See first gameplay of the new tactics game from X-Com creator Julian Gollop

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Original X-Com creator Julian Gollop teased his next project, a "turn-based tactics and world-based strategy game" called Phoenix Point, early last year. A screenshot came shortly thereafter, but he hasn't said much about it since until today, when he announced the start of a crowdfunding campaign on Fig, and a release target set for the end of 2018.

In Phoenix Point, humanity has been all but wiped out by a horrific alien pathogen called the Pandoravirus. The lucky ones died quickly; most of the rest mutated into hideous pseudo-aliens who reproduce through cloning. The last remains of humanity now hang on desperately for survival in isolated outposts spread throughout the world. Your job, as an element of the Phoenix Project—an international organization intended to activate in response to planetary peril—is to discover what happened to the other Phoenix Project cells, and bring humanity back from the brink.

But aliens aren't your only problem: Some of the largest and most powerful survivor factions have embraced "radically contrasting ideologies," and they make not take kindly to being told what to do. You'll have to negotiate or barter with the factions you encounter, make alliances, or, if things just aren't working out, make an example out of them—although I suspect that doing so won't be entirely free from consequences.

Gollop said that Phoenix Point will take inspiration from both the original X-COM games that he created, and the Firaxis reboot, which he's apparently quite a fan of. “We are creating Phoenix Point by taking influences from the famed X-COM franchise," he explained. "We are updating our favorite gameplay features from X-COM titles such as UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-COM Apocalypse that I designed, and mixing them with some of the amazing ideas Firaxis Games executed brilliantly in their franchise reboots, to create an entirely new game whose essence lies in the XCOM genre."

The Phoenix Point Fig campaign is live now at www.fig.com, with a goal of $500,000, $300,000 of which is reserved for "Fig securities that would generate a return based on the game’s sales." Dig into some screenshots down below.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.