With Xenonauts 2 soon coming out in early access (18 July), I thought I would give it another go and give my impressions. The reason that I’m able to play it now already is that I was a backer on Kickstarter. It has been an incredibly long road since then with many up and downs. But I’m glad the end is near, as a release is finally approaching, even if it’s only the early access kind. So, how is it, is it worth the wait? Will it be a better game than Xenonauts?
Well, that’s hard to say, because some stuff I think is better, like the 3D engine switch, and some additions to the upgrade agent system and such. I will not go into too much detail since things seem to change all the time. But I like the armor system, which adds a lot of individuality to the units that you equip. Do you give them increased armor, or give them a better chance at aiming? Things like that are always good, but other than that, Xenonauts 2 is very similar to Xenonauts, to a fault, while replacing some parts that made the first game cool with something much more generic – and “gamified” aspects.
The alien invasion premise, for example, is almost exactly the same as the first game, but the cool 80s cold war setting has been deleted for something modern and generic. You don’t even get a date now, just days counting upward from the initial invasion. What’s the timeline? Where are we? Are we in the future? The only clue here is that the Icelandic incident still happened in a way, however, the events since then have played out differently. This has me thinking that we might be in an alternative timeline from Xenonauts, and maybe we even get to travel through the dimensions. It would be cool if we somehow got a glimpse into the original timeline if this now is the case. Anyway, besides my speculation there isn’t much to the current setting, you are just dropped into this bland world without any identity to kill aliens and stop their invasion. On top of that, missions have been made much more gamey, as now you got missions with turn limits. For example the rescue of the five civilians -kind. That mission in itself makes no sense since you have to travel there across the world, which would make the time limit run out, and when you are there, there are always five to save, no more, no less. And it doesn’t matter if they die or live. When you have saved a civilian from their stasis field, they are fair game for the aliens. If they manage to kill them – so, what? You have already “saved” them from the stasis pod. It’s a bit weird, and very gamey. Look, I don’t mind different missions per se, but I prefer them to make at least a little sense in the setting. One of the reasons I praised Xenonauts in my review is because of its sandbox nature. Sure, you can spice up the objectives, but why must it feel so… off?
Another huge issue that was part of the first game that unfortunately made its way over here, is that the maps are still not randomly generated. This was one aspect I thought was going to get fixed now with the engine switch and everything, but it was not to be. Now, I have played Xenonauts 2 a couple of times before, long before the upcoming early access release, so I have seen the maps a few more times than most I would think. For a new player, everything will be new and fresh of course, however, the main problem here is that you don’t even need a new campaign session for the maps to start repeating. Certain town maps, and rural areas I must have seen at least ten times by now. This is probably one of my main issues with Xenonauts 2, and, unfortunately, it kills much of any repeatability. It’s just so boring trudging through the same old maps that many times, applying the same tactics each time. I don’t think they will ever make randomly generated maps for Xenonauts 2, but hopefully, they will make a ton of maps as a replacement.
A few other problems are how abstract the shooting feels for something that is supposed to mimic the original X-com. Covers provide aiming reduction instead of blocking, except for solid walls that is. Those actually provide full body coverage and block line of sight. Taking cover is a total crapshoot, and I guess it was the same in Xenonauts. However, the issue here is that aliens are super accurate and that game was in 2D. I’m thinking it might be a bug because they seemingly don’t seem to be affected by debris in their line of sight. They will shoot the hell out of your agents from across the map, while your guys can’t hit the broad side of the barn if something is in the way. Accompanying this is that the damage range of weapons seems pretty high. You would think researching and building armor for your men would provide them with a chance to live, but most of the time it will not be so. Regular human forces, with regular human ballistic weapons, will still be able to kill your guys with one or two shots, so what’s the point of armor now again? I’m thinking it’s a balance issue, yet, it’s a bit frustrating seeing your top man in freshly researched heavily armored gear gets taken out by a dude in a suit with an MP5 submachine gun.
While the combat is fun, as most of the feeling from the first game still remains, Xenonauts 2 does have a few issues like this that have me concerned. Another final problem I will mention is how dead the game feels in the beginning. Nothing much happens, with no easy tasks to build up your men, and then suddenly you will be thrown into missions that require speed and precision to be successful. After that, it’s basically open season, because the alien will become powerful fast, while you are just getting the hang of the mechanics (if you are new). I’m honestly not sure what is going on here, but luckily, it’s only an early access release which means they will get plenty of feedback to change things for the better.
I’m not saying Xenonauts 2 is bad or anything, and if you liked Xenonauts, you will probably like this one, however, to me at least, it’s not that pure fun upgrade over the first game which I hoped it would be. Not so far. Time will tell how it all pans out, and hopefully, improvements are on the horizon, because despite my negativity I want Xenonauts 2 to succeed and become a grand game in the X-com genre, and eventually replace Xenonauts as the go-to game in this franchise.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Blog 