History VideoGame / XCom

** In ''Apocalypse'' your starting weapons are a bit better, and Earth has some weapons on a par with alien ones. Money are short, but you can raid Cult of Sirius. But you can only buy what is available in the city stores, which get new shipments only on Mondays. You cannot buy best weapons and equipment (flying armor, mini-launcher, plasma pistol, plasma sword, powerful vehicle computer and engines, heaviest vehicles) until the start of the second or third week. And if you try to ZergRush [=UFOs=] with rocket and plasma hoverbikes, Megapol and Marsec quickly run out of missiles and elerium to sell to you.

* TheRedPlanet: Alien HQ in ''UFO'', colonized by humans after ''TFTD'' and is the humanity's main source of elerium-115.

The brainchild of Julian Gollop and other assorted Creator/{{MicroProse}} personnel, '''''UFO: Enemy Unknown''''' is a strategy game produced in 1993 and unleashed upon the European gaming public. A year later, it jumped the pond to grace American players as '''''X-COM: UFO Defense'''''[[note]]name changed due to a naming rights conflict with an obscure 1989 flight simulator by subLOGIC called ''UFO''[[/note]].

'''''X-COM''''' puts the player in command of an e'''X'''traterrestrial '''COM'''bat unit charged with protecting Earth from an alien threat, while also managing resources and researching captured alien technology in the process. The hybrid of RealTimeStrategy (improving X-COM's overall condition and catching [[FlyingSaucer UFOs]] as they land -- or crashing them yourself) and [[TacticalTurnBased Turn Based Tactics]] (exploring crash sites, stopping terror attacks, and defending and assaulting bases) quickly won the hearts of the gaming public.

More than 15 years after its initial release, ''UFO Defense'' still attracts players and tops lists of the Best PC Games of All Time. [[http://pc.ign.com/articles/772/772285p1.html A 2007 assessment by IGN]] has it edging out fellow Micro Prose game ''Sid Meier's VideoGame/{{Civilization}} IV'' for the Number 1 slot.

The ''X-COM'' legacy is a not solo act, however. While Gollop's team set to work on a sequel called ''X-COM: Apocalypse'', an in-house crew at [=MicroProse=] beat him to the punch with ''X-COM: Terror from the Deep'' in 1995, a MissionPackSequel created to satiate player demand for more alien-assaulting action. ''Apocalypse'' hit the shelves in 1997 to mixed reviews due to its ArtShift into pseudo-3D futuristic graphics and a clunky new real-time option for playing missions. The last days of [=MicroProse=] (and its acquisition by Hasbro Interactive) saw ''X-COM'' trying to get back on its feet with two {{Genre Shift}}ed offerings: ''X-COM: Interceptor'' (1998), which kept the base management elements while swapping out the strategy missions for space-bound [[SimulationGame Flight Simulator]] action, and ''X-COM: Enforcer'' (2001), which ditched the strategy part outright to make a FirstPersonShooter running parallel to the timeline of ''UFO Defense''. Sadly, neither had the mystique of their ancestors, and are often [[CanonDiscontinuity shunted away from canon]] due to the UnexpectedGameplayChange[[note]]Gollop admitted years later that the ''Interceptor'' and ''Enforcer'' games were mostly due to ExecutiveMeddling, see below[[/note]].

After that, the possibility of a future ''X-COM'' game became uncertain due to the licensing passing between various companies. The earlier games spawned a number of mods and remake attempts. Various [[SpiritualSuccessor Spiritual Successors]] also emerged, such as ''[[VideoGame/UFOAfterblank UFO: Aftermath]]'' and its sequels ''Aftershock'' and ''Afterlight'' (unrelated to the original ''UFO'' name, listed above). Another, ''Rebelstar: Tactical Command'', came out on the GameBoyAdvance along with ''Laser Squad: Nemesis'' (in and of itself a sequel to ''X-COM'''s own predecessor ''Laser Squad'') and ''[[http://ufo.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/ UFO: Extraterrestrials]]'' which is almost an exact remake of the original game. All have attracted moderate attention from ''X-COM'' fans, largely for either the similarity in gameplay (the ''VideoGame/UFOAfterblank'' series) or the connections to Gollop and other former ''X-COM'' staff (''Rebelstar'' and ''Laser Squad''). Fans have also made their own remakes, most notably ''[[http://openxcom.org/ OpenXcom]]'', ''UFOAlienInvasion'' and ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}''.

