X-Com: UFO Defense / UFO: Enemy Unknown on Windows

Play X-Com: UFO Defense with OpenXcom

X-Com: UFO Defense was the first of many X-Com games, released in 1994. It is also known as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe and Australia. Of course, you can play the original fine with DOSBox. But there's also a source port available that runs directly in Windows 11 and Windows 10, and it has loads of bugs fixed that plagued the original. It also has a lot of new features. And you can play the game in any resolution you want. It's called OpenXcom and it's available for many, many platforms.

Basic needs

So what do you need to play X-Com: UFO Defense / UFO: Enemy Unknown with OpenXcom?

Game data files from the original, unmodded game
Universal patch to update the original game to version 1.4 if necessary (included if you use the Windows installer of OpenXcom)
OpenXcom

Install OpenXcom

Download the Windows installer of OpenXcom
Install OpenXcom by double clicking the downloaded exe file and follow the instructions
Step 1: Make sure the Data patch option is checked, this will update the game to the latest version if necessary
Step 2: Choose the installation folder of OpenXcom
Step 3: Browse to the folder where the X-Com data files are. Don't have the game? Download it now. If you have a Steam copy of the game, the path to the game files will be automatically detected. Otherwise search for your copy of the game.
Finish the installation

Configure OpenXcom

Open the options menu by clicking the options button in the main menu. Take a look at the Video menu in particular, to update your video settings like resolution, whether you can resize the window (change this at display mode) or if you want to capture the mouse (change this at grab the mouse).

Download the rebooted XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown / UFO Defense has been re-released in 2014, 20 years after the original. You can download the XCOM: Enemy Unknown Complete Pack from GOG.com.