According to Julian Gollop, if Firaxis were to make this game, there would definitely be an audience for it, so he doesn’t understand why it hasn’t been made yet.

XCOM 2 has been out for nine years. That’s a long time and a lot of things have changed since then. It was a great game, so it is incomprehensible that Take-Two (2K) has not ordered a sequel. XCOM: Chimera Squad doesn’t count as a sequel, it’s more of a spin-off. We’re not alone in our anticipation, as XCOM creator Julian Gollop is also waiting for episode number three to be released. (XCOM is not Valve: they too must have a curse regarding number 3…)

PCGamer interviewed Gollop about his new game, Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids, and he says that while RTS has seen a resurgence in recent years, he doesn’t understand why XCOM 3 hasn’t been made yet. There are some games in the genre that aren’t as well received (Civ 7), but the new Jagged Alliance, for example, has become almost an XCOM in terms of gameplay…

“I’m sure there’s an audience for XCOM 3, but you have to accept the reality that strategy games are still a niche. It can be a bit difficult, you know, like in the case of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII maybe. Jagged Alliance 3 has much more of an XCOM style of gameplay. Or there’s Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trade. So there are still some pretty good examples that are good. But unfortunately, no XCOM 3 yet,” Gollop said.

According to Gollop, a lot of the innovation and interest in the strategy genre is coming from smaller, indie games. There’s Factorio, Tactical Breach Wizards, The Last Spell as examples. Except they don’t have the budget (even for marketing) that we saw in the 90s.

Source: PCGamer