Phoenix Point

Phoenix Point is described as a spiritual successor to X-COM. In the 1990s, the original X-COM series of video games introduced and integrated global strategy and tactical combat through which players try to save Earth from alien invasions. Though a multiplayer mode has not been ruled out, a survey answered by likely players has focused on developing Phoenix Point as a single-player game. Novel ideas include having aliens mutate and evolve in semi-random ways as they try to adapt to players' tactics and technology. Altogether, Phoenix Point is described as adding new and improved gameplay dynamics to the genre.

In Phoenix Point, the alien threat evolves as part of a gameplay system designed to generate a wide variety of challenges and surprises for players in tactical combat. Aliens encountered by players are procedurally generated on two basic levels: first, aliens will draw upon a pool of available, interchangeable body parts; second, aliens can change in size and shape. When the Pandoravirus encroaches on new regions, animals and other biological material found, including humans, are recombined to increase the pool of available body parts for the creation of new aliens, through mutations. For example, in Africa, the procedurally generated mutation system might mash up the body of a lion with body parts of humans and other animals to create alien monsters that resemble a Sphinx.

In 2022, Earth's scientists discovered an extraterrestrial virus in permafrost that had begun to melt. Only about one percent of the virus's genome matched anything recorded by scientists up to that time. Named the Pandoravirus, humans and animals who came into contact with it mutated into horrific abominations. By the late 2020s, a global apocalypse began when melting polar icecaps released the Pandoravirus into the world's oceans. The alien virus quickly dominated the oceans, mutating sea creatures of every size into hybrid alien monsters capable of crawling on to land.

The oceans transformed in alien ways after which the Pandoravirus began to infect the world's landmasses with an airborne mutagenic mist. The mist was both a microbial contaminant and a conduit that networked the hive-mind of the Pandoravirus. Humanity was not prepared; everyone who failed to reach high ground where the mist could not reach succumbed to it. The monstrosities of this future world are intended to evoke themes of tentacles and unknown horror familiar to fans of H.

Julian Gollop and David Kaye founded Snapshot Games to create Chaos Reborn, a modern version of Gollop's own 1985 Chaos: The Battle of Wizards, which they released on October 26, 2015. Less than six months later, on March 18, 2016, Gollop used Twitter to provide the first teaser for the development of Phoenix Point. A team of eight Snapshot Games developers led by Gollop worked on designing and producing the game over the course of the next year. With Phoenix Point, Gollop returned to the X-COM genre he created.

After investing $450,000 into this first year of development, Snapshot Games launched a Fig crowdfunding campaign to obtain the $500,000 they budgeted to complete the game. In Bulgaria, where the studio is based, video game development costs are about a third of what they are in the United States. The campaign ended successfully on June 7, 2017, raising $765,948 from 10,314 contributors. Crediting the success of the campaign, Snapshot Games announced the next day that they had hired four developers and planned to grow their team to include around thirty by the end of the year.

Upon its release, Phoenix Point was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics for Microsoft Windows, with an aggregate score of 74/100 on Metacritic.

PcGamer's reviewer praises the game's visual design, while claiming the sound design and music are bad. Still, he claims the game was so good he didn't care. Still, he notices weak combat AI and bugs. He concluded that the game was full of interesting ideas, but that it was also "buggy" and its state was "a bit of a mess".