The X-Files Collectible Card Game

The following editions and expansion of The X-Files CCG were developed and released by USPCC:

• Premiere (November 1996) – This first edition of The X-Files CCG had a print run of roughly 80-million cards.[14] The set contained 354 distinct cards. Card images and concepts were taken from the first two seasons of the X-Files.[15]
  • The starter decks came with both Basic and Advanced rule booklets, with some cards being marked with a green "X" in the upper left corner indicating they were intended for Advanced games only. Each 60-card starter deck came with one of five 20-card banded packs "keyed to one character", plus 40 random common, uncommon and rare cards.[15][16]
  • Booster packs contained 15 random cards. Ultra-rare cards could be found only in booster packs, randomly replacing one of the rares in the pack. Ultra-rare cards included photo variants of Agent Fox Mulder, Agent Dana Scully, Agent Alex Krycek, and Assistant Director Walter Skinner, as well as cards for Deep Throat, X, The Lone Gunmen, and such pivotal events from the first two seasons as seen on "Dana Scully, Abducted" (when Scully is taken captive by Duane Barry in "Ascension" (2x06)) and "Skinner Chooses a Side" (when Skinner confronts Mr. X inside the elevator in "End Game" (2x17)).
• 101361 Expansion (1997) – This 125-card expansion set, named after Fox Mulder's birthday,[17] contained images and concepts from the third season of the X-Files. The set included five ultra-rare cards, and was notable for including no Combat or X-File cards. The 125-card set was sold in 12-card booster packs.[17]
• The Truth Is Out There (1997) – This 354-card set, named after the tagline from the show, is the second edition of the core set. Thirty cards were removed from the Premiere list, including all ultra-rare cards and some problematic rare cards, and replaced with a new set of rare and ultra-rare cards.
  • The release of The Truth Is Out There (TTIOT) Edition served to address collation problems and general complaints regarding the Premiere Edition. Firstly, the 41 X-File cards were only made available in the starter decks, which alleviated the problem of users acquiring an inordinate amount of these non-playable care from booster packs. Secondly, the 50-card banded packs were better organized, and the backside of each TTIOT starter deck box featured a hole that revealed a number between 1 and 6, to better inform the buyer of which distinct cards were found within.
  • In order to make collecting more attractive and to make certain scarce cards more readily available, the rarity of many cards (most notably the Sites) was changed from rare to uncommon, or vice versa.
• Promos (1996, 1997) – Over twenty promotional cards were made available through various gaming magazines, such as Scrye and Inquest. Unlike the regularly released cards, the Bureau File Number begins with "PR" rather than "XF". The "Teamwork" Event promo card was available as a box-topper for the 101361 Expansion. Two non-English promos, "Die Hand Die Verletzt" and "Je Vois Quelque Chose Là Au-Dessous" were available in Germany and France, respectively. Although its Bureau File Number lacks the customary "PR" prefix, The Truth Is Out There version of "The Gregors" was inadvertently omitted of TTIOT Edition (a mistake for which David Scott Frank (III) has claimed partial responsibility[18]) and the card was subsequently released as a promo.

A couple hundred copies of this 60-card demonstration deck were used at Gen Con '96 to attract potential players. These demo decks were intended to be returned following the demonstration and subsequently destroyed, however some were not returned and have occasionally surfaced for sale on eBay and within Facebook groups dedicated to the game. There are two versions of the Gen Con demonstration deck, one that was banded together, and the other contained in a white box labelled "Top Secret/Classified". These cards possess number of unique features that make both versions of these rare decks highly sought after by fans and collectors, such as the following:

• Preliminary layout designs, and rough-looking Conspiracy and Resource Point graphics.
• The backside of these Gen Con cards reads, "For Demonstration Purposes Only".
• Two of these demo cards, "Alien Technology" and "Fighter Interceptor", were later released as promotional cards.
• Alternate images on many of the cards, most notably "Dana Scully", "The Cigarette Smoking Man", "Abduction", "Poltergeist Attack", and "High Resolution Camera".
• Alternate titles, such as "Paper Shackles", "Nokia 121 Cellular Phone", and "Frozen Submarine, Alaska".
• The most notable of these 60 cards (and most sought after) is "Scully's Dream, Georgetown, MD" (which was later revised to "Northeast Georgetown Medical Center, Washington, DC").
• Each card is individually numbered, in the format "XF96-00XX GCon".

This unfinished 138-card expansion set, named after Scully's birthday, was primarily based on the third season of The X-Files (but included a small handful of cards derived from the show's two earliest seasons). No Equipment cards were included as part of this set, and only one Combat card was planned as a promo. Notable highlights of this planned expansion included the following:

• Agent cards for such memorable characters as Agent Frank Burst ("Pusher"), Lt. Brophy ("Pusher"), and Detective Glen Chao ("Hell Money").
• Adversary cards for such formidable foes as the Black Oil ("Piper Maru"/"Apocrypha"), the robotic cockroaches ("War of the Coprophages"), Big Blue ("Quagmire") and the army of cats seen in "Teso Dos Bichos".
• Numerous Bluff cards that made it easier to play Adversaries.
• Several Event RESOURCE cards that doubled the cost of the attacking Adversaries.
• Three promo cards--"Warrant Served" (Event), "Interrogations", (Event), and "Backbreaker" (Combat) were planned as part of this expansion's release.

Cards and items that were designed, but never saw official release, are discussed below:

• Pewter Agent Fox Mulder and Agent Dana Scully (ca. 1997)  – Little information is known about these cards. According to one source, these cards were intended to be sold as a special promotion or collector set, and orders were already being taken, when the game was canceled. A prototype card apparently appeared on eBay somewhere between December 2004 and January 2005, and one viewer mentioned "the asking price had too many zeros". A total of 5 pewter cards were created. 3 for Fox Mulder and 2 for Dana Scully (also referred to as the medusa due to unflattering look of Gillian Andersons character). The whereabouts of 4 of these pewters is currently known with the 5th being, "somewhere in Europe" as indicated by David May, one of the game's alpha playtesters.[19] According to graphic design professional Lynette Schmitt, a third pewter for "The Cigarette-Smoking Man" X-File card was in progress.[20]
• Donruss Prototype Cards (ca. 1996)  – These extremely rare prototypes, developed by Donruss and NXT Games in 1996, featured early iterations of the cards as full bleed (or borderless) printings. The backside of these prototypes indicates the game was originally titled "The X-Files Interactive Card Game."