XCOM
Turn-based strategy's cult classic. From Julian Gollop's 1994 original to Firaxis's 2012 reboot and XCOM 2, how XCOM became a favorite of turn-based strategy fans.
The Hunt Valley, Maryland office tower that once housed Firaxis Games, maker of the XCOM reboot: Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
The 1994 original
XCOM began as UFO: Enemy Unknown, a 1994 strategy game created by Julian Gollop's Mythos Games and published by MicroProse, known in North America as X-COM: UFO Defense. The premise: an international organization defends Earth from alien visitors, mixing base building and research with tense turn-based missions.
Three more MicroProse games followed in the 1990s, and the series built a large cult following that inspired many tributes and fan remakes.
Firaxis brings it back
2K picked up the X-COM rights in 2007, and in 2012 Firaxis Games, the Civilization studio, released XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a reimagining of the original. It won multiple Game of the Year awards, and Julian Gollop himself praised the result. The Enemy Within expansion arrived in 2013.
XCOM 2 followed in 2016 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, later reaching Nintendo Switch, with the War of the Chosen expansion in 2017.
Chimera Squad and beyond
XCOM: Chimera Squad, released in April 2020 for Windows, zoomed in on a single city with a fixed squad of unique human and alien characters and a new interleaved turn order. Firaxis has not announced a new XCOM since then.
What makes the series stick is its design: every choice matters, every turn is a puzzle, and the same tension that keeps Civilization players saying one more turn keeps XCOM players saying one more mission.
Facts on this page were checked against these sources.
- The Hunt Valley, Maryland office tower that once housed Firaxis Games, maker of the XCOM reboot: Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Text written by Top Gaming Society.
