TouchArcade Rating:

Check the thermostat in Hades, friends. When 2K put up a notice that they were pulling down their terrific strategy XCOM: Enemy Within ($4.99) from the App Store pending a compatibility update, I was pretty sure we had seen the last of it. After all, that was sort of the same thing the publisher had said about Bioshock, at least for the first couple of years it was broken. Unlike that sad tale, this story has a happy ending. XCOM: Enemy Within is now back on the App Store, with a spiffy new 64-bit update to make it compatible with the latest version of iOS. I’m eating a plate full of crow, friends, and it has never been so tasty.

Prior to this update, XCOM hadn’t been touched since December of 2014, just one month after its release. While its debut was shrouded somewhat after 2K made the controversial move of pulling the original Enemy Unknown app to sell the expanded version Enemy Within as a separate app, most players were quick to forgive due to the game’s incredible quality. When the sunsetting of 32-bit apps started to become a regular topic of conversation around these parts, XCOM was one of the first games that people were worried about losing. Well, it looks like it’s safe for the foreseeable future, at least.

Good on 2K for keeping to their word on this one. I imagine that the other game mentioned in 2K’s update plans, Civilization Revolution 2, will also see an update soon. It does beg the question of whatever happened to Bioshock, however. Was that fix really so much more complicated than these ones? The three games apparently all had the same (now-defunct) developer, so there must have been something in particular that kept that game from being updated beyond the team going bust. Well, I suppose there are some mysteries that even UFO conspiracies can’t solve. Best to just enjoy the fact that we can continue playing XCOM ’til the cows are beamed home.