X-COM: Enemy Unknown is an upcoming strategy/action/role-playing video game being developed by Firaxis Games for 2K Games, scheduled to be released on October 9, 2012 in North America, and October 12 in Europe and Australia for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is a re-imagining remake of the 1994 classic strategy game UFO: Enemy Unknown (also known as X-COM: UFO Defense). Unlike the previously announced tactical first-person shooter XCOM by 2K Marin, XCOM: Enemy Unknown will return to the core roots of the X-COM series.
X-COM: Enemy Unknown has been in development since early 2008 and is a "very, very big budget" project with about 50-60 team members. An early prototype was actually a direct recreation remake of the original game with all the classic features (it is possible that this version will be included with the collector's edition release), from which it was gradually evolved into a re-imagination. The game was officially revealed on January 5, 2012 by Game Informer.
Enemy Unknown is being developed independently of 2K Marin's X-COM and the two games are set in entirely different universes, but both the teams are in contact with each other. It is the first title developed by Firaxis Games not to feature Sid Meier's name, who serves as the director of creative development but is not directly designing it. All members of the development team have played and finished the original Enemy Unknown game. The Civilization series' art director Greg Foertsch was given the task of reimagining the look of X-COM, including redesigning the classic alien species. The game's graphics are stylized, as the developers said that they wanted the characters to resemble action figures. Roland Rizzo, who has been working with the X-COM series since the beginning, became the audio lead for the game and was tasked with reimagining and updating the famous music score of the 1994 original.
