Xenonauts 2 (1.0) Review for Steam

Xenonauts 2 1.0 Review for Steam

Developed by Goldhawk Interactive I Published by Hooded Horse

TL:DR The best piece of advice I can offer is save and reload. A lot. 10/10

Xenonauts 2 is a turn-based tactical strategy game developed by Goldhawk Interactive and published by Hooded Horse (who have been on a sci-fi kick!). It spent nearly three years in Steam Early Access before reaching its 1.0 release on April 2, 2026. I didn’t play the early access, and I’ve never played XCom, the game it is most often referenced with, so I really had no idea what I was picking up.

Despite knowing absolutely nothing about the game, I was pleasantly surprised to pick up the controls and feel like I was coming home. Because I might not know XCom, but I do know Final Fantasy Tactics. I lived and breathed FF Tactics from 2005-2010, and it’s still downloaded on my phone. And what I learned playing Xenonauts 2 is that a tactics game is a tactics game, whether you’re up against aliens or Knights Templar.

And because of that, I can confidently say, Xenonauts 2 is perfectly difficult.

Yes, that is a weird sentence, but it makes sense if you’ve played a good tactics game. In Xenonauts 2, no matter how “good” you get, no matter how levelled your soldiers or powerful your gear, if your battle plan and positioning are trash, you are going to lose.

Story

The game puts you in charge during a Cold War-era alien invasion of Earth. You run the Xenonauts, a secret global defense group that exists because normal armies are not built for what is happening.

The campaign is split into five phases, each with its own story briefing that explains how the invasion is growing and what that means for your group. In the early game you are running more of a shadow war that most of the world doesn’t know about but by the end you are leading humanity’s open fight against a full invasion.

Running alongside the alien story is the Cleaner plot, which gives the early campaign a lot of its shape. The Cleaners are a human paramilitary group working with the aliens (though it’s unclear at first if it is willing or mind-controlling). Tracking them down gives you a clear goal during the first months of the campaign, taking you through office raids, leadership grabs, and ambushes.

The story ends with Operation Endgame that takes place on an alien planet, where you will face off against the Eternals, the alien leadership.

Gameplay

The game has three arenas. Players will fight on the ground, in the air and also have to manage their bases. Understanding how each one works matters, but so does understanding how they feed each other. Losing soldiers on the ground costs you skill and power. Losing aircraft in the air costs you resources and radar reach. Losing grip on the big picture costs you both.

Ground Combat

The basics of ground combat are, well, pretty basic. Combat is turn-based with a Time Unit system. Every action draws from a TU pool that resets each turn. Soldiers level by being in the field and surviving missions, which makes keeping them alive a real concern. A fresh rookie cannot just step in for a seasoned vet, and that skill gap will only grow as the game progresses.

Tip: If you lose a soldier just reload. As many times as it takes.

Time Units govern how far a soldier can move, not how many times they can fire per turn, since attacks work on a percent basis. A soldier with low Time Units who stays put will still get the same number of shots as someone with far more. Accuracy is what it sounds like, though some weapons like shotguns have a bonus at close range that makes accuracy less important. Strength affects how much a soldier can carry. Soldiers also build strength by carrying heavy packs, so keeping soldiers near their weight limit during missions pays off. Reflexes control whether a soldier fires on overwatch. Bravery ties to morale and how well a soldier resists mental attacks (important when you start encountering more powerful alien types).

The first turn of a mission is often the most dangerous. Aliens start at full Time Units, sitting in cover and ready to fire overwatch, so moving without a clear read of the situation will get soldiers hurt.

Tip: Before you deploy, you can drag soldier icons around the dropship and right-click to change which way they face. Soldiers will get line of sight on nearby threats, giving you useful information before anyone has spent a single Time Unit.

Cover only protects within a tight angle directly behind it. A soldier behind a rock is not safe from an alien coming at them from a side angle. Shields work as portable cover. One of your soldiers will be assigned as the “shield” in the early game, and you should take advantage of this! A soldier with a shield, crouched in front of a squad mate means the soldier behind can fire over the shield without taking an aim penalty.

