2K and Firaxis Games have announced that their PC title XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be making its way to the iOS on June 20 and available through the iTunes store at $20.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS takes the complete XCOM experience of the console and PC version of the game and optimizes it for the touch interface of iOS devices. XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS is a universal app that includes GameCenter support and utilizes iCloud functionality so players can save games across their iOS devices.

Those looking to try out the multiplayer side of the popular series will find that it currently isn't available in the iOS title, but Firaxis has stated that "the popular head-to-head multiplayer mode in XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be added to iOS at a later date as a free update."

Complete list of supported iOS devices includes the iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5th Generation.

One of the bigger releases this year, XCOM: Enemy Unknown revives the XCOM franchise, staying true to what fans loved in the original strategy game while evolving and growing the experience to appeal to all gamers.

We had our resident strategist GunSlingerAUS take on the very appealing title and his thoughts have filtered back to us through time and space to let us know the results.

As commander of the Earth you simply can’t save all of the people, all of the time. Whether it’s letting China succumb to public panic as you divert resources to cover the American continent, or sending in a rookie to soak up damage on a suicide run so that your veterans don't die, XCOM will give you a scary appreciation of the harsh realities of being a leader in a time of crisis.

Click here for the full review

Fireaxis Games has today announced pre-orders for the long awaited strategy title, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, albeit with a small twist to your usual method. Pre-ordering the game on Steam will net you the title, however people looking for those little extras will be surprised to know that they aren't available just yet, on Steam that is.

According to the store page, extra pre-order incentives will slowly be unlocked with more people pre-ordering, with three packages available at different checkpoints. Each pack has something significant to hope for, including the final tier that offers a free copy of Civilization V.

If you are a fan of Team Fortress 2 items and/or free video games, you’re in luck. The folks over at Steam are running a pre-purchase rewards program, and it works like this: If enough people pre-order XCOM: Enemy Unknown , they will unlock 3 exclusive XCOM-themed items in Team Fortress 2. If even more people pre-order, they will unlock a free copy of Firaxis’s other big title, Civilization V (and yes, you can gift it to a friend if you already own it).

While this is obviously a great incentive for many to work towards, the purpose is slightly defeated by other digital and store pre-orders offering the Elite Soldier Pack without having to hope for enough sales. Though this is obviously a great marketing strategy for Steam and Fireaxis, keeping an eye on the progress might net yourself a free copy of Civilization 5.

System requirements for the strategy title have also been released today, while nothing as high-end as Crysis 3 will require, a somewhat good system will still be recommended for smooth playing.

Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows Vista
Software: Steam Client
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 20 GB free
Video Memory: 256 MB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT / ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or greater
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

Recommended Requirements:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 2.7 GHz)
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 20 GB free
Video Memory: 512+ MB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9000 series / ATI Radeon HD 3000 series or greater
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

For more info on XCOM: Enemy Unknown you can check out our game page, or head over the Steam store page for a view of the current pre-order status. To find out where you can pre-order the game, check out the official page.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on 12th of October.

Take-Two, parent company of 2K Games and Rockstar has released its quarterly financial report, where a release date for the Firaxis-developed XCOM: Enemy Unknown was revealed, but a delay of over a year for the FPS tactical-RPG entry, XCOM, was also revealed.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be coming to PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this October 12 in Australia and New Zealand, with a bunch of pre-order deals outlined, including the Elite Soldier Pack which offers "top-of-the-line soldier customization features that will only be available for a limited time". The best news, however, comes in information there will be a PC-specific special edition that "contains a variety of unique XCOM items".

"As we reimagine XCOM, one of our goals is to evolve the experience while recognising what made X-COM one of the greatest PC games to date,” said Sarah Anderson, senior vice president of marketing for 2K (via press release). “It’s important to create an experience that is appealing to both existing fans and newcomers to the world of XCOM, which is what we’re doing with XCOM: Enemy Unknown.”

As for the XCOM FPS delay, which is being handled by 2K Marin, no details were divulged for the lengthy delay other than we'd be seeing it sometime between April 2013 and March 2014.

More good news for PC gamers today as Firaxis have confirmed that the desktop version of the upcoming XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be receiving some special treatment.

Speaking with interview with PC Gamer, Firaxis Lead Designer Jake Solomon revealed that they have plans to continue their long tradition of mod support for XCOM:

“The idea is that there is the ability for modability,” said Solomon. It won’t be anything that we’re committing to for release, but it’s very very easy using Unreal titles. I write almost all my game code in the scripts, and that’s very easy to give to people.”

