Play X-COM: UFO Defense Online

Game Overview

X-COM: UFO Defense is one of those games that still feels punishingly good decades later. You start off scrambling to set up a base, hire some rookies (who will absolutely panic and shoot each other by accident), and pray a UFO doesn’t vaporize your only interceptor. The tension never lets up—every mission is a mix of careful positioning and sudden chaos, especially when a Chryssalid bursts through a wall and turns your best soldier into a zombie.

Half the game happens on the world map, where you’re juggling budgets, researching alien tech (reverse-engineering plasma rifles never gets old), and trying not to piss off the countries funding you. The other half is turn-based firefights where one wrong move means a squad wipe. And yeah, soldiers stay dead—no respawns, no take-backs. It’s brutal, but that’s what makes pulling off a flawless mission so satisfying.

Somehow, it still holds up. The pixel art has charm, the sound design makes every shot feel weighty, and no two playthroughs go the same way. Just don’t get too attached to anyone in your squad.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".