Fantasy Flight Games will release XCOM: The Board Game, a sci-fi adventure tabletop game hybrid with incorporated digital content, in the fourth quarter of 2014.In XCOM, players take the roles of the leaders of an elite organization, tasked with defending humanity from an escalating alien invasion coordinated by the digital companion app. Players manage resources to shoot down UFOs, assign soldiers to key missions, research alien technology and use it to defend the base, while also coordinating a final mission to repel the aliens permanently.
The alien invasion board game requires use of a free digital app incorporated into the core of gameplay, which is available both as a downloadable app or as an online tool. The app coordinates the alien attack force’s invasion plan by randomly selecting from five different plans the alien commanders might use to coordinate their strikes. The app will manage the arrival of new UFOs, plan strikes against the player base, and respond to player successes or failures as the aliens seek to conquer Earth. The requirement of real-time response from players heightens the tension. The app also teaches players the rules as the game progresses, and the game can be played on any of three progressive levels of difficulty.