Crouching cuts the enemy’s hit chance and it is absolutely worth spending the 4 Time Units. Smoke cuts accuracy too, which helps when moving soldiers under fire, but do not move your own soldiers through it or they will take stun damage.

Tip: Hurt enemies need less stun damage to go down. Knocked out enemies can be brought back to case and “questioned,” which opens up research bonuses.

The game doesn’t give a lot of tips about how soldiers level, besides they do it on the ground. Something to keep in mind is that soldiers will build strength by carrying heavy packs making it worth it to fill them up with gear. Just do not go over it, since too much weight cuts a soldier’s total Time Units.

Also, the MARS vehicle hits hard, but those kills don’t count toward soldier leveling, so it works better as a fire support than a front-line fighter. It can also be used as cover just like a shield soldier.

Air Combat

Before your soldiers get on the ground, someone has to bring the UFO down, and that happens through air combat.

Taking on UFOs puts you into a real-time mini game.

Tip: If a UFO is spotted over water, tail it until it crosses over land before you engage. UFOs that go down over water cannot be recovered.

Downed UFOs offer gear and bodies to dissect, which helps feed research and engineering at your bases.

Okay! Complete transparency… I haven’t really engaged in air combat since there is an Auto-Resolve option, and I can always reload…but it looks fun!

The Strategic Layer

Time in-between missions is spent on the Geoscape, a world map where you handle base building, aircraft tracking, and research choices.

Tip: Place your base to cover as much land as possible. Not like me. Who put it on an island. In the middle of nowhere. (It was the RPG player in me! I thought a secret organization should have a super secret base location!)

Bases need power management, with different buildings drawing on and producing energy. Your base needs generators, radar arrays, hangars, labs, work shops, medical rooms, and training rooms, and where you place them matters because buildings give bonuses to the ones next to them.

One thing the game does not make clear is that taking on more scientists or engineers also requires bunk space, not just the lab or workshop itself.

Tip: If you build a new lab and you still cannot hire more scientists, it’s because they need beds.

Funding for base building comes from six global regions and is tied to how panicked each region is. A region that hits 100 Panic stops paying you, though you can win it back by bringing that number down. After finishing the ATLAS Base mission, you also get access to Operation Points, a second type of resource that can be spent on making regions happy, fighting alien infiltrators in regions, or bonuses to help reduce the Doomsday counter.

Tip: Early in the campaign, spend Operation Points keeping the Doomsday counter in check. If it reaches 100, the aliens win.

Players can have more than one base, but growing too fast can cause its own problems. A second base brings a second set of things to defend. Moving there before you can pay for it also can push resources past the point of no return. (Anyone who played Manor Lords knows exactly the devastation that can happen when you expand beyond your resources. Check out my Steam Early Access preview HERE)

Research follows a tech tree moving from basic ballistic weapons through accelerated, laser, gauss, and fusion tiers.

Tip:You can research weapon upgrades, or items that will forward the plot. Don’t neglect the upgrades! The aliens are going to get stronger.

Engineering projects turn Alloys and Alenium from crash sites and missions into weapons and armor. Going back to look at soldier loadouts as new gear comes in is worth the time, since carry weight you are not using is carry weight going to waste.

Overall

10/10

Xenonauts 2 is the kind of game that players will start, and then, thirty hours in, will restart, because they finally understand how to play. That kind of depth is what I have come to expect from a Hooded Horse publication.

I never played XCom or any XCom likes before, but I can already see how someone could spend the next five years playing and replaying Xenonauts 2.

Xenonauts 2 is available for PC via Steam.

Related: Reviews by Lord Tevildo

Lord Tevildo

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Equal-opportunity gamer goblin.
Completionist role-player, lore-lover, stealth archer for life.
I review games by intent, audience, and design, not marketing or hype. I forgive ambition and value games that trust the player to think.
Big nerd. No apologies.