XCOM is a science fiction video game franchise featuring an elite international organization tasked with countering alien invasions of Earth. The series began with the strategy video game X-COM: UFO Defense created by Julian Gollop's Mythos Games and MicroProse in 1994. The original lineup by MicroProse included six published and at least two canceled games, as well as two novels. The X-COM series, in particular its original entry, achieved a sizable cult following and has influenced many other video games; including the creation of a number of clones, spiritual successors, and unofficial remakes.
X-COM: Terror from the Deep is a strategy video game developed and published by MicroProse for the PC in 1995 and for the PlayStation in 1996. It is a sequel to X-COM: UFO Defense and the second game of the X-COM series, this time taking the war against a renewed alien invasion into the Earth's oceans.
Ace Combat is an arcade-style combat flight simulation video game franchise published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Namco. Debuting in 1995 with Air Combat for the PlayStation, the series includes eight mainline installments, multiple spin-offs, and other forms of media, such as novels, model kits, and soundtrack albums. Since 2012, the series has been developed primarily by Bandai Namco Studios through its internal development group, Project Aces.
UFO: Enemy Unknown, also known as X-COM: UFO Defense in North America and as X-COM: Enemy Unknown, is a 1994 science fiction strategy video game developed by Mythos Games and MicroProse. It was published by MicroProse for DOS and Amiga computers, the Amiga CD32 console, and the PlayStation. Originally planned by Julian Gollop as a sequel to Mythos Games' 1988 Laser Squad, the game mixes real-time management simulation with turn-based tactics. The player takes the role of commander of X-COM – an international paramilitary and scientific organization secretly defending Earth from an alien invasion. Through the game, the player is tasked with issuing orders to individual X-COM troops in a series of turn-based tactical missions. At strategic scale, the player directs the research and development of new technologies, builds and expands X-COM's bases, manages the organization's finances and personnel, and monitors and responds to UFO activity.
A UFO is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained.
Battlefield 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows. It was released in June 2005 as the third game in the Battlefield franchise.
Tactical role-playing games, also known as strategy role-playing games and in Japan as simulation RPGs, are a video game genre that combines core elements of role-playing video games with those of tactical strategy video games. The formats of tactical RPGs are much like traditional tabletop role-playing games and strategy games in appearance, pacing, and rule structure. Likewise, early tabletop role-playing games are descended from skirmish wargames such as Chainmail, which were primarily concerned with combat.
Darklands is a historical fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by MicroProse in 1992 for MS-DOS. The game is set in the Holy Roman Empire during the 15th century. While the geographic setting is historically accurate, the game features many supernatural elements.
I-War is a space combat simulator developed by Particle Systems and published by Infogrames. The game was first published in November 1997 in Europe, and in late August of 1998 in North America.
UFO: Aftermath is a 2003 real-time tactics/turn-based strategy video game created by ALTAR Interactive. It is a homage to the X-COM game series, with roots in the unfinished game The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge. It was followed by two sequels, UFO: Aftershock (2005) and UFO: Afterlight (2007).
Real-time tactics (RTT) is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics. It is differentiated from real-time strategy gameplay by the lack of classic resource micromanagement and base or unit building, as well as the greater importance of individual units and a focus on complex battlefield tactics.
Fallen Earth is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Reloaded Productions. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland located around the American Grand Canyon. Fallen Earth's gameplay features FPS/RPG hybridization, first-person/third person views, hundreds of items, including improvised equipment and weapons, a variety of functional vehicles, a real-time, in-depth crafting system, various skills and abilities, factions and tactical PvP, all existing within 1000 square kilometers of usable terrain based on real-world topographical maps of the area. The game was released on September 22, 2009. Two years later, GamersFirst purchased the intellectual property and made the game free to play. It was acquired by the publisher Little Orbit in 2018. 2 Years following its initial shutdown, Fallen Earth's servers were brought back online on October 28, 2021, as a free to play classic server.
UFO: Alien Invasion is a strategy video game in which the player fights aliens that are trying to take control of the Earth. The game is heavily influenced by the X-COM series, especially X-COM: UFO Defense.
UFO: Extraterrestrials is a Microsoft Windows game aimed to be a spiritual sequel to the highly acclaimed X-COM: UFO Defense. Developed by Chaos Concept, the game incorporates a twist of the aliens defeating the humans on Earth. The game takes place on a human-colonized planet named Esperanza, where the alien threat has just arrived.
Battle Isle is a series of turn-based strategy/tactics video games developed in the 1990s by Blue Byte and released for Amiga and MS-DOS and later for Microsoft Windows. The settings are wars on a fictional planet, Chromos.
UFO: Afterlight is a 2007 real-time tactics/turn-based strategy video game and the third in Altar Games' UFO series. Like its predecessors UFO: Aftermath and UFO: Aftershock, it combines squad-level tactical combat with overlying strategic elements inspired by the 1994 classic X-COM: UFO Defense.
The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge is an unreleased video game for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2 by Mythos Games. Developed by the team which produced X-COM: UFO Defense, including lead designer Julian Gollop, the game was planned to be "a remake of the first X-COM with 3D graphics," as the first of four games planned in the new series. Cancelled in 2001, the unfinished game was later bought and partially turned into UFO: Aftermath by Altar Interactive, which was in turn itself followed by two sequels. Some elements of the game are also present in Gollop's own Phoenix Point.
Xenonauts is a turn-based science fiction video game developed and published as the maiden title of London-based independent game studio Goldhawk Interactive. Inspired by the 1994 game X-COM: UFO Defense, gameplay involves the player taking the role of the commander of a clandestine organization known as the Xenonauts, and attempting to defeat an alien invasion of Earth in the alternate history year 1979. The game was released on June 17, 2014 for Microsoft Windows. Ports to Mac OS X and Linux were initially based on the Wine compatibility layer, until native ports became available in September 2015.
Phoenix Point is a strategy video game featuring a turn-based tactics system that is developed by Bulgaria-based independent developer Snapshot Games. It was released on December 3, 2019, for macOS and Microsoft Windows, for Stadia on January 26, 2021, and Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on October 1, 2021. Phoenix Point is intended to be a spiritual successor to the X-COM series that had been originally created by Snapshot Games head Julian Gollop during the 1990s.
