Xenonauts

Xenonauts is a 2014 strategy game from the British studio Goldhawk Interactive, funded through Kickstarter and developed in public through Steam Early Access. It is set in an alternate Cold War in 1979. Aliens arrive, and a joint organisation has to stop them while the superpowers watch.

It keeps the original X-COM's shape almost exactly. You build bases, scramble aircraft to intercept UFOs, research what you recover, and send soldiers to fight turn-based battles on destructible maps. Soldiers spend time units rather than a fixed two actions, and the air war has its own small tactical game.

It is the game for people who wanted the 1994 X-COM with modern conveniences rather than a reinterpretation. The Cold War setting gives it a look of its own, and the interface removes much of the original's friction. The community edition, which collects fixes and changes, is widely recommended.

Its faithfulness is also its limit: it rarely surprises. The art is plain, and some battles drag as you search for the last alien. A sequel, Xenonauts 2, reached version 1.0 in 2026.

Xenonauts is the closest the modern era came to a straight continuation of X-COM. Where Firaxis simplified, Goldhawk kept the time units, the air war and the large maps. If you want to know what the original would look like with today's screens and none of its age, this is it.