The truth is out there - Xenonauts 2 Quick First Impressions

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it if you’re jumping up and down at the thought of fighting off another alien invasion, tactics style, but skip it if you want a complete campaign right away. Xenonauts 2 arrives in early access, and it includes what the devs describe as sixty-five percent of the full campaign at launch. You can keep playing indefinitely, but the story will halt at about two thirds of the way through, which translates to about ten to fifteen hours of campaign to play at the outset. Don’t let that scare you off if you’re a long-time genre fan, though: Xenonauts 2 is another love letter to the original X-COM: UFO Defense, with slicker visuals and some nice quality of life improvements over the original Xenonauts.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve put about two hours into Xenonauts 2, and I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen so far. In many ways, this is another no-frills adaptation of the 1990s-era X-COM games, and that’s a good thing—it’s exactly what Goldhawk Interactive has set out to do. You might think of Xenonauts as another evolutionary branch from the old MicroProse XCOMs, the other branch represented by Firaxis’ wildly popular XCOM and XCOM 2. I’ve intercepted two UFOs and sent my brave soldiers out on several missions, which have included eliminating aliens and scouring an outpost for data on “the Cleaners,” a group of human enablers helping the aliens in their secret infiltration of Earth’s governments.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Classic tactics, more options. There’s no 3D slickness in Xenonauts 2, but while it passes on modern graphics, it adds a lot more control over what your soldiers do in combat. I’ve enjoyed the return to an action points-based system over the popular two action turn system found in the later-gen XCOM games. I could adjust how far a soldier was running, for example, to make sure they had enough time left to fire off a quick shotgun blast as they rounded a corner. Crouching, facing, reloading, and more all cost AP, and with a bit of planning I could get a lot more out of my troops each turn.

It also gave me more options each time I wanted to attack. If I had time to get a sniper set up in an ideal location, I could use the bulk of their AP the next turn to take a carefully aimed shot across the map, with a good chance of taking my target out. With assault troops, I could sacrifice accuracy for multiple wild shots in a single turn, which was great when I was up against a room full of bad guys.

• Tough, but fair. So far, I’ve found Xenonauts 2 to mostly play by its own rules. I’ve gotten caught by surprise several times, but every time that happened, I realized that I had failed to check the corners of a room before barging in, or I had ordered a soldier to cross a long sightline without knowing what was on the other side.

• Old look, new feel. Xenonauts 2 has classic looks, but generally speaking, I found that it was very intuitive to control. There are a couple areas where things get fiddly, but by and large its mouse-driven interface feels slick and responsive.

• Cool story. The setup is the standard “aliens are conspiring to take over the world” stuff, but Xenonauts 2 makes it interesting with its alt-history version of a Cold War that never ended. The characters I met as I took command were larger than life, but they’re dryly funny in a way that worked well for me. I’m curious to see where the campaign goes.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

• UI jank. While I’m mostly impressed with the way Xenonauts 2 updates the UI/UX, there are still a couple things that trip me up. Placing soldiers around doors or other interactable elements in the environment was always tricky, and at times I found myself wishing I could turn off walls just so I could tell where exactly a soldier was standing. I also wanted a better indication of which soldier I had selected, because there’s very little indication of that at a glance, and it was especially tough to figure out who my active soldier was if I had been looking at another part of the map to plan moves or shots.

• It’s incomplete. Since Xenonauts 2 is in early access, I won’t be able to play the entire campaign for a while. That’s not a problem for me, but it’s important to know if you’re considering buying in right now. It’s already a solid game, but if you want the whole thing, you might as well wait for some campaign updates.

💬 Will you be taking command of Earth’s last line of defense against the alien menace, or are you content with the more modern spins on the XCOM formula? Let me know in the comments.