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A new Microprose return to the PC with Special Forces: Team X

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First things first: this is not the Microprose you remember for Sid Meier and X-Com. That’s fast becoming a familiar refrain covering this industry, where names and reputations are traded like pogs. Rather it’s a new company – a subsidiary of an air pistol manufacturer, of all things – that’s been operating more-or-less invisibly for the last few years in the console market.

Now though, they’re making a third-person tactical shooter for PC. Special Forces: Team X will see grizzled squaddies popping in and out of cover in a world “infested with conflicts amongst the geo-political power brokers”. So far, so Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.

SFX’s world is one in which conventional warfare is dead, diplomacy is “an affront to the hidden agenda of national objectives”, and clandestine military ops are the only way to get anything done. It’s shooting-people-quietly time, then, in maps players will reportedly ‘build’ themselves by selecting individual environmental pieces. The result will be over 100 possible level combinations, traversed by two to four teamsvia an “intuitive cover and clambering” system.

These brave-sounding systems are in development at Zombie Studios, makers of the Blacklight series and, back in the day, one Rainbow Six expansion. Team X will also feature real-world guns courtesy of Microprose’s disconcerting relationship with parent company Cybergun, as well as an aesthetic I’m probably wrong to call cell-shaded. Take a look:

Are your hopes high or low? Care to estimate an exact height?