For Xenonuats 2, what type of personality are the developers trying to go for? It seems it might be similar to the first one. If so, then it seems like its going to have a conflicted personality, which means the more subtle things like the music, artwork, and atmosphere won’t quite match the vibe of this game. I want to make it clear that I really enjoyed this X1, but X1 personality sometimes took me out of the experience and it could happen again with X2.
With xenonauts 1, its was a hard core focused tactical experience with heavier inspiration from the military, which gave me the impression it was supposed to be more realistic and grittier, and to some extent show how horrifying fighting aliens really is. This was reflected in the gameplay, which is nice because it makes it more distinct from the original xcom.
However, the game’s artwork’s was very comic book like with a brighter color palette to match. This comes off as more light hearted than a military simulator should seem. It likes the difference between frank miller’s comics vs the 1950’s batman comics. The music, while good, came off as very light hearted too, there was no tension in the music. For instance, the air combat music had a very positivish vibe, which conflicted with the fact that your trying to fight off an alien squadron.
Lastly, the aliens themselves felt conflicted due to the artwork and to some extent the models. None of them seem intimidating, at all. Granted, from a gameplay perspective some of them are terrifying. I’m not saying the models need to look vicious or need gruesome animations but the color palette needs to be darker. I’m not quite sure ift the problem is just with this or some the alien enemies themselves. Perhaps a new enemy type could be made to push a more gruesome, viscous vibe?
I believe most of these aspects could be changed but having a darker color palette, slightly more gruesome, gritty, realistic artwork, and a more tense/erie focus on the music. This would definitely make xenonaut’s more dintinct between fireaxis xcom 2 and the original. For some inspiration, take a look at Metro 2033, Metroid ( especially super Metroid), and halo reach. For enemy inspiration, take a look at Doom & Aliens (especially 3 and the 2016 remake ). For instance, imagine if the aliens took human corpse and turned them into a enemy similar to the revenant.