Xenonauts 2 - Could be in Development

[Myrthos]

At the Goldhawk forums a post is made about Xenonauts 2, which they are thinking about to develop. In th epost an overview is given of what they have been working on, like improving the aliens.

Aliens: We're working on redesigning the aliens from Xenonauts 1 to make them more interesting, both visually and in terms of the core mechanic for each race. We've got some new ideas for all of the races and we've got some concepts done for the updated Sebillian and Caesan designs that look quite a bit more "alien" than before.

We're playing with the idea of making the Caesans a hive consciousness, with weak drones (above) and more threatening officers. The officers get significant bonuses in combat for each nearby drone, and there is a single collective psionic power attack performed each turn. This might lose power as more Caesans are killed, or perhaps it just gets stronger each turn to encourage the player not to turtle when fighting Caesans (or possibly both).

The Sebillians might have their regeneration turned up to eleven to make them more interesting to play against. At the end of each alien turn, all Sebillians will return to full health ... but in exchange, every time they take damage their maximum health falls by, say, 25% of the damage sustained. However, getting a Sebillian down to 0 current health will only temporarily incapacitate them and they will stand up and start fighting again after two or three turns.

To actually kill a Sebillian you need to reduce its maximum health to 0, but units will get significant bonuses when aiming at an incapacitated Sebillian. Getting up close and empting a few rounds into it would finish it off pretty quickly ... but trying to do it at long range is much harder, so it gives these guys a passive semi-resistance against sniper tactics.

Thanks Eye.

More information.

 

[screeg]

Xenonauts is a worthwhile game, no doubt, but what a draaag the land war is. There are something like 20 different maps, all of which you will learn in excruciating detail over the course of 60 or 80 missions. Most of those maps were created (volunteered) by a talented community member and it's a good thing they were. Without the added variety it would be straight-up unplayable.

 

[Archangel]

Their plans for Xeno2 will change that I hope
I did more than 120 mission to finish it on hard ironman.

 

[Deleted member 18181]

http://www.pcinvasion.com/xenonauts-2-is-in-production-for-2017 w00t

 

[rune_74]

I need to play the first one more, but this is good news

 

[Couchpotato]

Here is the early announcement from Goldhawk Interactive.

GOLDHAWK INTERACTIVE CONFIRMS XENONAUTS 2

Xenonauts 2 entered full production at the start of this year and is currently slated for a 2017 release.

We are planning a full announcement for the game in the next couple of months that will be complete with a website, concept art, the universe lore and our full vision for the gameplay. However the excitement created by the imminent release of XCOM 2 has also generated interest around our plans for the Xenonauts franchise, so we felt this was a good moment for us to confirm that we are working on a sequel and release a few high-level details about the game.

Xenonauts 2 will not be a chronological sequel, rather it will cover similar events taking place in an alternate timeline – an alien invasion occurring in a Cold War-era Earth. This means humanity does not start with the advanced alien technology unlocked in the first game, and we also have the freedom to subtly alter the story, setting and enemies in order to make a more interesting sequel.

We will cover our planned gameplay changes in more detail in our full announcement, but we have these broad areas of focus:

Game Engine – using Unity3D will give us a much more capable platform for development than our previous engine, so expect fewer bugs, improved performance, better modding support, etc
3D Graphics – moving from 2D sprites to 3D graphics will improve visual fidelity, but will also be valuable for gameplay – it allows for things like rotating cameras, vastly improved animation, physics objects, accurate projectile tracking, etc
Ground Combat – we will be retaining the Time Unit combat system, and will enhance the interface and giving the player additional tactical options: destructible UFOs, better use of terrain verticality, human psionics, etc
Geoscape – we want to add a lot more strategic choice for the player with regards to the research tree and how they choose to expand their organisation (there was definitely too much strategic railroading in the first Xenonauts)
Air Combat – redesigned to be turn-based and to feature larger numbers of combatants, with the goal of making it a less frequent occurrence but more tactically involved when it does happen
Aliens – we are visually and mechanically redesigning all of the enemies, and creating a more intelligent and challenging foe by developing gameplay systems that allow the aliens to respond and adapt to your tactics and technology

Some of the issues in the original game were caused by our lack of experience / lack of early funding, whereas others were caused by the constraints remaining faithful to the design of a game dating back to 1994. The experience and income we have accumulated from the development of Xenonauts mean that we can make a sequel that significantly improves and expands on the first game – and this time we can be more innovative than before.

The community that came together around Xenonauts was an invaluable asset through the development process and we will be making every effort to keep them involved with the sequel. An Early Access phase will allow players to snag the game at a discount and shape the development process with their suggestions and feedback on the alpha builds, but this will probably come a little later than it did for the first game – people expect more from Early Access games these days! Anyway, we’ll give more details about our plans when we put out the full announcement for Xenonauts 2.