En bref. Goldhawk Interactive vient d’officialiser le développement de Xenonauts 2, projet qui était déjà en discussion dans le forum du studio depuis plus de six mois. Si il est encore bien trop tôt pour de premières images, sachez quand même que le jeu passera au moteur 3D Unity tout en conservant bien sûr ses principales caractéristiques : combats tactiques en tour par tour, choix stratégique via un Geoscape, ou encore combats aériens. Concernant le contexte du jeu, il se situera toujours pendant la période de la guerre froide, et concernant le gameplay, vraisemblablement les aliens seront plus corsés, pouvant mieux s’adapter aux tactiques et aux technologies qu’utilisera le joueur. A noter que les mods ne devraient pas non plus être oubliés, le nouveau moteur graphique devant faciliter les choses.
Un communiqué et un site Web complet viendront préciser les choses d’ici quelques mois. D’ici là si besoin vous pouvez vous inscrire à la newsletter sur le site www.xenonauts2.com.
Annonce
GOLDHAWK INTERACTIVE CONFIRMS XENONAUTS 2
Xenonauts 2 entered full production at the start of this year and is currently slated for a 2017 release.
We are planning a full announcement for the game in the next couple of months that will be complete with a website, concept art, the universe lore and our full vision for the gameplay. However the excitement created by the imminent release of XCOM 2 has also generated interest around our plans for the Xenonauts franchise, so we felt this was a good moment for us to confirm that we are working on a sequel and release a few high-level details about the game.
Xenonauts 2 will not be a chronological sequel, rather it will cover similar events taking place in an alternate timeline – an alien invasion occurring in a Cold War-era Earth. This means humanity does not start with the advanced alien technology unlocked in the first game, and we also have the freedom to subtly alter the story, setting and enemies in order to make a more interesting sequel.
We will cover our planned gameplay changes in more detail in our full announcement, but we have these broad areas of focus:
– Game Engine – using Unity3D will give us a much more capable platform for development than our previous engine, so expect fewer bugs, improved performance, better modding support, etc
– 3D Graphics – moving from 2D sprites to 3D graphics will improve visual fidelity, but will also be valuable for gameplay – it allows for things like rotating cameras, vastly improved animation, physics objects, accurate projectile tracking, etc
– Ground Combat – we will be retaining the Time Unit combat system, and will enhance the interface and giving the player additional tactical options: destructible UFOs, better use of terrain verticality, human psionics, etc
– Geoscape – we want to add a lot more strategic choice for the player with regards to the research tree and how they choose to expand their organisation (there was definitely too much strategic railroading in the first Xenonauts)
– Air Combat – redesigned to be turn-based and to feature larger numbers of combatants, with the goal of making it a less frequent occurrence but more tactically involved when it does happen
– Aliens – we are visually and mechanically redesigning all of the enemies, and creating a more intelligent and challenging foe by developing gameplay systems that allow the aliens to respond and adapt to your tactics and technologySome 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 remaining faithful to the design of a game dating back to 1994. 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.
The community that came together around Xenonauts was an invaluable asset through the development process and we will be making every effort to keep them involved with the sequel. An Early Access phase will allow players to snag the game at a discount and shape the development process with their suggestions and feedback on the alpha builds, but this will probably come a little later than it did for the first game – people expect more from Early Access games these days! Anyway, we’ll give more details about our plans when we put out the full announcement for Xenonauts 2.
