Phoenix Point

Phoenix Point’s blend of combat, research management and global exploration is thoroughly compelling, even if the factions can be a little trying. Whether you’ve got fond memories of Julian Gollop’s original game or not, he and his team have taken old school strategy and dragged it kicking, screaming and gurgling into the modern day.

One good turn deserves another.

Were you playing PC games in 1994? Truly it was a different era. The games were clunky and unpolished. They often bit off more than they could chew. But there was a gritty punk rock feeling to everything. When the creative culture is so messy, you’re more likely to arrive at weird ideas, the sorts of things that the studio system would grind into a smooth, predictable shape. Phoenix Point tries to have it both ways, and it largely succeeds.

Even though it doesn't reinvent the wheel, at the end of the day, strategy fans - and certainly XCOM fans - will enjoy the improvements that Phoenix Point makes, especially if this is just the beginning.

A turn-based strategy game full of great ideas, but also annoying bugs.

Phoenix Point will appeal to you if you're a big fan of the new XCOM games but wish they had more complexity. If you're turned off by punishing strategy and a hands-off approach, Phoenix Point is not for you.

Phoenix Point is a collection of fantastic new ideas installed on the solid foundations of the X-COM franchise. While it lacks the content to offer the replay value of the more recent X-COM games, it's still a great game that will test your strategic mettle to its very limits.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Phoenix Point just wrote a love letter to XCOM, for better and for worse.

There’s slow-burn greatness in Phoenix Point. It’s a game where you might be exploring a site, bracing for ambush, but instead find an abandoned theme park dedicated to a novelty boy band of hedge fund managers called the Lucrative Lads. Where you dread the thud of a parasitic worm dropping from a roof to the ground at your feet. Where the cold utilitarianism trained by XCOM slowly melts, and ideology begins to influence your diplomacy. It’s warmer, stranger, than its genremates. But it’s harder work to enjoy. Like its most outlandish guns and powerful armours, it takes a few hours’ research t...

Phoenix Point has a lot of interesting ideas to contribute to the revitalized turn-based tactics genre but many of them are in need refining and balancing. Things like managing faction relationships and disabling individual enemy body parts are great, and it strikes a good balance of complexity with inventory management. At the same time, it’s woefully underdeveloped in certain areas like mission variety and base-building, and a late-game difficulty spike is so severe and unfair-feeling that it crushed the spirit of this XCOM veteran – twice. Combine that with a general lack of polish and it l...

The creator of XCOM returns with some interesting new ideas, but without the budget or time to refine them Phoenix Point struggles to offer a viable alternative to its more established rival.

If I could have handpicked what X-COM 3 would be, it would have looked a whole lot like Phoenix Point. While the game is by no means flawless. It does so much so well that while I could definitely nitpick it to death, I don’t feel the need to. It’s everything I hoped it could be and more that I didn’t know I wanted. Its flaws, the clunky inventory screen, for example, simply pale compared to how much I enjoy everything else.