Xenonauts - Version 1.0 Released

[Couchpotato]

A new Steam update from Goldhawk has news that Xenonauts 1.0 is available for download, and that the game will be officially launched later this month.

Xenonauts V1.0 Released!


We have now released Xenonauts V1.0 on the Stable branch, which marks the end of formal development for Xenonauts. This is effectively the final version of the game, minus any stability patches that may be required.

Official release and leaving Early Access for the game is in about two weeks (tentatively pencilled in as 16th June), but the remaining time is mostly going to be spent on sending out review copies, the PR around the launch, porting to Mac / Linux and getting the Kickstarter rewards sorted out etc.

We will continue to work on fixing any crashes / hangs encountered in the game, and any non-crash bugs that render the game unplayable in other ways.

We've fixed all the worst issues that appeared over the past few days of community testing, but as the game is 10-15+ hours for a playthrough we've obviously not been able to fully test the game internally after the last bunch of fixes. So there may still be some issues in the game - but if so, they'll be addressed in the next two weeks before the official release.

There have been a lot of changes made since the previous Stable version. The game has a much smoother difficulty curve, more information for new players, new line of sight mechanics, much improved AI and all sorts of finer polish.

The choice is therefore up to you whether you want to play the "final" version of the game now or whether you'd prefer to wait a couple of weeks to make sure any stability kinks have been ironed out. We'll make more of a song and dance about the release when it comes to the 16th, but I thought it was best to explain this update and make it available to anyone who did not want to wait that long!

Thanks for your patience and support over the past five years of development, it's been a long and difficult journey and I doubt we could have got so far without the all help from our community!

More information.

 

[ChaosTheory]

Really looking forward to some early comments about this game... Anyone?

 

[Kordanor]

Played Xenonauts for 48h now (steam played time), about 20h of these in the new Version 1.0.

I think Xenonauts is a nice reincarnation of the old UFO/XCom Franchise which keeps most of the basics of the old game and combines them in more modern functionality. And with modern I mainly mean modern resolution, interface and more sophisticated combat like in Jagged Alliance 2.

While XCom EU becomes more of a boardgame by simplifying some mechanics (cover) and putting more emphasis on a campaign and character progression, Xenonauts really “expands” the old game and improves it where it sees fit. So Xenonauts stays a sandbox game, where you can decide yourself how many missions you want to do, where you can lead 6-12 Soldiers into battle, where you don’t enter an immediate downward spiral if a high value soldier dies, where you can build multiple bases, and where you can destroy big parts of the map.

One of the coolest thing in my opinion is the targeting. In Xenonauts the game shows exactly which way the bullet would travel and which obstacles modify your chance to hit.

You can also fight with your jets manually when shooting down an ufo. This might not be very intuitive on the first look. Best watch 5 Minutes of video how other people do that.

The “weirdest” game mechanic XCom has, is the interruption mechanic. If one unit is seen by the other unit and performs one action after that, this will trigger an automatic fire against this unit. The chance of this triggering is dependent on the reflex value and the remaining movement points both units have.
So I normally use one unit which moves forward slowly, spots the enemies, stands there with 90% of it’s movement points and all the other units stay out of range (for sight) and shoot the enemy without triggering reaction shots.

But all in all it’s a great game!

 

[TomRon]

I've spent about 20 hours on the 1.0 version, and I'm really enjoying it. As remakes go, XCOM was ok in my book, but Xenonauts is much closer to the original experience, and to me that's a good thing. If you haven't played the original some mechanics might be hard to understand at first though, I hope the manual will be good so that new players aren't scared away by the difficulty curve.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

I could really use a larger font size with this one. They said for a long time during development they were working on it, but now I read on their official forums they have abandoned the effort. Shame, that.

 

[ManWhoJaped]

Sounds like it turned out pretty decent. Too bad I missed the kickstarter. I'll have to pick it up at some point.

