XCOM: Enemy Unknown Announced for iPhone and iPad

2K Games announced today at its PAX East panel that last year's hit turn-based-strategy reboot XCOM: Enemy Unknown is headed to the App Store this summer.

The announcement specifies that this mobile release will provide gamers the "full" XCOM experience - this is a port of the PC/console release and not a reimagined title ala Civilization Revolution. IGN had a chance to briefly see the game in action on an iPad. Character shadows and certain whizz-bang effects like muzzle flashes were absent but otherwise the experience seemed to make the transition to a tablet fully intact.

2K told IGN that the biggest challenge in bringing XCOM to mobile isn't the power of the hardware, but filesize requirements. On PC the game gobbles up 20 GB of hard drive space - a requirement that obviously doesn't fly on phones or tablets. We didn't specifically notice any low-res textures or other obviously missing content to accomodate for the lower filesize footprint, but it's likely that some sacrifices had to be made to get the game down to size.

The iOS port includes all the UI tweaks one would expect - players select and execute orders with simple touch-powered taps. Pinch to zoom and other multitouch options are also included.

A price for the port has not yet been announced. IGN will have more on XCOM: Enemy Unknown iOS as it nears its summer launch.

Justin is Editor of IGN Wireless. He has been reviewing mobile games since the dark days of Java flip phones. You can follow him on Twitter at @ErrorJustin and on IGN.

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