‘Xenonauts 2’ is coming to Early Access in the first half of 2023

Hooded Horse has confirmed that Xenonauts 2 is due to launch in Early Access in the first half of 2023 – check out the gameplay trailer below.

The sequel to 2014’s turn-based science fiction video game Xeonauts was first announced in 2016. A very successful crowdfunding campaign followed in 2018, with Hooded Horse receiving almost £200,000 of their initial £50,000 goal.

The developers said the game would be released the same year, before pushing the launch of Xenonauts 2 back to March 2019. It was then delayed once more. “We’re making good progress on the game but in its current state I feel like we’re not ready for Early Access yet,” said developers Goldhawk.

More delays followed, due to Goldhawk managing to “secure additional development funding and this gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of when we launch.”

“Ultimately, this is the best decision for the game and one which will enable us to come into Early Access with something much more polished and complete,” they added.

After a series of successful beta tests, publisher Hooded Horse has now confirmed that Xenonauts 2 is due to launch in Early Access in the second quarter of 2023. A demo is available to play now though via Steam or GOG.

A new gameplay trailer has also been shared, which can be seen below.

Speaking about the betas, Goldhawk said: “The response has been really good so far. Thankfully, the initial response to the game has been almost universally positive (i.e. nobody saying that they didn’t enjoy the game, or that it felt too similar to Xenonauts 1 to be worth playing) but we’ve also received a lot of useful feedback about what people do and don’t like about the game.

“Stability is generally pretty good but there’s still a LOT of bugs reported that we’re currently working through – every bug fixed makes the game feel better to play!”

According to the Steam listing, Xenonauts 2 is a “vast single player strategy game in which you control a multi-national military organisation defending our planet from alien invasion.”

In other news, Piranha Games president Russ Bullock has confirmed that the studio has “another MechWarrior game in development,” and says fans can expect a full announcement later this year.