Prerelease:X-COM: UFO Defense

This page details prerelease information and/or media for X-COM: UFO Defense.

There's a large amount of information on the game in UK and European gaming magazines that show some often very early screenshots.

Character Concept Art

• 
• 
• 

Julian Gollop posted several screens of character artwork to his now defunct GollopGames blog in April 2013 as a companion piece to a talk he delivered in March the same year for Gamespot's Classic Games Postmortem series. According to the talk, these are the original sprite sheets of different character concept artworks created by the game's graphical artist John Reitze as possible replacements for the first enemy characters Gollop had personally created but were deemed too "boring" to use by Microprose UK. The sheets include many illustrations that were used verbatim as final designs such as X-COM soldiers in Personal Armour and a Power Suit, an Ethereal, Chryssalid and Zombie as well as others that were adapted from these designs, including early versions of the Floater, Muton and Snakeman. However there are lots more unused enemies, as well as what are clearly characters from other games and media, presumably included just for fun. According to Gollop these are the only pieces of concept art for the game he knows of still in existence. Asked about the presence of the giant bunny rabbit in the set, Gollop replied on his blog:

"John made some animations of bunnies being squashed with showers of blood and guts. Maybe he has a thing about fluffy bunnies."

BattleScape Concept Art

Included with both of the early pre-release demos for British games magazines is a single .lbm file that includes the above image from July 1992 of what seems to be a very early mocked-up design for the Battlescape control panel icons.

Cut Men in Black Enemies

According to Julian Gollop the game was planned to feature 'Men in Black' enemies who would be involved with destabilising countries and whose work would result in targeted countries dropping their support for X-COM (as occurs via alien infiltration missions in the final game). These were removed early on in development as Microprose already planned to create their own game around the MiB concept (this was before the Will Smith film based on the comic book series made the concept well known) and didn't want customers to be confused by their portrayal in another game. In the end the planned Men in Black game was abandoned at the development stage anyway. The concept was however revived for the Thin Men enemies in the Fireaxis reboot of the series.

Interceptor Minigame

Originally intercepting UFOs was an arcade minigame, said to be seen from a first person perspective, where a player would have to manually fire weapons to shoot down a UFO. However, this was scrapped after feedback from Microsoft UK that it didn't look visually good enough, and also because it deviated from the more abstracted tactical design of the rest of the game.

Official Advertising

• 

  1) Scan from game advert

• 

  2) Scan from game advert

• 

  3) Scan from game advert

Advertising for the game depicts an early version of the Battlescape control panel, where the bottom set of buttons (the ones to reserve Time Units while moving and the rank button that shows soldier stats)are all blue, rather than multiple colours as in the final game. Many of the early game previews show this iteration of the game in their coverage.

• 1) A picture of the Geoscape. This seems the same as the final game, only it includes a mysterious "Highlight" button in the menu buttons on the right of the screen instead of "Funding" as in the final game (presumably it would lead to the same place). This "Highlight" button is also visible in the pre-release demo of the game.
• 2) A picture from the Battlescape with the blue control panel. It's hard to tell due to the low resolution, but the enemy sighted indicator at the right of the screen seems to just be a red block, without the number inside it as per the final game. It's worth noting that in both this and the third screenshot there is no ammunition counter on the weapons, something that is also the case in the pre-release demo and seems to have been a late addition to the game. The rank insignia is also one not found in the final game.
• 3) Another picture of the Battlescape with the blue control panel.

Game Manual

The game's manual is actually a treasure trove of early screenshots of the game. Based on their state compared to that of the released early demos and how they are clearly earlier, it's likely the screenshots are from late 1993 to very early 1994 (before February). They also confirm a number of things missing from the demos likely really were not finished at all despite how relatively late in development the demos were.

• 

  1) Game manual page 17

• 

  2) Game manual page 31

• 

  3) Game manual page 31

• 

  4) Game manual page 36

• 

  5) Game manual page 38

• 

  6) Game manual page 40

• 

  7) Game manual page 42

• 1) Once again the largely identical Geoscape with the Highlight button.
• 2) An early turn screen without the picture of the soldier stalked by the alien. This is also how the AGA Amiga version looks here.
• 3) A Battlescape picture that appears to have the Blue control panel. It also confirms that there were no female Battlescape graphics at this point as in the demos.
• 4) The same early version of the map screen seen in the PC Gamer screenshots.
• 5) This screenshot shows the same early smoke effect as found in the demo. The text also confirms that at this stage the enemy sighted indicator was indeed just a solid red block, without the number in it to indicate multiple sighted enemies as in the final game.
• 6) A screenshot of the firing options of a rifle. However, it has a melee "Hit" command! This suggests at one point in development it was possible to pistol whip enemies with weapons.
• 7) Another screenshot that confirms that there likely really were no female inventory graphics in the game until the last month of development.