Due to the entire series being re-released on {{Steam}}, ''X-COM'' has experienced a resurgence among retro gamers, especially those eager to [[FanficRecs/XCom chronicle their campaigns]].

In 2010, the company [=2K Marin=] announced that they were developing a ContinuityReboot of the series: a FirstPersonShooter set exclusively in the USA in TheFifties. The fandom's negative response to the reboot was heavy enough that, instead, a game studio called Firaxis Games (a subsidiary of 2K and developers of the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series) was tasked with creating a new game closer in-line with the original ''X-COM''. The result was ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'', released in 2012 to generally positive reviews and a few "Game of The Year" wins (a fairly vitriolic BrokenBase notwithstanding). The original FPS reboot was {{Re Tool}}ed into a third-person tactical shooter called ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'', intended as a prequel to ''Enemy Unknown'' (the game's three separate iterations [[http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/05/10/the-evolution-of-the-bureau-xcom-declassified are documented here]]).

In 2010, the company [=2K Marin=] announced that they were developing a ContinuityReboot of the series: a FirstPersonShooter set exclusively in the USA in TheFifties. The fandom's negative response to the reboot was heavy enough that, instead, a game studio called Firaxis Games (a subsidiary of 2K and developers of the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series) was tasked with creating a new game closer in-line with the original ''X-COM''. The result was ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'', released in 2012 to generally positive reviews (a fairly vitriolic BrokenBase notwithstanding). The original FPS reboot was {{Re Tool}}ed into a third-person tactical shooter called ''VideoGame/TheBureauXCOMDeclassified'', intended as a prequel to ''Enemy Unknown'' (the game's three separate iterations [[http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/05/10/the-evolution-of-the-bureau-xcom-declassified are documented here]]).

* ShoutOut: Marsec and the M4000 autogun are a refrence to the early Gollop brothers game, Laser Squad

* ScaryDogmaticAliens: The bad endings classifies the aliens as the Conqueror type, who attack Earth for its resources.

* VirtualPaperDoll: You can combine different armor parts, mostly for Marsec armor torso, which has enables the soldiers to fly.

* UrbanWarfare

** A soldier with maximum health and the best armor can still be killed in one shot if the damage roll is high enough. Even the best armour has at best a 50/50 chance of stopping a Heavy Plasma shot, though it does make troopers immune to many human weapons and it provides much better protection than most alien units have. To clarify, X-COM soldiers take 0 to 200% of the listed damage from firearms; 50 to 150% from explosives. Unarmoured troopers can survive several heavy plasma blasts and take absolutely no damage... only to be offed by a single pistol shot the next turn.

* TorturedMonster: The Bio-Drones.

The brainchild of Julian Gollop and other assorted Creator/MicroProse personnel, '''''UFO: Enemy Unknown''''' is a strategy game produced in 1993 and unleashed upon the European gaming public. A year later, it jumped the pond to grace American players as '''''X-COM: UFO Defense'''''[[note]]name changed due to a naming rights conflict with an obscure 1989 flight simulator by subLOGIC called ''UFO''[[/note]].

The ''X-COM'' legacy is a not solo act, however. While Gollop's team set to work on a sequel called ''X-COM: Apocalypse'', an in-house crew at Microprose beat him to the punch with ''X-COM: Terror from the Deep'' in 1995, a MissionPackSequel created to satiate player demand for more alien-assaulting action. ''Apocalypse'' hit the shelves in 1997 to mixed reviews due to its ArtShift into pseudo-3D futuristic graphics and a clunky new real-time option for playing missions. The last days of Microprose (and its acquisition by Hasbro Interactive) saw ''X-COM'' trying to get back on its feet with two {{Genre Shift}}ed offerings: ''X-COM: Interceptor'' (1998), which kept the base management elements while swapping out the strategy missions for space-bound [[SimulationGame Flight Simulator]] action, and ''X-COM: Enforcer'' (2001), which ditched the strategy part outright to make a FirstPersonShooter running parallel to the timeline of ''UFO Defense''. Sadly, neither had the mystique of their ancestors, and are often [[CanonDiscontinuity shunted away from canon]] due to the UnexpectedGameplayChange[[note]]Gollop admitted years later that the ''Interceptor'' and ''Enforcer'' games were mostly due to ExecutiveMeddling, see below[[/note]].

