Open source strategy game UFO: Alien Invasion has received a large update, upping the title to v2.3 and bringing several new items to the game including added content.

The update, supposedly two years in the making, features loads of new content, a significantly improved rendering engine and extensive improvements to nearly every aspect of the game’s campaign and battle systems. The change log is far too long to post here, so if you want the full monty you can hike over here. If you can settle for the highlights stick around:

UFO: Alien Invasion v2.3

• Complete overhaul of the campaign system, so that alien activity changes depending on the player’s actions
• New capabilities for the rendering engine, including bumpmapping, specular lighting, glowmapping, flare support, texture blending and more
• A new tactical overhead map
• Alien bases have been added and the player can mount an assault on them
• Support for crashed UFO missions
• Overhauls of the map editor
• Loads of new maps and new tiles for existing maps that are randomly generated
• New weapons
• New music and sound effects
• And loads of behind-the-scenes optimizations and tweaks for everything from the pathfinding to the user interface