“At the end of the console lifecycle, the PC is just superior hardware,” says Solomon. “So the textures are higher res, the zoom levels are much further. You can see much more of the ant-farm [Solomon’s term for the human HQ].”

“There’s more upfront information,” says Solomon. “The game isn’t tile based, but when you’re playing it [with a] mouse and keyboard it’s just irritating as hell to play a tactical game without a grid. We actually ended up overlaying a grid on the PC version of the game. And we have something called the tactical view. It’s really minor, but when you hold down the right mouse button it’ll lay a grid over the entire world, which is kind of nice for flanking and determining line of sight and things like that. And in the PC version you can mouse over the alien heads and the camera will scroll to them, but it’ll also tell you everybody’s two hit percentages just right there on that first screen.”

The rectangular 3D cursor from the original game (which Solomon calls the “phone booth”) will also be making an exclusive appearance on the PC. “I have these weird flashback moments,” says Solomon. “It just looks a lot more like the original game.”