* CriticalEncumbranceFailure: Of the "carry items up to the soldier's Strength in weight, then take Time Unit penalties for going overboard" type.

* HumanoidAliens: Most of the weapon-using aliens you face are humanoid in appearance, and in some cases were human before being genetically modified. The rest, with few exceptions, are terrorists units that support the main aliens are non-humanoid.

%%* AstralFinale: In the first game.

%%* HumanoidAliens
* HumanResources: Many research reports state that the aliens use humans from research to organ extraction for whatever reasons.

* ImportedAlienPhlebotinum: About 75-90% of gameplay revolves around the acquisition, understanding, and implementation of cool alien toys. Or in the RPG terms: Kill them, take their stuff, reverse-egnineer it, Repeat. Reversed in ''Apocalypse'': when you sell some of your stuff to a MegaCorp that's been infiltrated by aliens, the aliens will import ''your'' phlebotinum.

* AndIMustScream: The Bio-Drones.

After that, the possibility of a future ''X-COM'' game became uncertain due to the licensing passing between various companies. The earlier games spawned a number of mods and remake attempts. Various [[SpiritualSuccessor Spiritual Successors]] also emerged, such as ''[[VideoGame/UFOAfterblank UFO: Aftermath]]'' and its sequels ''Aftershock'' and ''Afterlight'' (unrelated to the original ''UFO'' name, listed above). Another, ''Rebelstar: Tactical Command'', came out on the GameBoyAdvance along with ''Laser Squad: Nemesis'' (in and of itself a sequel to ''X-COM'''s own predecessor ''Laser Squad'') and ''[[http://ufo.ufo-extraterrestrials.com/ UFO: Extraterrestrials]]'' which is almost an exact remake of the original game. All have attracted moderate attention from ''X-COM'' fans, largely for either the similarity in gameplay (the ''VideoGame/UFOAfterblank'' series) or the connections to Gollop and other former ''X-COM'' staff (''Rebelstar'' and ''Laser Squad''). Fans have also made their own remakes, most notably ''UFOAlienInvasion'' and ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}''.

* ColonelBadass: The Commanders of both sides.

%%* ScaryDogmaticAliens: Of the Conqueror type.

%%* DoingResearch

%%* EnemyScan: Mind probes.

%%** Chryssalids.
%%** Tentaculats and Brainsuckers fill their niche in ''Terror from the Deep'' and ''Apocalypse'', respectively.

%%* PlayerMooks

%%* PsychicAssistedSuicide

%%* RandomNumberGod
%%* RealTimeStrategy: During the Geoscape[=/=]Cityscape.

%%* StrongFleshWeakSteel
** Individual soldiers, in the late game, are ''far'' stronger than tanks, since soldiers improve their stats and tanks don't.

** However, a hovertank/launcher can still fire fusion balls without ever needing to reload until they run out of ammo. Although, this is balanced out by having a maximum of 8 fusion balls per mission and doing less damage than blaster bombs. Also, tanks can't be stunned or get fatal wounds. Or Mind Controlled.

%%* TeamTitle

* AnyoneCanDie: And anyone WILL die until you've got solid armor research going. Or even afterward (see ArmorIsUseless).

* ArmorIsUseless

** Mostly averted in ''TFTD'', the front of the Ion Armor can let soldiers take point blank Sonic Cannon blasts or Lobstermen's claws and take no damage as long as it hits the front armor (unless random chance screws you over). But still played straight with Bio Drone explosions and Tentaculats. Also, Ion Armor is much weaker at the sides, meaning the alien waiting around the corner can easily take out your soldier if you're not careful.

* AstralFinale: In the first game.

* DeathFromAbove

* DisasterDominoes: What happens when your units are low on morale.
* DoingResearch

