XCOM: Enemy Unknown comes with competitive multiplayer

In a first for the long running series, Firaxis has announced that their upcoming reboot of the franchise - XCOM: Enemy Unknown - would feature competitive multiplayer. Players will duke it out with friends, selecting up to six soldiers - or aliens - and fighting to the death. Naturally, given the ability for players to mix and match soldiers and aliens, the multiplayer component will not be canon, but it sounds cool regardless.

Multiplayer will begin with players having a set number of resource points to allocate to their six combatants, allowing them to deck them out with the thousands of abilities, weapons and gear available to best defeat their opponents. Once the match begins, players will have 90 seconds to choose their actions, then it will be the opposition's turn. Personally, I think it is a mistake to leave out some sort of asynchronous multiplayer - although such a feature might still make it into the final product when it launches on October 12th.

Embedded below is the sweet XCOM: Enemy Unknown 'Last Stand' trailer, which you can also watch in our videos library. What do you think, are you looking forward to some multiplayer XCOM action, or are you only really interested in that sweet, sweet single player gameplay? Let us know in the comments below!