After telling us “the chances of us making Xenonauts 2 as our next game are better than even” last September, Goldhawk Interactive frontman Chris England has confirmed he and his team are now “definitely” working on Xenonauts 2.
The renewed interested in Xenonauts 2 probably came from the recent hype around XCOM 2. For more on that, check out Jeremy’s XCOM 2 review.
Yes, italicised link above, interest in Xenonauts 2 did apparently come from the hype surrounding XCOM 2, according to the game’s website. Taking to Twitter earlier, England suggested Goldhawk are aiming for a hopeful 2017 release.
Similar to The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, Xenonauts 2 will occur before the events of its forerunner and will take place in an alternate Cold War-era timeline. This will have a direct knock-on effect to the types of alien technology we can expect to see, but Xenonauts 2 will make the jump from 2D sprites to 3D visuals.
“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 [of] remaining faithful to the design of a game dating back to 1994,” says the studio. “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.”
It’s expected that Xenonauts 2 will have an Early Access phase. After the announcement, England tweeted saying “full details along with a proper website, concept art, game universe” will be revealed “in a couple of months.”
Watch this space.