Phoenix Point
PC, PS4, Xbox One
Borrows a lot of the user-friendly presentation of XCOM, but there’s much more complexity beneath this game’s surface
Developer/publisher Snapshot Games Format PC
Release Out now
Growing up in the shadow of a beloved older sibling is never easy. Phoenix Point has never been shy of the connection, though – its crowdfunded origins were propelled by the story of Julian Gollop, creator of the original 1994 X-COM, grabbing the opportunity to rework Firaxis’ modern reimagining in his own image. But even if it had tried to make a secret of its family tree, the resemblance would be hard to miss. This isn’t just a game in the same genre as XCOM; it would not exist without it. An offshoot of the same conceptual DNA, mutated like one of the amphibious post-humans who drive Phoenix Point’s plot.
In brief: climate change continues, melting the polar ice caps, releasing an alien virus into the oceans. Humans who come into contact with the virus are compelled to finally follow that eternal online request and get in the sea. Beneath the waves, they are transformed into the kind of fishmen that would get HP Lovecraft all afroth. Et voilà – baddies who aren’t quite the extraterrestrial invaders we’re used to in these games, but who serve functionally the same purpose. Meanwhile, you once again step into the role of leader of a covert military force, the only thing standing between this threat and the end of the world.
This is how much of Phoenix Point feels, especially at first: familiar features, arranged in a slightly different way. There’s the shape of the whole thing – turn-based tactical skirmishes, each housed within a broader strategic geoscape – but also smaller, more uncanny likenesses. The VTOL aircraft touching down, delivering your troops to do battle in an industrial tangle of stairways and crumbling walls, the boundaries of their movements marked out with edges of blue and orange. Or that long, tension-building second after you instruct a soldier to fire, when the camera pulls in tight over their shoulder to reveal, in dramatic if occasionally wonkily animated fashion, whether the shot landed.
In moments like these, you could almost believe someone had switched out the games while you were looking away. As you keep playing, though, you start to see past the resemblances and, like learning to tell twins apart, see all the things that give Phoenix Point a distinct personality. The tactics game might borrow a lot of the user-friendly presentation of XCOM, but there’s much more complexity beneath the surface, for good and ill.
Each turn isn’t neatly bisected but broken down into tiny granular action points more akin to X-Com’s time units. It’s all hidden – rather neatly – behind that familiar language of coloured outlines where, as long as a unit stays within the blue, they can afford to fire their weapon, but every step and action eats up some fraction of their turn – and vitally, shooting a weapon doesn’t automatically end the turn. It’s much easier to undo a mistake, and turns can be chopped up into narrower slices – dashing a space or two out of cover, popping off a shot and then retreating or pushing onwards isn’t only possible but a necessary strategy for survival. This is a small tweak, but one that results in a little more micromanagement, and a lot more flexibility. Which, if you’re in the market for a single-sentence review of Phoenix Point versus XCOM, is the one we’d go with.
It certainly applies to manual aiming, the tactical game’s biggest point of divergence. Rather than simply choosing a target, looking at the percentage chance and letting the dice fall where they may (or save-scumming until they fall the way you’d prefer), attacks in Phoenix Point use a shooter-style reticule. Your target is overlaid with two concentric circles: all shots are guaranteed to land within the outer ring, while only half will hit the bullseye. Better yet, you can roll the mouse wheel forward to zoom and aim manually, choosing between the safe shot at central body mass or taking a gamble to try and eliminate a pesky weapon, making bullet-sponge enemies a more interesting challenge.
Though fiddly at first – and hampered by the game sometimes misjudging the aiming preview, inexplicably blocking your view or sending bullets thudding into a previously unseen obstacle or even ally – this is a great idea which puts added emphasis on distance and weapon type. The targeting circles on a shotgun almost fill the screen, making it useless at anything but pointblank range, while a sniper rifle’s are so tight you can pick off your choice of limb from across the level. As a result, distance becomes almost as important as cover. Put a bit of space between your units and the enemy, and they don’t need to stick religiously to waist-high walls and conveniently abandoned cars – which is fortunate, because the manual nature and occasional jank of aiming means cover is rarely a guaranteed thing.
Outside of battle, Phoenix Point once again trades the simplicity of XCOM’s strategy layer for something more granular. Character customisation is less linear here, letting you pick which stats to boost and offering randomised upgrades that can create hybrid classes, but levelling up lacks real impact. The Geoscape fares better, a globe dotted with procedurally generated points of interest which you can jet between as research and manufacturing bars tick along and three AI factions head towards war with one another. You’ll gather bases and aircraft, increasing productivity while setting up the problem of how to best split your troops and attention.
It’s hardly the deepest strategy game around, but it effectively sets up the loop these games revel in, one thing feeding into another so you can never quite find the right moment to put it down. Once that rhythm kicks in – and it does take a little while – Phoenix Point will greedily monopolise your attention, until any notion of sibling rivalry or ( X-) comparison fades away, and you’re just left with the game itself.