XCOM combines two things exceptionally well: tense turn-based battles where every soldier matters and a strategic layer where research, recruitment, equipment, and base development can determine whether humanity survives.
If you have already exhausted XCOM and XCOM 2, these games approach that formula from different angles, including alien invasions, Cold War espionage, Warhammer expeditions, fantasy campaigns, roguelike tactics, and now a Clone Wars-era successor made by a studio packed with former XCOM developers.
TL;DR – Best Games Like XCOM
Table of Contents
Star Wars Zero Company
Star Wars Zero Company is the newest and perhaps most obvious recommendation for modern XCOM fans. Bit Reactor includes numerous developers with experience on the XCOM series, and that heritage is visible in its cover-based turn-based combat, customizable squad, battlefield abilities, strategic decisions, injuries, and the possibility of permanently losing Operators.
Between missions you return to the Den, improve your team, manage resources, and decide which operations deserve your attention. The big difference is its stronger focus on authored characters and relationships. Operators build bonds and unlock combat synergies, giving the formula some of the character-driven DNA Firaxis explored with Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Why you might like it:
- XCOM veterans are directly involved in its development
- cover-based tactical battles and permanent consequences
- custom and authored squad members
- base management, injuries, upgrades, and limited-time operations
- Clone Troopers, Mandalorians, Jedi, astromechs, and other Star Wars archetypes
STAR WARS Zero Company
Release Date: August 27, 2026
Genres: Turn-based Strategy, Tactical
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden replaces XCOM’s soldiers and alien invasion with a post-apocalyptic squad containing characters such as a talking duck and an enormous mutant boar.
Its biggest twist is real-time exploration. You can move freely, scout enemy positions, collect resources, and arrange ambushes before switching into turn-based combat. Character mutations, equipment, and skill trees give you plenty of room to shape the squad around different tactical roles.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
Release Date: December 4, 2018
Genres: Turn-based Tactics, Tactical RPG
Xenonauts
Xenonauts is one of the closest alternatives to classic X-COM. Earth is facing an alien invasion, soldiers improve through surviving missions, technology must be researched, and tactical ground battles sit alongside a much larger strategic defense effort.
It also lets you operate multiple bases, adds allied NPCs to some fights, and makes interception more involved. Its presentation is deliberately old-school, but that is part of the appeal for players who want more of the simulation-heavy side of the original X-COM.
Xenonauts
Release Date: June 16, 2014
Genres: Turn-based Strategy, Tactical
Gears Tactics
Gears Tactics takes the cover-heavy combat of the Gears of War series and rebuilds it as a fast-paced turn-based strategy game. You recruit and command a squad led by Gabe Diaz, customize soldiers with equipment and skills, and fight the Locust Horde roughly 12 years before the events of the original Gears of War.
The comparison to XCOM is easy to make thanks to its squad management, tactical positioning, character progression, overwatch-style attacks, and permanent consequences for regular soldiers. Gears Tactics is more aggressive, though, rewarding players for executions and forward movement rather than encouraging every squad to spend the entire mission hiding behind the nearest concrete wall.
Gears Tactics
Release Date: April 28, 2020
Genres: Strategy, Turn-based Tactics
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus is what you get when XCOM-style squad tactics enter a Necron tomb and replace conventional soldiers with heavily augmented Tech-Priests.
Your units are highly customizable through weapons, implants, equipment, and abilities, so changing one character’s augments can completely change their battlefield role. Turn-based encounters sit alongside expedition decisions and a branching campaign where your actions influence how the story ends.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
Release Date: November 15, 2018
Genres: Strategy, Turn-based Tactics
Every Day We Fight
Every Day We Fight takes several ideas that should immediately click with XCOM players, then wraps them inside a time loop. Three resistance fighters are caught outside the frozen flow of time while mysterious aliens known as the Rifters occupy the city, forcing the squad to fight, die, reset, and gradually become stronger with every new attempt.
The biggest difference is how freely it moves between tactical and action-focused systems. Exploration and stealth happen in real time, while encounters switch into turn-based combat. You also directly aim each shot rather than relying entirely on percentage-based hit rolls. Experience, skills, discovered weapons, and knowledge carry across loops, so failure becomes part of the progression rather than simply a reason to reload a save.