 

[screeg]

I never played the original X-Com games, but have read a lot about them over the years. From what I've read, Xenonauts hews very close to the old X-Com and is just a flat-out awesome strategy game regardless, second only to Jagged Alliance 2 in my opinion.

As Kordanor mentioned, it's a good idea to watch a video or two about dogfighting before you try it yourself. I didn't find the interrupt mechanic weird. Anyone who plays turn-based strategy games will recognize it.

Chris really put the time (years) into getting this game to market, and also had to face the hugely demoralizing blow of seeing XCOM:EU both announced and finished while his game was in development. Like with any indie game of this kind, there were naysayers who claimed it would never get done (naturally they weren't actually following its development or playing the alphas). Well guess what? It's done.

 

[ChaosTheory]

Ah good. I'll pick it up soon.

 

[ManWhoJaped]

I never played the original X-Com games, but have read a lot about them over the years. From what I've read, Xenonauts hews very close to the old X-Com and is just a flat-out awesome strategy game regardless, second only to Jagged Alliance 2 in my opinion.

As Kordanor mentioned, it's a good idea to watch a video or two about dogfighting before you try it yourself. I didn't find the interrupt mechanic weird. Anyone who plays turn-based strategy games will recognize it.

Chris really put the time (years) into getting this game to market, and also had to face the hugely demoralizing blow of seeing XCOM:EU both announced and finished while his game was in development. Like with any indie game of this kind, there were naysayers who claimed it would never get done (naturally they weren't actually following its development or playing the alphas). Well guess what? It's done.

That must have been a huge blow for him. I had at one point determined to make an X-Com clone instead of what I am doing now, and was THANKING GOD I had not done so after that. Even though the new X-Com doesn't seem wildly popular with the old fans, it would still be an awful occurrence.

Only time I really doubted was when they changed out programmers, for a while things looked bad. But it came through, and for a relatively reasonable kickstarter amount as well. A lot of campaigns with 300k or 500k have not delivered a single thing.

 

[Kordanor]

Could have been much worse. UFO Extraterrestrials2 anyone?

 

[irongamer]

I have 60 hours in Xenonauts and XCOM: Enemy Unknown (the reboot). I also played a lot of the original X-COM back in 1994.

If you are looking to scratch your old X-COM: Ufo Defense itch Xenonauts is the ticket. Xenonauts is basically as true of a remake as you can get, outside the theme changes the game plays very much like the old game but with a vastly improved interface. The new UI is not without its own faults, but it stands up against modern UI design. I do agree that the font is a bit small.

The game has a number improvements borrowed from games like Jagged Alliance 2 where you right click to increase your % to hit (use more TU). Moving guys is very fast, especially compared to Enemy Unknown. If you like to play hot and fast you can get multiple guys moving at once.

Like the original X-COM game this game is VERY addictive. I have to make sure I have nothing important later when I start it up as time just flies by.

I highly recommend Xenonauts if you are looking for a sandbox style X-Com experience that pretty much matches the original titles. It is a great game, I expect to sink another 40 or 60 hours into it now that it is released.

Also if you like to mod there is a map editor, stats editor, and item editor already in existence. You can also download community maps to add more random slices that make up the maps.

 

[ManWhoJaped]

Could have been much worse. UFO Extraterrestrials2 anyone?

I played maybe 5 missions before I couldn't take it any more.

 

[Kordanor]

Ah, no, while I quite liked Extraterrestrials 1, I mean the second game of that series.

Was announced for second quarter of 2010.
Then fourth quarter of 2010.
Then april 2011.
Then september 2011.
Then March 2012.
Then fourth quarter of 2012.
Then fourth quarter of 2013.
After that the project was changed (the name and the setting was set to Mercury) and it was scheduled for Q2 2014.
And the latest change was to Q3 2014.

 

[ManWhoJaped]

Oh, right. I forgot about that. The first had some problems and mods fixed a lot of it, I just couldn't get into it because I spent so much time in meta mode.

I had no idea ET 2 was still allegedly under development. I gave up on that years ago.

 

[HiddenX]

Bought this game