2157: Enemy Unknown

On something of a whim, I decided to fire up XCOM: Enemy Unknown this evening: a game that I have owned since 2013 and never even installed, let alone played. (Damn Steam sales.)

Regular readers will know that I’m quite a fan of the board game of this, with its interesting blend of cooperative action and real-time strategising overseen by an app that acts as both timer and gamemaster. The original video game it’s based on is a somewhat different experience, but having finally played it a bit today, it’s clear that the board game very accurately captures the atmosphere and overall “feel” of the source material.

For those unfamiliar, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a remake of a much older PC game called UFO: Enemy Unknown, in which the player was tasked with overseeing the top-secret XCOM organisation in its attempts to repel an alien invasion of Earth. Rather than being a linear story-based affair, both UFO: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Unknown are somewhat more freeform strategic affairs in which you’re tasked with making the tough decisions as you go along — and dealing with the consequences of those decisions.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is immediately more accessible than its much earlier counterpart, however. Since it was designed to be playable on console with a controller as well as with mouse and keyboard, the interface is simple, intuitive and easy to use with either control scheme. It also kicks off your first game with a selection of cutscenes and story missions introducing you to the various aspects of gameplay, which is a good way to ease you into what you should be doing. Over time, the game gradually stops holding your hand until you’re running the whole operation, prioritising tasks as you see fit until Earth is either overrun by the aliens, or you successfully complete the final mission and humanity lives to survive another day.

Despite its new-found accessibility, XCOM: Enemy Unknown remains remarkably true to the formula set by its predecessor. You survey the world — initially a small area, but your coverage expands as you send more satellites into orbit — and respond to alien activity, be it UFO sightings, abductions or news of important people who might be able to help your war effort. Should a situation come up that requires the direct intervention of XCOM, the game switches to a tactical turn-based strategy game, in which you take a small squad of soldiers into battle against the alien menace.

Being a Firaxis game — they’re the folks who made Civilization, for those who don’t know their strategy classics — XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a game that expands in scope as you progress. Your squad members level up and learn new skills, allowing you to specialise them into various roles. Your research branches off in a number of different directions, allowing you to produce new equipment and items. You build up your base with new facilities to boost your overall capabilities. And along the way you need to make sure to keep the mysterious “Council” happy along with ensuring that the various regions of the world don’t fall into panic.

The game is set up in such a way that you can’t do everything. When alien abductions are reported, inevitably they’re in several places at once, and you can only make it to one of the sites in time. The region you assist will reward you; the regions you leave to suffer will start to panic more at the horrible things happening to them.

The board game reflects all this really well with its inherent scarcity of resources. You never quite have enough soldiers or Interceptors to deal with all the shit that is happening in the world at once, so inevitably as you play through the game, various regions will start to panic more and more. It’s essential to manage that as best you can; you can’t prevent panic from mounting, but you can do your best to try and control it, and to prioritise tasks that will help you keep everything under control.

I’m interested to continue playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, though. I’m playing on the Easy difficulty at the moment because I’m generally absolute crap at strategy games — particularly those by Firaxis — but I’m open to the idea of another playthrough on a harder difficulty if I make it to the end. So far it seems like an exciting and challenging but accessible strategy game, and I’m keen to check it out some more in the very near future.