixes were in the pipeline, he didn't say when they would be available, simply that the team was "working very furiously" and had "a lot of those issues in our sights."

XCOM 2 received an update on February 17 that alleviated some issues causing crashes and improves performance. Both Firaxis and publisher 2K has said it will continue to investigate issues and support XCOM 2 with updates.

Players, meanwhile, discovered that you can improve certain load times by pressing the Caps Lock key.

In GameSpot's XCOM 2 review Mike Mahardy said the game was "mathematical, emotional, and thoughtful all at once" and awarded it a 9/10.

His review continued: "It's exhilarating, even in the face of failure. It's compelling, even though we often lose. Victory is the goal, but that's just an afterthought here--it's the complex journey that counts."