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Dear Goldhawk Interactive, dear reader, this first post aims to present my personal thoughts about Xenonauts 2 and the path the game takes from the information that is given until now, but I invite you to discuss the matter, disagree with me, add points or do whatever you feel appropriate. I am not an expert in the first game (I am still in my first campaign), neither in the old XCOM games (I played a bit of Afterlight and Aftershock), but I am quite familiar with XCOM: Enemy Within, Long War and XCOM 2. However, I really enjoy Xenonauts and I want the second part to be a success. Xenonauts 1 aimed to recreate the feeling and gameplay of the original XCOM (or UFO). I cannot really comment on how well this goal was achieved, but I like the outcome. Xenonauts feels like a solid and round gaming experience, which has some rough edges that I generally take to be amicable characteristics that make the game stand out rather than flaws. From what I have read so far (and I have read the majority of forum threads here) X2 wants to reimplement X1 with better graphics, smoother gameplay and better story. That involves leaving out a fair chunk of mechanisms (which in itself is not bad; "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."), including vehicles (or at least the bigger than one tile ones from X1; entities like drones or SHIVs from XCOM EW might be there), the workshop/lab duality, the story driving research, multiple bases the consequential progression of your area of influence, and troop transport aircraft. Other mechanisms are altered, like the base layout (slots instead of a grid), the air combat (from single aircraft to squads, more tactical), a perk tree for your soldiers unlocked by 'achievements' in the engagements for soldier progression, the randomized tactical map layout, story and goals for the player and the aliens. New things also are to be added, like the Psionics system for humans (which already was in the original XCOM) and more mission types. You, Goldhawk team, have established a new franchise with Xenonauts, that primarily was there to satisfy gamers that wanted that 'old XCOM' feeling back. Most of the ideas I read about X2 point in a direction of cutting everything that did not work well in X1, and adding mostly better graphics, comfort and story and its related mechanisms. Your crowd of people are players of the old XCOMs and openXcom for the most part. I think, in general, they are like me in believing that better graphics are nice, but secondary at best. Comfort functions are good and in some places direly needed (like showing which obstructions my shot will have from a certain location). Story in a 'real' Cold War setting is very promising, but from what I read, this might not be all that well implemented. The bottom line here for me is: you take a bunch of choices we had in X1 (paragraph of things cut) and seem to not replace them. Strategic and tactical games are all about choices the player has, even more so if they are turn based (as you have unlimited time to choose). Where is our East vs. West balancing? If the Aliens try to weaken mankind, the most obvious way would be to make the Cold War go hot. Where are our benefits in more aligning with the Soviets or the Capitalists (i.e. making more missions for them, strengthening their military and independence)? Why are there 5 slots each for management, research and military in the base? Why not make all slots available and let the player choose what he wants to build in them? With more buildings than slots, these will still be meaningful decisions, just more free than in your plan. Why are soldier perks collectibles that are tied to achieving something on the battlefield? There is no real choice there, a sniper will always have to ramp up kills to get these aim perks. What about achievements that give us choice of perks? What about trade-offs of the type '+5 aim, no damage grenades'? Just fulfilling mini missions in the missions is not a real choice, at most a choice of prioritizing. Why have multiple weapon tiers when there are clearly better ones? Instead of limiting our use of tiers by imposing an artificial ammo infrastructure on us, why not make them differ more? Laser weapons could be more accurate and long range, plasma could penetrate armour better, mag weapons could have a chance to panic the enemy, coil guns could have a higher chance to suppress. Even if damage increase during the game should be a thing, why can we not upgrade these systems to have similar damage output in the end to use these unique properties? Why can our soldiers have all their TUs with 30kg of equipment and less if they carry more, but not the other way around? Why only one base raid mission when the aliens clearly could start multiple attempts? Why not a choice between translocator or troop transports? Or both, but none of it that well. In X1, I built one base with only scientists and a second with only engineers to help their respective output and keeping the infrastructure streamlined. I also had multiple bases with squads in order to answer to multiple simultaneous UFOs shot down. Not all players have one main base in X1 and only bare bones secondaries for scanner coverage and pilots. With only one base, fixed slots for buildings, instant deployment and access to the whole globe from the beginning, you leave a hole in our decision space that should be filled by new, meaningful and thematic choices. I have read little here that resembles these filler choices. Sure, the whole stealth vs. going loud aspect of the geoscape is interesting, but inevitable. You only choose the point in time you do it, and this choice will vanish with experience (namely knowing when you are ready to take on the base assault). What X1 missed for me was some comfort (like waiting for dawn before going on a mission and the already mentioned shot preview) and more equipment (night vision, smoke vision, heat vision, armour that makes you harder to hit, repair kits for shields, more rocket variants, a camera drone to scout, ...), not that R&D were one and the same or a perk system instead of the rank ups and stat increases. I know from experience that one's own vision of a product can differ vastly from what a customer might want, and I am just one of them, so please take this post as what it is meant to be: one person's opinion. Just take away from this wall of text that there are people out there that care for depth more than they care for a shiny wrapping. And depth in video games is usually created with meaningful choices. Best Regards, Dagar