XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a 2012 turn-based tactics and strategy game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A celebrated modern reboot of the classic 1994 strategy game UFO: Enemy Unknown (X-COM: UFO Defense), it casts the player as the commander of XCOM, a secret international organisation defending Earth from an alien invasion. The game elegantly combines two intertwined layers: a strategic 'Geoscape' management layer, in which the commander funds and develops a base, researches alien technology, builds equipment, manages global panic among nations and decides which threats to respond to; and tense, turn-based tactical missions, in which squads of soldiers battle aliens on procedurally varied maps using a cover-based system where positioning, flanking and difficult decisions are paramount. Its hallmark is high stakes and permadeath: soldiers who fall in battle are lost forever, lending every move real weight and emotional investment. Critically acclaimed and commercially successful, XCOM: Enemy Unknown was widely praised for streamlining and modernising the revered formula without sacrificing depth, revitalising both the franchise and the turn-based tactics genre as a whole. It spawned the expansion Enemy Within and the acclaimed sequel XCOM 2, and stands as a landmark of modern strategy gaming.