Phoenix Point

It’s life, but not as we know it

- IAN EVENDEN

COME INTO PHOENIX POINT unprepared, and you may accuse its devs of playing a lot of XCOM. This is almost certainly true, but beside the point. Snapshot Games has played a lot of X-COM, too, having been co-founded by Julian Gollop, one of the designers of the original X-COM: UFO Defense from 1994. As a result, XCOM veterans will find Phoenix Point familiar to the point of feeling like an expansion pack, but different enough to be thrilling. Anyone new to the series will find it a convenient place to get on, even if it doesn’t quite hit the heights XCOM 2 did.

This time, rather than arriving in flying saucers, the threat comes from the sea. Mutated creatures mixing human, seafood, and unknown DNA are wreaking havoc on the last bastions of humanity, and it’s up to your rag-tag bunch of soldiers to blast them back into the water.