Hooded Horse and Goldhawk Interactive have announced the Xenonauts 2 Early Access release date. The alien-slaying strategy sim will deploy into Early Access across Steam, the Epic Store, and GOG on July 18th, so get ready to mobilize the troops and hope that you don't lose too many on your first mission.
Originally announced all the way back in 2016, Xenonauts 2 harks back to the glory days of the original XCOM; not the 2012 reboot, but the old-school, hard-as-nails first game in the series. Set during an alternate-history 2009 in which the Cold War is still raging, Xenonauts 2 will have you managing multiple bases, researching alien technologies, and taking part in turn-based strategic battles to decide the fate of the planet.
As publisher Hooded Horse says, Xenonauts 2 isn't really a direct sequel to the original Xenonauts; it's more of a reimagining of the formula, complete with "a modern engine, a new setting, and refined mechanics" that should please both strategy newcomers and longtime hardcore fanatics alike.
If you're an old XCOM hand, there might be a few things you need to unlearn for Xenonauts 2. For one thing, soldiers have no classes; you can simply change and customize their loadouts to give them different strengths and weaknesses on a per-mission basis. You can build bases anywhere in the world, and you'll need multiple installations to combat the aliens' efforts, but watch out; they'll attack your bases just as often as you bring the fight to them.
It's fair to say that the original XCOM - as well as the original Xenonauts - could be pretty unforgiving, so hopefully this one will bridge that all-important difficulty gap. Either way, Xenonauts 2 launches for PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG on July 18th. It's not clear how long the game will stay in Early Access for just yet.