Joystick Magazine Coverage

• 

  1) Scan from Joystick issue 47

• 

  2) Scan from Joystick issue 47

• 

  3) Scan from Joystick issue 47

French magazine Joystick issue 47 from March 1994 has some very interesting and clearly extremely early screenshots of the Geoscape part of the game. Oddly there are also pictures from the same parts of the game from much later near-final condition in the article as well. Pictures show:

• 1) A very early version of the base screen, with seemingly placeholder graphics for the base rooms and aircraft, including a simpler triangular design for the interceptors instead of the modern fighter jet appearance they would finally have. The first shot shows the familiar menu buttons on the right hand side of the screen, but what must be the final game's Equip Craft menu is here titled "Interception Teams".
• 2) Shows the same base screen, but with the Build menu open and various facilities placed on the map. This all looks very similar to the final game, only with placeholder graphics.
• 3) A strange screenshot of the UFO activity graph screen. This looks much like the final game's, only the entire background seems to be transparent and a zoomed in view of the earth is visible through it, making it hard to read. The map itself also looks different to the final game.

CD32 Gamer coverage

• 

  1) Scan from CD32 Gamer issue 5

• 

  2) Scan from CD32 Gamer issue 5

• 

  3) Scan from CD32 Gamer issue 5

• 

  4) Scan from CD32 Gamer issue 5

Despite being an Amiga CD32 magazine, the preview coverage in issue 5 of CD32 Gamer from October 1994 has a lot of early screenshots of what is clearly the DOS version of the game. These include:

• 1) An early version of the pre-battle soldier equip screen. The soldier shown has a different face design with a beard! There is also a slightly different looking version of the Heavy Laser weapon. The screen itself is laid out the same as the pre-release demo, with no button to unload ammunition from a weapon, and no "OK" button to exit.
• 2) A picture of the base screen. This seems mostly identical to the final game, but the Hyperwave Decoder here seems to have a different design with a with a grey rather than purple look as in the final game.
• 3) There is a Battlescape picture with the blue control panel yet again. What is more interesting is that it shows a rocket launcher tank in action - and it's actually equipped with a hand-held rocket launcher! It seems the final game missile turret graphic had not been drawn yet, so the tank has a normal soldier's weapon instead. It's also simply called "tank" at this point in development.
• 4) Finally there's an early version of the air combat GUI. It's mostly the same, but the bottom set of buttons is re-arranged - look at that huge Disengage button! The button to show the diagram of the UFO is missing, and it seems there is actually a damage bar for the UFO (as well as one for your craft as in the final game) instead.

PC Gamer UK Coverage

• 

  1) Scan from PC Gamer issue 5

• 

  2) Scan from PC Gamer issue 5

• 

  3) Scan from PC Gamer issue 5

• 

  4) Scan from PC Gamer issue 5

The British PC Gamer magazine was instrumental to the early success of the game in the UK due to coverage in its first issue but especially the very first released playable demo of the game that came with issue 5. PC Gamer issue 5 April 1994 also contains a review of the game that has some early screenshots:

• 1)Has a screenshot of the Geoscape that seems identical to the final game apart from a mysterious option called "Highlight" in the menu buttons.
• 2) Has the bearded soldier graphic as seen also in the CD32 Gamer coverage.
• 3) There's also a strange Monthly Report screenshot where a country has pulled out of the X-COM project. This seems identical to the final game, only there's some kind of bug and the defecting county's name is missing entirely from the sentence, with just a single space visible instead.
• 4) An early version of the Battlescape map screen. This is gold instead of the cream colour of the final game's one, and has a different button layout.

Generation 4 Coverage

• 

  1) Scan from Generation 4 issue 64

• 

  2) Scan from Generation 4 issue 64

French magazine Generation 4 issue 64 from March 1994 has a few early screenshots:

• 1) yet another screenshot of the blue control panel design.
• 2) among small pictures of the various X-COM craft, a picture of the Lightning appears to have a regular alien power supply as found on UFOs in the centre of it rather then the different "human" design used in the final game.

PC Review Coverage

• 

  Scan from PC Review issue 28

PC Review magazine issue 28 from February 1994 has a single picture of the early control panel design with the blue buttons and rank insignia. What is interesting as well is it seems to show an earlier version of the light shading in a forested area that seems more extreme in its darkness than the final game. The preview text also claims that: "the 3D shoot the aliens part is not, says Microprose, the main chunk of the game. There are plans to make it optional a la Starlord, so if it's pure strategy you're after, pure strategy is what you can have." Was the Battlescape really intended to be completely optional at one point of development?