Xenonauts 2
XENONAUTS-2 is a vast single player strategy game in which you control a multi-national military organisation defending our planet from alien invasion.
Battle the extraterrestrials in tense, complex turn-based combat across a variety of maps and missions, recovering and researching their technology to unlock new weapons and equipment!
Take a global view with the real-time strategic management layer: you must establish and develop your bases, conduct research, battle for air supremacy and try to keep the panic level in your funding regions under control.
The strategic and tactical layers of the game are directly related, with ground missions affecting the overall balance of the Geoscape and your research efforts on the recovered items unlocking new equipment for your squads and aircraft. Every management decision you make filters down to the troops you control in battle; every shot you fire could change the balance of strategic power.
Can you hold off the invasion long enough to discover a way to defeat the alien forces?
No knowledge of the previous game is required to play – XENONAUTS-2 is a standalone title with its own setting and narrative.Key Features
- Ground Combat: The highly-detailed turn-based combat system gives you fine control over your soldiers as they battle the aliens across multiple different mission types and numerous varied environments. The day / night cycle and destructible battlefields open up endless tactical possibilities to defeat your enemies, and your soldiers will grow stronger as they gain combat experience – provided you can keep them alive!
- Strategic Management: A complex strategic layer allows you to coordinate the defence of our planet. Establish bases to extend your reach and use customisable interceptors to shoot down attacking UFOs, then deploy your soldiers to secure resources. Capturing crash sites can secure alien technology and live specimens for research, whereas protecting regions from alien activity and terror attacks will protect your funding and prevent them surrendering to the aliens.
- In-depth Simulation: The structure of Xenonauts-2 is not linear; no two campaigns unfold in exactly the same way. Every element of this complex interlocking simulation has been designed to create maximum coherence between the strategic and tactical layers: small decisions can have an impact across the entire game.
- Extensive Tech Tree: XENONAUTS-2 contains a vast variety of aircraft, vehicles, weapons, armour, and battlefield equipment for you to experiment with. and a deep research tree with over a hundred projects to unlock. Play the game the way you want to play, devising your own tactics and strategies to defeat the extraterrestrial threat!
Key Improvements from XENONAUTS-1
In addition to the new modular upgrade systems mentioned previously, here is a very small selection of key changes and enhancements:
- Improved visuals across all parts of the game, including full 3D tactical environments with a rotatable camera!
- A more detailed and immersive Geoscape simulation incorporating greater player choice and stronger elements of territory control!
- More environments and maps to fight in – including our new Jungle and Boreal biomes!
- New aliens have been added and many existing ones have been redesigned, all of which will benefit from our new and improved AI system!
- A larger research tree with more lore and an expanded variety of equipment for your soldiers to use in battle!
Steam User 450
I'm a Xenonauts 1 veteran and I've been playing Xenonauts 2 in closed beta for about 6 months now.
There's something very special in this game that I just can't quite put my finger on. It's still far from perfect and has a bit of jank in it's unfinished visuals and sounds, but still, it captures my attention and imagination the way few games can.
It might just be how it perfectly combines the tough, complex and demanding old school tactical gameplay with modern UI with superb quality of life additions.
Also, the perfect simulation this game runs under it's hood with real, roaming alien AI, fully destructive environments, and UFO's flying around the globe, each performing by their own secret agendas, is so much more complex and system driven than anything in any similar game before. It's just fascinating to see things evolve organically and gives X2 almost endless replayability.
On the other hand, Xenonauts 2's dry, low key realistic mil-sim atmosphere is something rarely seen these days as most games try to constantly up the ante with grandiose hero fantasy and boombastic presentation. However, bigger and flashier is not always better, and I simply love the kind of restrained vision Goldhawk has for this game.
Xenonauts 2 is still a work in progress and some 9-12 months away from the 1.0 release. About one third of the game's later content is still missing, while map variation, AI and general polish need some love. However, even in this somewhat unfinished state, it's still the best classic XCOM experience I've had with super addictive gameplay, nice modern 3d-engine, tons of content, intriguing plot and one of the best soundtracks in it's genre.
I also have to mention that Goldhawk and their main man Chris England are special people. This is clearly a work of love and passion for them. It can be seen in the way they tweak every little nuance and detail as long as it needs for it to be perfect. It's also how they communicate with the players and listen to our feedback to really make the game the best it can be. I have no doubt this will be a masterpiece and a timeless classic I'll play for years and years to come.
Five out of five.
Steam User 144
I am an old x-com player and die hard fan of the genre.Normally I am lazy when it comes to reviews but
must admit that the Dev's of this game deserve our support.they work tirelessly with regard to updates and fixes and engage their player base .They actually take note of suggestions and comments.I believe also that every attempt is made to capture the spirit of the original X-Com. Us old X com fans are a tough crowd but
I wish to add my support to Xenonauts 2 and the Dev's that I think ROCK!.
Steam User 178
The Xenonauts game series is probably among my most treasured and favorite games. Xenonauts 2 is basically an upgraded, more modern and more advanced version of the original, so people that played the first one can get right in with the second one without any issues. The game is hard yet rewarding and fun.