* DummiedOut

* DungeonBypass

** In ''Apocalypse'', collateral destruction is a viable strategy, if you didn't mind getting stuck with the bill. Instead of scattering troops across large, multilevel facilities to hunt down aliens in dark corners, you could set fire to or blow the floors out from under their suspected hiding places and wait for the sound of their screams. [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill Or just level the building with your combat vehicles]].
* DynamicDifficulty: Regardless of the difficulty your campaign starts at, most of the games will see fit to ramp up alien activity to correspond with consistent positive performance.
** A bug in ''UFO Defense'' caused the difficulty to reset to beginner no matter what you actually set it at. Because of this, gamers complained that the game was easy, which made the developers of ''TFTD'' increase the difficulty across the board. The result was a ridiculously hard game. Plus, they fixed the bug that caused the difficulty to reset, as well.
** If you don't eventually go for the BigBad in ''TFTD'', alien bases will start to proliferate faster than you can keep up with them. In other words, you are fighting a losing war against superior technology. If you do not exploit their weak point by finding the BigBad, the enemy will become stronger and stronger until you have no chance of survival. This is done on purpose.
* EarthShatteringKaboom

* EasyLogistics
** Averted. While ammunition for conventional weapons can be bought as long as you have money, more advanced weapons require manufactured or captured ammunition to work. And then there's allocating a limited stockpile of Elerium between manufacturing and aircraft fuel.
** Moreso when [=XComUtil=]'s "Improved Laser Weapons" fix is implemented. Sure, the Heavy Laser finally gets Auto Shot capability, but must it come at the cost of using Elerium for Laser construction AND not being able to make Plasma weapons (even after taking into consideration that the aliens drop Heavy Plasmas like candy)?
* ElaborateUndergroundBase
** A necessity due to X-COM's covert nature, often leading to AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs should the aliens stumble upon it (hopefully "them" by the time an Alien Retaliation fleet comes calling).
** Aliens get these, too. Which you have to break into to kidnap high-ranking officers for interrogation to complete the game.
** ''Enforcer'' does this in a few levels.
* EliteMooks

** Later-Game Aliens (Mutons, Tasoth, Lobstermen) also may count.

* EnemyScan: Mind probes.

* ExplodingBarrels

* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong
** Chryssalids, ''oh God, the Chryssalids''...
** Tentaculats and Brainsuckers fill their niche in ''Terror from the Deep'' and ''Apocalypse'', respectively.
** Brainsuckers represent an ''absolutely straight'' case of FaceFullOfAlienWingWong, no less, attaching onto your head and emptying their innards down your throat.
** Brainsuckers cross it with PeoplePuppets. Fortunately, unlike their earlier brethern, Brainsuckers die when taking over their victims, so it's not quite as bad.
* FakeDifficulty: ''TFTD'' was probably the worst offender, but the game balance would not suffer if the standard rifle from ''UFO Defence'' were capable of reliably hitting anything a distance greater than it could be thrown. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] regularly in the LetsPlay.

* GiantMook: Many terrorist aliens.

* HumanoidAliens
* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels

* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Best way to describe the accuracy of any Rookie. They can literally open a door, find themselves [[OhCrap toe-to-toe with an alien]], fire repeatedly at it, and still miss. Bonus points if their Shooting Accuracy is low. More bonus points if attempting to Auto Fire. Jackpot if they're suffering from Fatal Wounds in one or both arms. (The aliens' snap shots tend to be considerably more accurate...)\\\
Ocasionally subverted by the odd rookie trooper who has uncannily high accuracy and can out-shoot some of your crack troopers. Can be double-subverted as well, as when a rookie uses autoshot with laser rifle and fails to hit the sectoid he is aiming at, instead hit a cyberdisk behind it which blows up and kill several other aliens (and an unfortunate civilian) near it.

* ItsUpToYou

** Played even straighter in ''Terror from the Deep''. X-COM was disbanded after the end of First Alien War, and the world governments don't have the advanced technologies they developed to confront the new alien threat. Once again, it all comes down to X-COM.

* MyBrainIsBig
** The Sectoids and Aquatoids obviously.
** Ethereals aren't exactly under-endowed in the grey matter department, either. Their design in ''Interceptor'' has a brain large enough to apparently need air-cooling.
** And of course, the Alien Brain, UFO's equivalent to the Mother Brain.
* MythologyGag
** Marsec first appearance was in ''X-COM'''s spiritual predecessor ''Laser Squad''.
** In ''Enemy Unknown'', the cutscene received when first building a laser rifle shows a scientist firing one at a target that has a picture of a Sectoid from the ''UFO Defense'' [=UFOpaedia=]. With a plasma rifle, he shoots at an old-style muton.
* NintendoHard
** Psionic enemies before you get psionic troops (Mind control hell)
** Any fight against a battleship when the doors on the bottom are propped open (by a dead body) or destroyed (Blaster bombs will hit you)
** ''Terror from the Deep'' in general. Because the (then unknown) bug in ''UFO Defense'' locking the difficulty to Beginner prompted the fans to complain about it being too easy, the developers made the Beginner setting of ''Terror from the Deep'' as hard as the Superhuman of ''UFO''. There's a [[UrbanLegendOfZelda common rumour]] that ''TFTD'' had the original's bug backwards, locking difficulty to Superhuman. It doesn't; it's just a ''lot'' harder.

