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This is the fifth hotfix for V27 and should be the last. This update does not break save games. Changelog: Added artwork for the Quantum Teleportation and Mentarch Interrogation research projects. Added updated research text for various research projects, including Alenium Explosives, UFO Hull Plating and Observer UFO. Fixed a crash that occurs when you try to start an Alien Base mission. Fixed most types of dead enemy units standing up in a T-pose if you loaded a save game. Explosions that don't inflict damage (e.g. smoke grenades, flashbangs, etc) no longer destroy items on the ground.

Easily the best direct explanation covering why the development of this game (and many games, honestly) takes longer than planned. Especially with the drastic change in a lot of core mechanics that were originally planned that were found to be just... not fun to play. I'd much rather wait longer to play a game I enjoy, than wait less and get a drastically reduced amount of "fun time". Backed the Kickstarter way back when, and I've been nothing but proud to see the dedication of the whole team when it comes to communicating directly with the community and sticking to what they believe will give us, the players, the best experience possible. I'm no game dev, nor have I had any really similar experience that would give insight into how the dev team feels, but I still have a strong hunch that no development team WANTS to delay a project. It's when they MAKE that hard decision and take the step of telling all the fans, supporters, etc., that they really show true dedication to their standards and morals. Can't give enough props to this team for working much longer than was expected, and still consistently being open about both the progress and delays. Not a lot of teams can claim that. Not a lot of teams have the same passion this one does. No other team could make the game that this team is making.

@Chris Same issue 90% loading crash user_alien_base_90_percent_loading_crash-39.json

The main reason is that there's not much we can actually re-use from Xenonauts 1 in Xenonauts 2, other than ideas - and ideas aren't really the time consuming part of development. What that means is that creating X2 from scratch takes longer than creating X1 from scratch, because it's a larger game overall as it contains every feature from the first game plus a bunch more stuff we've added, and because it's a higher quality product and it takes a lot more time to produce something that is higher quality than something that is medium quality. Also, we spent a good couple of years working on a vision of Xenonauts 2 that was quite different to the final form of the game (lots of it described on our Kickstarter page) that just turned out not to be much fun to play. So we either had the choice of putting out a bad game, or changing the design to something better and throwing away a load of work. It's a sequel in the style of a Civilization sequel - it's not a fundamentally different story or set of mechanics, it's the same basic formula with a bunch of upgrades. Evolution rather than revolution. You'll have to decide for yourself whether the game is enough of a change from X1 to be worth buying, but I personally think it's a big upgrade over X1 (although I own quite a few different Civilization games so maybe I'm biased).

Thanks. Yeah, I can reproduce this - we'll get it fixed and put out a hotfix.

I don't think that's a particularly accurate reflection of the situation. You say "a decade" but the Kickstarter wasn't even five years ago, and as a backer you can literally download a build of the game right now and play it all the way to the final mission. Clearly it's taken longer than we'd like to get here, but it's hardly Star Citizen territory.