$24.99Xenonauts Command the whole war
Run a Cold War defence against alien invaders, from interceptor scrambles to turn-based ground battles.
Is Xenonauts worth it?
Xenonauts is worth it if…
- you enjoy slow, punishing tactics where a mistake costs a soldier
- you like the classic 1990s X-Com formula, old mechanics included
- you want a strategy game where no two campaigns play out the same
- you take pleasure in reverse-engineering alien tech and turning it against them
- you prefer managing a whole war, not just the battles
Screenshots
Turn-based combat where every move counts
Ground missions are slow, careful and tense. You move a small squad across realistic battlefields where sightlines, cover and time units decide who lives: spend your action points on a long run or keep some back for an aimed shot. The battlefields are fully destructible, and the enemy outguns you badly, since you are fighting intergalactic invaders with 1970s ballistic technology. Missions range from clearing crashed UFOs to defending cities, and there are almost fifty enemy variants to learn the hard way. One concrete joy: handing two fast soldiers a pile of C4, priming the fuses, and watching half a factory's walls stop existing. When it goes wrong, it is usually because of a decision you made.
Running the war from above
Between missions you coordinate the defence of the entire planet. Customisable interceptors scramble to shoot down UFOs, and the air combat is a proper tactical fight rather than a formality, which matters when your jets are outmatched. Money is limited and everyone wants a share: funding nations, scientists, new equipment, wider coverage of the globe. Neglect a region and the UFOs will notice. A world casualty counter on the map keeps reminding you what is at stake.
Soldiers you will lose
Your soldiers persist from mission to mission, growing from green rookies into ranked veterans as they survive firefights. You will learn their names. Then a burst of plasma fire ends a career in one bad move, and you send the next recruit through the dropship door. That expendability is the point: it makes every decision heavier, and it means the war does not snowball against you when someone dies, because replacements exist. Veterans are better, never safe. If a base defence goes badly enough, you will find yourself cheering for garrison rookies you forgot you had.
Can you play it solo?
Can you play it solo?
Yes, it is a singleplayer game through and through. You run the entire organisation alone: the strategy map, the research, the interceptors and the ground squads are all yours, with no scripted missions pushing you along. Just broad rules set the pace of the invasion, so the war unfolds differently each time you play.
Is it too hard for someone new to the genre?
It is demanding. The old-school systems, time units, permadeath soldiers and a strategic layer that punishes neglect, take a few missions to click, and the game expects you to think before you move. If you bounce off a mission or two at first, that is normal. Once the systems click, the difficulty is the appeal: when something fails, it is usually your own plan that failed.
How long does a campaign take, and does it hold up for replays?
A campaign is a long project, and many people come back for another run months later. Because nothing is scripted, a second war genuinely differs from the first: where UFOs crash, which nations get hammered, what you research first and who dies along the way all change the story you end up telling. The retro pixel look also means it runs on modest hardware.
