Firaxis is working on an expansion to their 2012 game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, called XCOM: Enemy Within. One of the new features it will have is body modifications for your soldiers: A screenshot on RPS shows “Gene mods”, i.e. the possibility to upgrade brain, eyes, chest, skin or legs of your soldiers. Sounds familiar? Well, in the interview game designer Anand Gupta leaves no doubt where the inspiration for this came from:

RPS: The G-mod abilities reminded me of Syndicate. Proper Syndicate.

Gupta: Oh yeah.

RPS: It has the look of it, with the separate body parts outlined and upgraded. Has the idea of body modification been on the cards for a long time?

Gupta: It’s funny that you mention Syndicate. I’m a huge fan of the original. I haven’t had the chance to play the new one, but the old Syndicate I played a lot of. I remember the final mission. You have your starting area and you move two pixels out and there are rockets all around!

When we were looking at what to do with Enemy Within – well, the theme came to me very early. We were brainstorming and discussing things and I wanted to explore what I think is one of the most compelling themes in XCOM – that you are bending the aliens’ technology to your own will and using it against them. How can we take that further? In Enemy Unknown, you gather alien tech and make new weapons and armour. With Enemy Within, you take the aliens and make them part of your soldiers in a more fundamental way.

Read the rest of the interview here.