UFO:Afterlight is the third game in the series, which takes place after Aftermath and at the same time with the Aftershock storyline and tells about the struggle of humanity against an alien threat. The backstory says that 50 years ago, all people on Earth almost died out as a result of a merciless war with mutants and aliens. As a result, the Earth Council was forced to make peace by finding compromises with the invaders. According to this condition, part of the remaining people were taken from the planet into its orbit, so that there they could repair the reticular ship, Laputa, and live on it. And the rest move to Mars, leaving their native area forever. More than 10 thousand colonists are in cryosleep, waiting for a small group to build a base and make it habitable.

First you need to select an area for development. By pointing at any area, you can view the amount of resources on it (metal, fuel, chemicals). There are many locations to choose from, about 15, and each of them has its own name: Arcadia, Arabia, Kydonia, Baltus, Brazil and others. For a better understanding of the mechanics and principle of UFO: Afterlight, a huge reference book is provided, which contains all the necessary information about technologies, premises, objects, fighters and history, which are divided into many sub-items. For example, the latter branches into Characters, Meetings, Advice and Miscellaneous, which in turn into History, Planet Mars, Tips on strategic, tactical play and personnel management).

The areas are monotonous in appearance and are represented by sections of the red planet, three of which initially belong to humans, but the rest still have to be captured. The center of the empire is the base, divided into sections. Gradually they can be built up to suit your needs. Basic buildings are available from the very beginning: a laboratory for research, a factory for production, a garage for travel, a tank of water that is chasing from the North Pole and a construction complex that is used to build new buildings. The main reserve is manpower – people or humanoids. A person is a very limited asset, since you cannot find new ones in an uninhabited world. The player really values ​​them and does not waste them. Of course, there is a reserve in cryochambers, but it will take more than one year to defrost them. So you definitely shouldn't rely on them.