The Civilization games have strong modding scenes. With the release of Civ 5, the devs included a built in map creator to make it easier for fans to make their own campaigns. “We have a great legacy of that at Firaxis,” Solomon added.

Additionally, Solomon also confirmed that the PC would be getting its own tailored UI -- a huge relief to any PC players that might have noticed the very control-pad orientated interface seen in the game's promotional media so far.

“We have a team that’s doing the PC UI, and there are some elements where it can make sense to use the base, like when we have menus and things like that, but our tactical UI is a standalone PC tactical UI.”

“And so we have a PC tactical UI that we’re working on that is distinct, because obviously mouse driven with a tactical game – being able to select objects of interest – as opposed to a gamepad, where you’re cycling through objects of interest. No, no, we definitely have PC and we plan and we have UI that’s unique.”

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is due in Spring 2012 (US Fall) on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Not to be confused with the upcoming XCOM FPS title, Firaxis and 2K Games have released the first behind-the-scenes developer diary for their upcoming rendition of the original RTS XCOM series, XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Go behind-the-scenes with the Firaxis team as they discuss XCOM: Enemy Unknown in the first of our developer diary series. The game takes place after the events of XCOM (chronicling the aliens' first attacks in the United States in 1962), dealing with the global response to the later full-blown global alien invasion, with the player set in the role of the commander of XCOM, the most elite military and scientific organization on Earth, in a seemingly hopeless war against an unknown extraterrestrial enemy with far better technology and capabilities.

Check out the developer diary below which gives eager players a first-hand glimpse at some of the gameplay and mechanics to be expected in what could be considered a great Sci-fi RTS series. You can also head over to our game page where we have the latest in news, trailers and screenshots.

Thanks to an interview over at Rock Paper Shotgun, Firaxis' Jake Solomon has revealed their RTS update to the beloved series will go above and beyond to recapture the essence of the original, including in the challenge department with the inclusion of an Iron Man mode.

"We like to play Iron Man," he told the site. "And so it's something we want to actually systemically enable where if you say "I want to play this game in Iron Man", then you've only got one save slot and all auto saves and all your saves go to that slot – and the only thing you can do is save and exit.

"Of course, you get to some point where if you lose too much, I'll give you the option [and] say "do you want to turn off Iron Man", you know, "are you done? Do you want to turn off Iron Man and continue to play normally?"," he added.

As for the decision to remove Time Units from the update, something that has ired many fans, Solomon simply pointed out that at this point in time, with some of new additions they've made to the game "it just didn't map to the experience well".

"With all these new abilities and things, it just created this barrier between "I know what I want to do and I know how I'm going to do it", and instead it became this sort of thing where you were, like, "I'm not quite sure what I can do, and so I'm just going to let it sort of play out"," he explained. "So in this case when we had Time Units, they ended up making the game more shallow, because all these different abilities and combos, all these interesting things, were never getting used because people couldn't think about them that way."

The rest of the interview is a decent read for fans of the series, and anyone steadfast in avoiding the FPS entry in the franchise but excited for an RTS reboot will find some juicy nuggets (such as the potential for mod support).

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is due to land some time in 2012 and is being developed by Firaxis Games. Stay tuned to AusGamers for more as it becomes available.

2K Games really made a solid decision to also release a strategy entry in the XCOM stable alongside the forthcoming strategy-FPS offering, simply titled XCOM.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is being developed by strategy alumni, Fireaxis Games (Civilization series), and is poised to release sometime this year on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Unfortunately, not much more is known about the title, but 2K has delivered us three more screens showing off the game's lush isometric visuals that ought to give fans of the series at least a visual glimpse of details to come.

Click on the thumbnails below for a closer look.

Taking the beloved strategy franchise in a first person shooter direction with 2K Marin's bluntly titled XCOM, sparked a little fury from more passionate fans, but the recent news that Civilization veterans Firaxis were also developing another more traditional XCOM title -- XCOM: Enemy Unknown -- did not disappoint.

Once again, We've had to endure a bit more of the old print-mag exclusive period with respect to details and media for this one, but 2K have today released the first set of high-res screenshots, which you can take a closer look at by hitting the thumbnails below.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is targeting a 2012 on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.