Reports of XCOM: Enemy Within's death at the hands of iOS 11 have been greatly exaggerated

Originally published at: http://statelyplay.com/2017/09/01/reports-of-xcom-enemy-withins-death-at-the-hands-of-ios-11-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/

iOS Universal •


In the past couple weeks we’ve been introduced to Darkest Dungeon on iPad, a game that plays a lot like XCOM if XCOM were about battling Cthulhu instead of E.T. In all the articles written about DD, I’m referenced XCOM and, yet, haven’t included links to the outstanding iPad version like I have with all the other games we mention. Why? Because XCOM: Enemy Within was one of those games on the 64-bit chopping block and publisher 2K hadn’t said bupkis about it getting updated. Thus, we assumed XCOM would be possibly the biggest loss when iOS 11 rolls out later this year. Turns out our fears were misplaced, as yesterday 2K had some very interesting news.

Yesterday, this showed up in our Twitter feed:

That’s pretty great news, but not everything is rainbows and unicorn farts in the world of Firaxis/2K on mobile. If you read the entire 2K announcement you’ll notice that some of Owen’s favorite titles of all time, Ace Patrol and Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies are, most likely, not getting a 64-bit facelift.

All of 2K’s titles that aren’t already 64-bit are leaving the App Store today, and will return once their conversion is complete. When will that be? That’s a mystery. Still, it’s good news that XCOM will be coming back down the road. Here’s the full list of 2K games and their current status:

As of August 31, 2017, the following titles will not be available for purchase on the Apple iTunes store. Please note, these titles will no longer be supported and compatibility with future iOS updates is not guaranteed:
  • Carnival Games
  • Carnival Games Lite
  • Ace Patrol
  • Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies
  • Sid Meier’s Pirates!
  • Duke Nukem Forever Soundboard
  • Haunted Hollow
  • WWE 2K
The following games will be removed from the Apple iTunes store until they are upgraded to 64 bit at a later date:
  • Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution 2
  • XCOM: Enemy Within
The following games will be compatible with iOS 11:
  • MyNBA2K17
  • WWE SuperCard
  • NBA 2K17
  • Mafia III: Rivals
  • NHL SuperCard 2K17
  • Battleborn Tap
Great news for all you WWE SuperCard fans, I guess.

Well this would have been really handy info a few weeks ago when the game was in sale…

Sorry. Literally just found out last night.

Oh, I’m not blaming you at all. Sorry if it came across that way.

I’m somewhat worried about all this, I’m well out of the loop having given up iOS some time ago. I’ve decided to get back in as I miss my strategy games, a new iPad is on order and I was hoping to redownload my favourites.

I’ve found out today that Battle Academy is going among others and I’m slightly pissed off in all honesty.

What are my options? Can I still download games I’ve bought in the past if they’re removed from the store? Will my new iPad (due October) come in under iOS 11? I don’t want to go to 11 if it mullers my old games.

Sorry if this is old news for you chaps.

The other options are to download them onto a computer and copy the .ipa file out of iTunes. There are several utilities that would be able to sideload them if you jailbreak. There are other options, and it’s unknown if the apps will be completely removed from the AppStore immediately, or if they will just be hidden from users of iOS 11 and still on the AppStore for a time before being deleted.

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Since XCOM2: WotC (and XCOM2 vanilla) is a total new beast in regards to XCOM and EW I sometimes crave a simpler game…so for playing mobile XCOM:EW again is just perfect for me…(did not touch it since rumors of iOS 64 bit-killswitch, as back then the china dev of the mobile version was already dead)

So this Announcement…is AWESOME!!!

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Not blaming you here either Dave but wish they’d announced this a while back. I bought this in the sale, got the 32 bit warning when I ran it and immediately deleted it and requested a refund. :frowning:

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Great news about XCOM. It’s one of the few great AAA ports to iOS. Shame about the Ace Patrol series. I’m sure they have eked out all the sales they hope to get from the games at this point but it makes me a little sad they will no longer be able to be bought or played in the future.

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Now that I KNOW that an update is comming I am totally getting impatient about it.

I have tons of other fun stuff, but playing XCOM:EW on the go…I must have it soon twitch

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