UFO: Aftermath is a 2003 real-time tactics/turn-based strategy video game created by ALTAR Interactive. It is a homage to the X-COM game series, with roots in the unfinished game The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge. It was followed by two sequels, UFO: Aftershock (2005) and UFO: Afterlight (2007). The game's concept is similar to the unreleased X-COM: Genesis. The player assumes the role of commander of the last humans left on Earth and guides the forces through the crisis to eventually overcome the alien threat. UFO: Aftermath combines global strategy with tactical missions, including an RPG-style approach to each soldier's attributes and skills. Gameplay Rooted deeply in the X-COM series, the game combines elements of strategy with squad-based tactics. The game consists of two alternating phases: a strategy phase in which players control and expand their organizations, and a tactical phase in which player-controlled units battle alien enemies. The strategic phase allows players to outfit their troopers for action, acquire new equipment and personnel, and conduct research to enable the production of more advanced equipment. Mission markers pop up on the globe, indicating locations where a team can be dispatched to battle. Players may expand their territory by winning battles, allowing more access to resources. The tactical phase is real-time combat. All combatants move and act simultaneously, rather than using turns. Players can pause time or have the game set to automatically pause on certain events and issue orders to their troopers. In a deviation from the X-COM series, the battlefield is presented in fully rotatable 3D view. Plot In May 2004, a giant spacecraft approached Earth. Hovering over the planet, it released large clouds of spores into the upper atmosphere. Rapidly multiplying, the spores soon darkened the skies, obscuring the sun completely. This period is known as the "Twilight". Having reached critical mass in the skies, the spores began to rain down, clogging the streets and bodies of water, smothering people in their homes and burying animals in the wild. During the "Nightfall", as it would come to be called, most of the higher life forms on earth were wiped out. During the Twilight, all human responses were futile. The governments of the world chose caution over aggression, not realizing how quickly the end could come, and were buried. However, a few survivors sealed themselves in underground bases with stocks of food and oxygen. After several weeks, the spores seemed