General News - 9 Games Like XCOM

Silver

Spaceman
Staff Member
Joined
February 13, 2014
Messages
9,312
Location
New Zealand
MMOBro lists nine upcoming games that are like XCOM.

[...]

Fort Triumph

I’m pretty excited about Fort Triumph. Their feature list reads like “Fantasy XCOM + Divinity: Original Sin”. As in Original Sin, there’s a big tactical emphasis on using the environment to gain advantages, with possibilities like burning a tree to topple it onto an enemy. Characters come with their own personality traits and look like they’ll be fairly unique. The visuals are certainly more cartoony than XCOM. I’m sure it’ll turn off some but the quality of the art style is definitely high. Despite a more family friendly look, Fort Triumph isn’t straying from stressful gameplay or permadeath that makes it an XCOM like game. The campaign itself challenges players to overcome a dynamic series of events and quests that change each playthrough based on randomness and player action. The depth of long term strategic options Fort Triumph remain unclear but exploration is poised to play a big role.

Developer Quote: “These are exciting times to be a turn based tactics lover, for sure. Looks like we’ll have a double challenge in 2018 – developing on schedule AND playing all of these great titles.

As for Fort Triumph – all adventurers are welcome to try a fresh tactical demo (0.6.3) going live later today on Steam and give us your feedback and suggestions!”

Release Date: Q4 2018

XCOM Similarity: 80%

Price: $20, you can pre-order Fort Triumph here.

Zodiac Legion

Repel invading enemies until you can take the fight to them. Use small parties of soldiers to infiltrate, scout, explore, and sabotage the enemy. Deploy covert op squads alongside primary military forces. Research magical powers and technologies to equip your parties with the strongest of weapons. Does this all sound familiar? Zodiac Legion feels the most conceptually similar to XCOM of the fantasy games. The only thing it’s really lacking is a cover system. However, the game makes up for that on the customization side with artifacts imbued with the power of the zodiac. I expect conquering these sites of power to act as a late game challenge necessary to felling the opposition. Legendary equipment is something I miss in base XCOM (though Grimy’s Loot Mod adds it to XCOM 2) so these artifacts an exciting prospect. Unfortunately, the developer has only tweeted out a handful of times since the last blog post in May. I wouldn’t expect this until 2019 at the earliest. It’d be better late than never though.

Developer Quote: “We definitely want the strategic layer to have the organic feel of the older X-COM, where aliens would launch missions according to an agenda that the player had to adapt to. X-COM also made setbacks more common, but much easier to recover from. Still, we also think that the abilities and varied objectives of the recent XCOM add a lot of variety and tactical nuances to the formula.

The combat system itself is also inspired by games such as Mordheim, Heroquest, and Descent: Journeys in the Dark.”

Release Date: 2019

Similarity: 80%

Price: Unknown. Currently unavailable for pre-order.

[...]
More information.
 
Joined
Feb 13, 2014
Messages
9,312
Location
New Zealand
Lots of interesting games I haven't heard of before on this list.

Agreed. I knew of only a couple of those. I especially like the fact that most of them seems to be gunning more towards the originals than XCOM. Although I like all iterations the originals are a step above the reboot in my book.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
3,216
Location
Sweden
That's a much better list than I was expecting from a guy calling himself MMOBro.
 
Joined
Sep 16, 2010
Messages
4,813
I am on the fence WRT the X(-)COMs. I don't like having to replace my squads every few missions. I also always fail at the strategic aspects of the games. When do I do Research A or Research B? What weapons are better for Stage C of the game? I much prefer RPGs like Jagged Alliance 2. I did not get far in X-COM: UFO Defense or Battle Brothers, but did complete JA2 several times with different mods. (I did complete X-COM Apocalypse, however, but remember very little about it.)
 
Joined
May 2, 2017
Messages
252
I am on the fence WRT the X(-)COMs. I don't like having to replace my squads every few missions. I also always fail at the strategic aspects of the games. When do I do Research A or Research B? What weapons are better for Stage C of the game? I much prefer RPGs like Jagged Alliance 2. I did not get far in X-COM: UFO Defense or Battle Brothers, but did complete JA2 several times with different mods. (I did complete X-COM Apocalypse, however, but remember very little about it.)

Ok, to me the experience of the games were not that different. I don't know how many times I restarted JA2 before getting it right. And the original UFO-games were the same. But today that time simply isn't there, so I will frequently read some threads with Beginner tips before starting games of that caliber to ease the frustration. I avoid spoilers and late game tactics until I've finished at least once though.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
3,216
Location
Sweden
I think the ones that would interest me are:
- Fort Triumph: Basically a fantasy XCOM, so if well executed should be fun.
- Forged of Blood: I think the strategy layer and story looks like they will be be more interesting aspects than XCOM's
- Battletech: To help the devs as thy have made some fun games. Although the game looks like fun too :D
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
Messages
9,177
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
I'm fuming because this stupid new "Focussed" e-mail system of hotmail's meant I missed an e-mail telling me Xenonaughts was on sale a few weeks back.

Interesting that this genre is getting more focus now. Won't be long before EA jump on the bandwagon lol.
 
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
480
I think the ones that would interest me are:
- Fort Triumph: Basically a fantasy XCOM, so if well executed should be fun.
- Forged of Blood: I think the strategy layer and story looks like they will be be more interesting aspects than XCOM's
- Battletech: To help the devs as thy have made some fun games. Although the game looks like fun too :D

Phoenix Point ?
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
usa - no longer boston
This list has me excited for 2018 and beyond. I enjoy these kind of games as much as RPG's.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I enjoy these games even more than RPGs, or at least for longer. I would say UFO:Enemy unknown is at the top of my "Best games ever made" list. Of course, if you can combine a strategic layer with some interesting RPG mechanics as well, ever better (Eador comes to mind). Pretty much all the games on the list could be interesting, although the medieval realistic setting doesn't exactly excite me.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
3,216
Location
Sweden
I definitely play these games longer. I still play HoMM3, Civ 4, and Eador. I will replay classic RPG's but a lot don't age as well. Also, I have 550 hours played in Battle Brothers. The only RPG that I know I have that much play time in is Skyrim.
 
Joined
Aug 28, 2010
Messages
2,838
Location
Wolf Light Woods
Some of these look interesting - and I hadn't heard about most of them.

That said, the original X-Com has yet to be surpassed overall - so I have little reason to expect these are truly "like X-Com" - but we'll see.

Phoenix Point is the most promising, so far.
 
Back
Top Bottom