File:XCOM Enemy Unknown, illustration of the combat UI.jpeg

A screenshot of the combat phase (as opposed to the tactical/anthill phase) of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Depicted is a "terror mission", a mid to late game variant in which the objective is to rescue as many civilians as possible. At the top of the screen is a counter showing, from left to right, the number of unaccounted for civilians, the number of rescued civilians, and the number of killed civilians.

For the explanation below, note that Cpt. Banes is in the middle right of the map, behind the pillar, with the yellow shield next to him.

The bottom left corner shows details of the selected unit, in this case a soldier with the assault class (indicated by the skull in the diamond) with the rank of Captain (indicated by the oddly shaped object with three stars in it to the far left) with the name Andy Banes and the nickname "Lime" (which I chose because he's wearing lime colored armor, and it's gaudy as hell). The three boxes below his name (two with knives in them) are Cpt. Banes' abilities, which are gained one per rank. The six boxes above the name are, from left to right, end turn, soldier info, previous soldier, next soldier, rotate camera left, and rotate camera right.

The middle seven boxes are the actions that Cpt. Banes can perform. From left to right they are fire, two special abilities, overwatch (fires when enemies move), reload, throw grenade, and bunker down (increase defense).

To the bottom right is the weapons Cpt. Banes is carrying. The oddly shaped one on the left is a laser shotgun, the one on the right is a pistol. The black tip on the right side of the laser shotgun indicates the percentage of ammunition that has been used up in the weapon. (Ammunition is unlimited, but needs to be reloaded). The two red alien face logos above the pistol indicates that Cpt. Banes has a firing line on two aliens (only one of which is in this screenshot).

In the center of the screen is the information about Cpt. Banes' health (he has 19 health, indicated by the 19 blue trapezoids), number of moves he can make (indicated by the two long blue arrows), and state of will (the blue bar separating the health from the moves turns to a red heartbeat if Cpt. Banes loses his will and becomes panicked). The full yellow shield indicates that he is under full cover but is flanked, meaning that ordinarily he'd have a high level of protection from enemy fire, however there is at least one enemy at an angle that the cover does not protect from. The soldiers on the bottom with blue half shields have partial cover, but are not flanked, and the soldier on the bottom with the full blue shield has full cover and is not flanked.

The line extending from Cpt. Banes towards the green alien in the bottom left is a proposed move line (its end is where the mouse pointer would be if it weren't invisible on screenshots). The red shield against the pillar indicates that the proposed move would normally give Cpt. Banes full cover, but gives him no cover because the alien is at an angle that the pillar does not shield from. The full blue shield on the other face of the pillar indicates an area that would give Cpt. Banes full cover without being in the alien's firing line. The oddly shaped blue box on the floor is the area that Cpt. Banes can move to using one move.

The area behind the alien, where the police car is sitting, is in fog of war, meaning that the player cannot see enemies or even terrain features in that area yet.

I took the screenshot myself, from my copy of the game.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

One frame from a 30+ hour per play-through game.

Reduced by 50% from my native screen size.

To illustrate the UI of the game.

No freely licensed replacement exists.

Added a SnagIT image file with annotations based on the above description.

XCOM Unknown Enemy Displays & Symbols