Is 2K rebranding the XCOM shooter as The Bureau?

Like aliens and our government in general, there's a lot of mystery surrounding 2K's XCOM shooter. First revealed at E3 in 2010, XCOM  — in development by 2K Marin — was delayed after a mixed response. Now, it appears that 2K has taken the XCOM shooter website and and videos offline. The Official website has been removed, resulting in 404 error messages, and the gameplay footage from the official 2K Games YouTube channel has been taken down.

The reason behind it? It appears that the game is being rebranded as The Bureau. Last month, Superannuation (from Kotaku) reported that 2K registered a bunch of domains having to do with something called The Bureau. Among the registered domains are thebureau-game.com, thebureau-game.net, whathappenedin62.com, and whathappenedin62.net. Also, in October 2012, there was a marketing survey that suggest the XCOM shooter had been turned into a third-person squad based shooter. Much like SOCOM, you would be able to issue commands to your squad mates. The questionnaire asked players whether they would pay full price for the game or would like it to be a cheaper, downloadable title.

Considering the XCOM shooter was set in 1962 and its story told the birth of the alien-fighting organization, one can infer that The Bureau is indeed the same game. Only time can tell, since 2K Games doesn't comment on speculation and rumors.

You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at LLiebl@GameZone.com

[Kotaku and Digitaltrends]