* OhCrap: '''Not Enough Time Units!'''

* OneHitKO

* OneSteveLimit: Averted due to limited names pool.

* OrganizationWithUnlimitedFunding: Averted at first, as the Funding Nations[=/=]Senate are huge cheapskates. But once you get enough engineering facilities going and cranking out weapons to sell, X-COM can effectively go rogue. However, the better you do at protecting a given nation, the more they'll increase your funding. As the game only ends when you're in the red for too long or if all nations sign non-aggression pacts with the aliens, you can keep protecting a few nations at a time and building up their funding over time to replace the nations that drop out. In a sufficiently long game, it's not uncommon to have the US providing 14-20 million dollars a month to X-COM... as the only nation still funding you.
* PacifistRun: Not the whole game, but to progress, you need to capture enemy aliens alive to interrogate or inspect them. Cue the player loading up on stun rods and other nonlethal equipment (depending on which installment in the franchise) so they can capture most or all aliens alive in one mission (and then get back to the slaughter once research is complete).

* PlayerMooks

* PsychicAssistedSuicide
* PsychicPowers

* PsychicBlockDefense
** Androids in ''Apocalypse'' cannot be controlled at all.
** Presumably, neither can the protagonist of ''Enforcer''.
** Nor [=HWPs=] or [=SWSs=]. All of these PBD-blessed critters are robots.

** ''Apocalypse'' also has Mind Shield -- an item increasing psionic defense when used in the battlescape. Due to a bug the increase is permanent and cumulative, thus any operative can become invulnerable. The item was supposed to be removed completely from the game, but due to another oversight may be encountered during missions in Marsec buildings. Fans have come with an in-universe explanation that permanency and cumulation were unexpected side effects, Marsec found them disastrous for their business -- killing the market both for Mind Shields and Mind Benders -- and recalled all unsold items shortly before the game start.

* RandomNumberGod: See ArmorIsUseless trope above.
* RealTimeStrategy: During the Geoscape[=/=]Cityscape.
* RedEyesTakeWarning

** The Aquatoids in Terror from the Deep.

* RedShirt
** The default state of every X-COM [[NewMeat recruit]]. [[MauveShirt Turning them Mauve]] is a LuckBasedMission in itself. Not quite a challenge since you can abuse SaveScumming. Once you have those psi devices, you can make the aliens throw away their guns and turn them into target practice for your new recruits.
** The reboot changes recruits for the player's squad into actual people with their own skills and backgrounds. [[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/xcom-2k-fallout.php Some prefer the old way.]]
* RedShirtArmy: What you start the game with.

* ScaryDogmaticAliens: Of the Conqueror type.

* SelfImposedChallenge

* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil

* StrongFleshWeakSteel

* SuperSoldier

* TankGoodness

** It gets better in ''TFTD''. [=SWSes=] do make good scouts if you don't like sacrificing rookies for that. Once you get a Sonic Displacer, you will like it for its ability to float, get 200 shots clip which gets reloaded for free every missions, and ultimately, [=SWSes=] can't be harmed by [[DemonicSpider tentaculats]]. If you already have the bigger ships, you will always want to bring one (or two) on every missions.
* TeamTitle

* DroneOfDread: The battlescape soundtrack is a [[HellIsThatNoise constant, low, pulsing drone.]]

* OrganizationWithUnlimitedFunding: Averted at first, as the Funding Nations[=/=]Senate are huge cheapskates. But once you get enough engineering facilities going and cranking out weapons to sell, X-COM can effectively go rogue. However, the better you do at protecting a given nation, the more they'll increase your funding. As the game only ends when you're in the red for too long or if all nations sign non-aggression pacts with the aliens, you can keep protecting a few nations at a time and building up their funding over time to replace the nations that drop out. In a sufficiently long game, it's not uncommon to have the US providing 14-20 million dollars a month to XCom...as the only nation still funding you.