Xenonauts 2 Reviews

over half of the research options, equipment's, and choices to be made are entire noob traps that the community will actively dog on you for falling for. Not sure why you would include 2/3rds of the game when you prescript it all to be a synthetic learning curve of "learn to NOT use this" over and over again.

I enjoy the game. Since it doesn't look like there will be an XCOM 3, I am glad I can play this. The game is unforgiving when you make a mistake, but patience helps a lot. The RNG can be a pain. If you like XCOM games you should like this.

God i hate RNG. God i suck at these types of games. But GOD do i love em. really good take on the XCOM style of games.

its what 'xcom' should have been, im not sure i prefer it over the original original but its nit pick differences rather than almost an entire genre difference. updates have been rolling in frequently and roadmapped openly so yeah +1

So far I have enjoyed the game but I am just a casual player of this and the Devs have been active and everytime I have looked back at the game it has had atleast one if not more "milestone" patches since I last played. if you enjoyed the first one then I feel you will enjoy this one as well and the Devs do seem dedicated to producing a good game so I wouldnt worry to much but as with any early access game it is always a risk. I dont have much else to say positive or negative... I think it overall feels like a better Xenonauts one so take that how you will.

Its okay, good even, my big issue with the game is that you walk into situations completely blind that you shouldn't be blind in, and then get punished for taking too long. and i mean LITTERALY blind, you land your helicopter and dont know whats immediately outside of it, you dont know where your objective is, you don't have the slightest idea of where you are, what terrain your in or whats around, even though you just supposedly landed a helicopter here. like nobody bothered looking out a window for the entire flight or some shit. so you naturally fan out your troops to scout the area, then get fucked because you're too spread out and people aren't covering each other. combine that with time limits and i instantly closed the game. you can't have a gameplay loop that denies information and pushes you to play slow and methodical to avoid permadeaths, and then slap a time limit as a secondary objective that only "partially ends your entire campaign" if you dont complete it. i'm on my first week still in game and i'm at 60/100 doom, gaining 5 doom per day, 100 doom is a lost campaign. and i wont be able to fix the doom gain without waiting ~25 days or so. so unless something changes my first playthrough died before it even really started.

This game has QOL features and game mechanics that no other game has. This is the CLEANEST, most REWARDING, most STREAMLINED version of the XCOM experience, by miles.

With the new Milestone 5 update the game is almost complete and there is no reason to go back to Xenonauts 1 or any of the OG XCOMs anymore. This is a great take on the old school XCOM formula with a focus on tough tactical battles and frequent difficult choices where sacrifices need to be made. Compared to the "modern" XCOMs, this is more focused on the tactical decision making in battles, positioning, plan of attack, etc. There are more units and more strategic decisions. It's less of a cinematic action shooter, and obviously there are no grand cinematics like in the AAAs. The cleaner segment is a great addition to the XCOM formula to ease you into fighting aliens. Mission variety is good and progression feels on point. Their work to add more choices and variety on the world map has been a good direction, it feels more alive to have to fight govt infiltration and worry about some geopolitical activities. The original always felt a bit weird as to why you're the only one bothering to do anything and Xenonauts provides a lot more flavor and background as to what's going on. Simple popups of various army forces and and civilian airliners being destroyed by aliens on the world map also add a fun flavor to the overall setting. Again this is a TOUGH turn based strategy, so a better fit for those who are looking for a more tactical experience. It won't hold your hand like the mainstream titles. You need to use ALL of your equipment that you bring, deploy smokes everywhere, move around in teams with cover fire, and be happy with 50-60% objective completion in the best of cases. Over the last decade I'd say Xenonauts 2 is the best tactical combat turn-based strategy game along with Battle Brothers.

This is the true successor of UFO Defense from the 90s. Yes, it has some issues, still not finished. Basically a lot of the original stuff from UFO Defense is implemented here, but to a better degree. The same feeling of dread is there, difficulty can go crazy sometimes. Soldier types are good, some you could find in the old game through modding. Base building is simple, like in the old game.

I played a little bit of Milestone 4 but ever since Milestone 5 with the varies bug fixes needed to bring it to the stable branch the game is pretty good. (I finished the game on veteran difficulty) PROS 1. Progression feels really good especially early game (they redid the early game as apart of milestone 5) 2. The enemies being very different from each other (especially later on) makes each encounter quite a bit different and you have to figure out how to win with what you brought 3. The strategic part of the game is pretty solid (a lot of waiting but still puts you under a good amount of pressure for pretty much the entire game) (should be said also i was playing on veteran difficulty) 4. Mission variety felt nice especially early on (you get to save civilians, raid some alien ships, and missions related to the cleaners that are unique) CONS 1. The air combat is pretty boring (i used auto-resolve like 90% of the time) though I heard there is going to be an air rework at some point 2. Overwatch I think works pretty well but it takes a while to get used to (it is tied to reflexes and certain weapons like MGs to tend to have much more random spread than other weapons) The game could use a way to better show how effective over watch will be for a person considering how important it is. 3. The damage variation is a bit much, not to the point that it cant be worked around but its still noticable in certain situations (I have specifically run into this issue with laser weapons) 4. The late game felt a little short, as in I would want to spend more time on the alien planet before beating the game (hopefully this will get expanded in an update) I got this game on a 35% sale (pretty sure it is discounted that much fairly often) and at $26 it is defiantly worth the money, maybe even worth full price if this is the main genre your interested in.