Basically, the game is very highly inspired by older X-COM games, with a focus on individual soldier stats and a freeform inventory and a loadout system instead of classes and perks like the newer X-COM games. You also get to manage exactly what kind of aircrafts you use along with their armaments, so there is a lot of room for tailoring your troops to your exact needs.
This is by far the one thing i find most interesting for Xenonauts; You can carry as much or as little equipment you want, you can equip whatever guns, ammo and grenades combination you want with the main restrictions being weight and size (as you have a limited inventory size for all soldiers). Want to have a guy with an LMG and a shotgun as secondary? Go for it! A guy with nothing but grenades? Sure! A dedicated medic with lots of support items? No problem!
And you can have as many or as few of those loadouts. You could have 10 soldiers all equipped with shields and pistols, it's up to you. All loadouts are entirely customizable and you can easily create your owns.
Another thing that i love is that the game doesn't have a perk/ability system like in recent X-COM games. There is no "Deal double grenade damage" or bogus "If you hit the guy once, you can hit him once again for free" perks, as it's all based around skill stats instead (Bravery, Accuracy, Health, Reflex, etc...). This gives the game better predictability and prevents the apparition of meta perks that you really must get in order to get OP abilities. Your soldiers will simply get better as they rank up, being more accurate, more brave and being able to carry more stuff as well.
And again, with this kind of system you can swap loadouts and roles for soldiers as needed. Need an extra sniper? You can convert your shotgun guy to the role without issues.
Combat is fun, hard and entirely tactical. You can destroy walls, cover, use nearby objects to trigger explosions, etc... You can place soldiers in key emplacements, setup MG's/snipers in vantage points, create ambushes with explosives and more. Aliens are cunning and deadly, and you get lots of different types and variants to keep you on your toes.
Then there's the Action Points systems, which uses a large point pool system instead of the strict "Two moves" system from the recent X-COM games. So if your soldier has 80 AP, you can move or shoot as many times as you want as long that you still have AP remaining (Shooting is based on percentage, while moving and rotating is fixed at 2-3 AC per case and 1 point per 45 degree turn). It,s basically much less restrictive and completely opens up your tactical choices and stategies.
This also means that you can take more than one shot on enemies (depending on the weapon and situation), so the classic "Missed an enemy at 95% hit chance, gotta reload the save" doesn't really happen since you can easily just take more shots to compensate, or move your soldiers back to cover.
Then there's the missions themselves, which are typically mostly the same as the X-COM missions (Terror attacks, UFO crash sites, alien bases, etc...) along with a few, more specific mission types (such as when finding and investigating the "cleaners", a faction of humans controlled by aliens). While honestly they could be more missions types and more variety on that aspect, the game clearly has the basics to have more added.
I think the biggest flaw so far with the game probably come with the modding support. Right now, it's not officially supported (I'm very sure it will be in the future, as it was one of the Kickstarter goals), which is understandable as the devs are focused on developing the game itself first and then add mod support. But i would still urge the devs to add mod support to the game as soon as they can, as mods are often a very attractive aspect to any game for most gamers, and allow players to tailor the game to their own expectations and needs, remove annoying aspects, etc...
The game is also obviously not completed yet. There is quite a bit of content still missing, some corners of the game are janky and unfinished and there's still a lot of work to be done with the AI and systems in genreal. Despite all of that, X2 has been insanely fun
Steam User 60
Between QoL upgrades like rotatable camera and fire previews, more mission/enemy variety and better graphics i'd say xenonauts 2 is now at a point where its better than xenonauts 1
Steam User 81
6 years of development and we still can't take cover behind corners
Steam User 52
Having played the first game,It is a major improvement across the board.
Some notable changes:
+ Enemies no longer have a superior sight range,meaning you don't get sniped constantly by things you can't see
+ Combat in general feels more fair,soldiers (usually) don't die in one shot,but enemies are more numerous
+ The AI no longer cheats,previously it could see you through walls
+ Aliens no longer camp in the same spot and are more aggressive,resulting in more engaging gameplay
+ Soldiers are easier to replace
+ Alien types are actually unique now
+ Different weapon tiers have more differences than just bigger numbers
+ You can rotate the camera!!!!!!
- You no longer get to field tanks
- There seems to be a lot less focus on the air aspect of the game,previously planes were a top priority
- A large portion of the enemies spawns right outside the dropship,meaning the fight is very intense at the start,while the rest of the map is relatively empty
- I still have mixed opinions on this,but many missions now have (fairly short) time limits
- Weapon types feel less diverse - machine guns are no longer immobile death lasers,but are more mobile and less powerful like the assault rifle,for example
Steam User 37
Hope! With Milestone 2 having just dropped today you can tell how much the devs are listening to the fan base.
Nearly all of my gripes against the game have been addressed in some way or another, buy this if you've never played Xenonauts 1 or want to truly support development. Otherwise, hold off until full release.