What does an Enemy Within really look like, once the nurse has rubbed cold gel onto the marine’s barrel-chest and fired up the magic ultrasound camera? Is it as the traditional Alien, banana-headed and somewhat unimaginative? Or a tiny sectoid, practically indistinguishable from a newborn baby until it draws its plasma pistol?
Let’s find out.
That’s XCOM: Enemy Within, then, as it’ll exist on your shelf or more likely in your mind’s eye while you watch it boot up from your Steam library.
The tall chap in the centre is the proud owner of an Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit, or MEC. These handymen and women are available to commanders in possession of the new Cybernetics Lab, and have access to specialised abilities and upgrades including the flamethrower and grenade launcher – which Firaxis hope will enable the sort of indiscriminate barn-levelling enjoyed in the original X-Com.
The two at his ample elbows have glowing eyes – possibly just because they’re on a box, where things tend to emit more light than they do elsewhere, but probably because they’re the products of Enemy Within’s Genetics Lab, which offers never-asked-for augmentations of chests, brains, skin, legs and eyes.
Which will you plump for in-game, do you reckon?
Thanks to the dedicated anoraks at AllGamesBeta for snapping this one, and the conspiracy theorists at VG247 for bringing it to our attention.