Every Day We Fight
Release Date: July 10, 2025
Genres: Turn-based Tactics, Tactical Roguelite
Massive Chalice
Massive Chalice combines tactical combat with a strategic war lasting 300 years. That timescale creates its defining twist: even your most successful heroes eventually grow old and die.
You therefore need to manage bloodlines, marriages, children, inherited traits, research, and the kingdom itself while continuing to repel the Cadence. If XCOM’s attachment to veteran soldiers is what keeps you invested, Massive Chalice finds an entirely different way to make losing generations of heroes matter.
Massive Chalice
Release Date: June 1, 2015
Genres: Turn-based Strategy, Turn-based Tactics
Into the Breach
Into the Breach shrinks turn-based warfare onto tiny 8×8 grids and gives you almost perfect information about what enemies plan to do next.
The challenge is not merely killing giant monsters. You must manipulate their attacks, push units away from civilian buildings, protect the power grid, and sometimes accept damage to save something more important. It feels like solving a tactical puzzle where every move has visible consequences.
Into the Breach
Release Date: February 27, 2018
Genres: Turn-based Strategy
Phantom Doctrine
Phantom Doctrine takes the visual language of XCOM and moves it into an alternate-history Cold War conspiracy. Instead of alien hunters, you command intelligence agents carrying out infiltrations, assassinations, interrogations, and covert operations.
Stealth is the major difference. Cameras can be disabled, guards silently removed, bodies hidden, and some missions completed without triggering open combat at all. Base management and turn-based encounters keep the XCOM connection strong while espionage gives it a very different rhythm.
Phantom Doctrine
Release Date: August 14, 2018
Genres: Turn-based Tactics, Strategy
Darkest Dungeon
Darkest Dungeon is not an XCOM clone, but it understands exactly how to make you care about a roster and then make that roster suffer.
You recruit heroes, develop them, equip them, and send them into hostile expeditions where injury, disease, stress, quirks, and death can destroy long-term plans. Its turn-based combat works very differently, but the need to prepare carefully and accept permanent consequences should feel familiar to XCOM commanders.
Darkest Dungeon
Release Date: January 19, 2016
Genres: RPG, Dungeon Crawler
Chroma Squad
Chroma Squad turns squad tactics into a Power Rangers-inspired television production. Five stunt actors quit their jobs, create their own studio, and fight increasingly ridiculous villains while trying to make each episode entertaining.
Turn-based combat includes combination attacks and teamwork moves, while the management layer lets you improve the studio, craft equipment, and spend money earned through better ratings. It is considerably lighter than XCOM, but the two-layer structure makes it a surprisingly natural alternative.
Chroma Squad
Release Date: 2015
Genres: Tactical RPG
Games Like XCOM FAQ
What game is most similar to XCOM?
Xenonauts is the closest match to the classic X-COM formula, while Star Wars Zero Company is one of the closest modern alternatives to Firaxis’ XCOM games.
Is Star Wars Zero Company like XCOM?
Yes. It features squad-based turn-based combat, cover, customizable Operators, injuries, permanent consequences, a strategic base, upgrades, and mission selection. Its developer Bit Reactor also includes numerous former XCOM developers.
Which games like XCOM also have base management?
Xenonauts, Phantom Doctrine, Massive Chalice, and Star Wars Zero Company all combine tactical missions with a wider management or strategic layer.
What should I play if I like XCOM’s permadeath?
Star Wars Zero Company, Xenonauts, Massive Chalice, and Darkest Dungeon are especially good options if permanent losses and long-term attachment to squad members are part of the appeal.
The turn is yours
XCOM’s mix of tactical combat and long-term consequences has inspired games in almost every imaginable setting. Xenonauts stays close to its alien-defense roots, Phantom Doctrine turns the formula into espionage, Mechanicus takes it to the 41st millennium, and Into the Breach compresses it into something closer to tactical chess.
Star Wars Zero Company now brings the idea back around from another direction. With XCOM veterans behind it, permadeath, squad customization, a strategic base, and character relationships layered over the familiar turn-based structure, it is the obvious new addition to this list.