Xenonauts 2 on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Wage a global war of resistance against an alien invasion. Command turn-based tactical battles, build a network of covert bases, directly control your fighter wings, and achieve strategic victory in a simulation of asymmetric warfare against a technologically superior foe.
Xenonauts 2 is a strategy, simulation and turn-based strategy game
developed by Goldhawk Interactive
and published by Hooded Horse.
Released on July 18th 2023 is available only on Windows
in 11 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Polish and Portuguese - Brazil.
It has received 2,952 reviews of which 2,371 were positive and 581 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.8 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 39.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.
The Steam community has classified Xenonauts 2 into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows® 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4300M / AMD® Athlon™ II X2 250
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 630 (2 GB) / AMD® Radeon™ HD 6670 (2 GB) / Intel® HD Graphics 4600
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 5 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
tl;dr Xenonauts 1 is the more complete game, but Xenonauts 2 has much better features. I think Xenonauts 2 will be the better game once it is finished, but it is already an excellent game and shows clear improvements over the first. As of July 2025 most of the development of the game is finished. I played my first campaign on Normal/ Ironman and achieved a victory, only seeing three instances where the game was incomplete (all of them just missing artworks/ one typo). I plan to edit this review after beating the game on its highest difficulty, and adjusting my thoughts if that experience changes them. I played most of Xenonauts 1, and I consider it to be the better game, but there are a lot of things Xenonauts 2 improved upon. Namely, X2's accuracy breakdown on shots, the explanatory tooltips that let you study game mechanics mid-mission, the "aim preview" that allowed you to check a shot's accuracy from a different position before committing to movement, and the ability to rotate the map to view terrain from different angles are all fantastic and incredibly helpful. These are the strongest aspects of X2, as they all help the player better inform their decisions and learn how to get better at the game without as much trial and error as X1. Xenonauts 2's flaws are similar to X1's. The cover system seems intuitive at first, but can give inexperienced players a lot of false confidence in regards to how protected their soldiers really are. Understanding the Time Units system, Cone of Vision, and Reaction Fire mechanics are crucial to keeping soldiers alive, and ignorance of these can lead to a lot of confusion when movement blunders result in soldiers dying to an unseen alien. The general strength of the aliens relative to your own soldiers can also frustrate players from games like Xcom EU/EW/2, where humanity's finest are much more powerful. Thankfully, all of these flaws can be ironed out as you get better at the game. Mastery of mechanics will allow you to overpower the aliens with ease. There are several other reviews criticizing the time-crunch mechanics present in Xenonauts 2 compared to Xenonauts 1, but I think this is just frustrated players coping. The vast majority of the missions have no time limits or pressures, and allow you to move at whatever pace feels most comfortable to you. There are a handful of story missions that do have some form of time crunch, usually in the form of infinite reinforcements, but these missions are both easier than the untimed missions, and are great at communicating when the consequences of spent time will occur. There was also some complaints about the Doomsday Clock strategic game-over mechanic, but I found the solutions that the game provided for dealing with it to be more than generous. My Doomsday clock never exceeded 50%, and the Doomsday Clock goes away once the Alien Invasion begins, replacing your strategic game-over condition with the traditional increase in panic/ loss of 2 funding regions . Some other reviews brought up some criticisms that I thought were valid. I would like options for soldier customization, and while I don't plan on utilizing mods, I would like mod support. I would also love to see some randomization of the mission maps. The developers have shown intent to implement many of these features in later updates, so if these are important to you, I would wait to purchase until the game's full release.
Expand the review
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.
Expand the review
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.
Expand the review
I absolutely love classic X-COM. This is a really good modern version of that same model that I love so much. Does Xenonauts 2 do something new? Not really, at least not yet. I'm still waiting for revamped interceptions, but even then that won't do too much and there aren't any other milestone goals that I know of that will step outside the tried and tested formula. But it doesn't have to for me to love the game to death. I would recommend this game to anyone who loves X-COM UFO DEFENSE or for anyone who wants to see a little bit of what playing the original game was like. Some things I would like to see improved on: - Faster load times - More campaign customization. (Looking for a Long War type experience) - Base planning or recommendations. Losing in the strategy layer always sucks and it's hard to see where you go wrong, especially for new players. Giving a little bit more information and planning tools could help players make better choices and see where they go wrong.
Expand the review
Great potential. I don't want to play it any further until the game is complete. Mostly so I can enjoy the full experience and not burn myself out before then.
Expand the review
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Frequently Asked Questions
Xenonauts 2 is currently priced at 39.99€ on Steam.
Xenonauts 2 is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 39.99€ on Steam.
Xenonauts 2 received 2,371 positive votes out of a total of 2,952 achieving a rating of 7.76.
😊
Xenonauts 2 was developed by Goldhawk Interactive and published by Hooded Horse.
Xenonauts 2 is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Xenonauts 2 is not playable on MacOS.
Xenonauts 2 is not playable on Linux.
Xenonauts 2 is a single-player game.
Xenonauts 2 does not currently offer any DLC.
Xenonauts 2 does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Xenonauts 2 does not support Steam Remote Play.
Xenonauts 2 is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Xenonauts 2.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 09 September 2025 02:20 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 08 September 2025 14:57 |
| Steam price | 13 September 2025 20:49 |
| Steam reviews | 13 September 2025 06:07 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Xenonauts 2, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Xenonauts 2
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Xenonauts 2 concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Xenonauts 2 compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
136
Developer
Goldhawk Interactive
Publisher
Hooded Horse
Release
18 Jul 2023
Platforms
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