XCOM Games Ranked From Worst to Best

Multiple Blue Rings

There are 10 XCOM games we’re going to look at, including a couple of spin-offs. We won’t count expansions as separate entries, though. Also, for the sake of consistency, we will sometimes use ‘XCOM’ instead of ‘X-COM’ when referring to both the newer and the older games.

2K decided to do a bit of relabeling after they purchased the IP. But in spite of the slightly different spelling, all of these games are part of the same franchise.

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Multiple Blue Rings
Multiple Blue Rings

X-COM: FIRST ALIEN INVASION (1999) First Alien Invasion was a play-by-email game, which is a concept that sounds fittingly alien these days. PBE games have never been hugely popular but by the time First Alien Invasion came out they were pretty much non-existent.

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Multiple Blue Rings
Multiple Blue Rings

X-COM: INTERCEPTOR (1998) XCOM games have never been shy about experimenting with multiple genres. With Interceptor, developer MicroProse wanted to try something completely different and made a space sim that bears a striking resemblance to Wing Commander in terms of gameplay.

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Multiple Blue Rings

X-COM: ENFORCER (2001) Enforcer was a last-ditch attempt at cobbling together a final X-COM game before Hasbro Interactive went out of business. And I do want to emphasize cobbled together.

Multiple Blue Rings
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Multiple Blue Rings

XCOM: CHIMERA SQUAD (2020) As of this writing, Chimera Squad is the most recent XCOM game we’ve got, and one of the most disappointing ones so far. By 2020 most of us were hoping to hear something about XCOM 3 but instead, we got a half-baked spin-off that feels more like a parody than anything else.

Multiple Blue Rings
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Multiple Blue Rings
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Multiple Blue Rings

THE BUREAU: XCOM DECLASSIFIED (2013) I’m a bit conflicted when it comes to The Bureau. On one hand, it’s another spin-off that has very little in common with previous games. But on the other hand, the concept behind XCOM Declassified is very interesting and the resulting game could have been amazing

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Multiple Blue Rings
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Multiple Blue Rings

X-COM: TERROR FROM THE DEEP (1995) Now we’re starting to get to the good stuff. Terror From the Deep is a direct sequel to the original X-COM and is set a few decades after its predecessor. This time around, the action takes place almost entirely underwater. Hence, the name.

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