Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gimli]

www.xenonauts2.com

www.goldhawkinteractive.com

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 technology

Some 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."

-

I like the cold war era setting, but why they had to change to 3D/Unity3D? 

[Sonlirain]

My guess is that they wanted more detail and better graphics... and in some ways the original kinda looked like a flash game in some places.

Anyway it's mostly economy i guess. Look at Gmod and source film maker. Once you have a model going animation is (relatively) easy but with sprites you need to draw dozens if not hundreds... and detailed sprites take time to make.
And naturally a different set of sprites for every set of armor and weapon type (because the soldier holds a rocket launcher, rifle and LMG differently)

Simply put 3D is cheaper to do if you want more detail... because frankly high quality pixel art is surprisingly expensive.

[Mephansteras]

Haven't played all that much of the first, but still interested to see how this turns out. I'll probably get it, provided it isn't garbage.

[ChairmanPoo]

I heard that one problem with Xenonauts 1 is that the engine they licensed is not under development anymore, and that hindered using it further...

[Aklyon]

I heard that one problem with Xenonauts 1 is that the engine they licensed is not under development anymore, and that hindered using it further...

Basically, when they started the programmer they had really wanted to use this one engine. It turns out that was a terrible idea and horrible choice of engine but it was too late when they figured that out without tossing all of their work out.

[Krevsin]

The one thing that bugged me about Xenonauts was the boring and bland alien designs, so I'm glad to hear they're working on that. Throw in some upgrades to the UI and you have a GOTY contender as far as I'm concerned.

[gimli]

I heard that one problem with Xenonauts 1 is that the engine they licensed is not under development anymore, and that hindered using it further...

Yeah, it had problems, but the game was decent overall, especially with the XDivision mod. [I prefer the game over the Newcom games, but I haven't played with X-Com 2. yet..]

PS. More info on the X1 engine problem [Chris England - Lead Designer]:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What is the Xenonauts engine? Is it your own development? Why you decided to use exactly this technology for your project?

The engine is a very old piece of technology called Playground SDK 5. Honestly, it’s terrible — it was chosen for us by the very first programmer who worked on the project.

He no longer works for us, but we decided not to start over when we replaced him with somebody better. In hindsight, that was the wrong decision (we should have changed to Unity) but it’s too late to change it now, unfortunately. Our bad engine is actually one of the biggest problems we’ve had during development.

[Dorsidwarf]

<3

Scott Manley's playthrough of Xenonauts 1 was godlike.

[Ozyton]

My guess is that they wanted more detail and better graphics... and in some ways the original kinda looked like a flash game in some places.

Anyway it's mostly economy i guess. Look at Gmod and source film maker. Once you have a model going animation is (relatively) easy but with sprites you need to draw dozens if not hundreds... and detailed sprites take time to make.
And naturally a different set of sprites for every set of armor and weapon type (because the soldier holds a rocket launcher, rifle and LMG differently)

Simply put 3D is cheaper to do if you want more detail... because frankly high quality pixel art is surprisingly expensive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they actually created 3d models for the first game, then sent them to a third party that basically went through and rendered them at certain angles and touched them up to look like pretty sprites. Full 3d will probably make the animations more fluid, but might not have the same spriteworky aesthetic. They even specifically said that when people fire their weapons it's not actually using a 3d space to calculate where the bullets go. In a 3d game you can do that much easier. I remember sitting someone up on a rooftop and there was an alien out in a field or something, but he was considered to be in cover because there was a barrel or something near the base of the building, completely undermining the idea of having the height advantage in the first place.

Heck, if it's 'Silent Storm but with aliums' then I'd be alright, especially if they have things like a soldier's equipment rendering on their model like it did in that game. What kinda bothers me about these games is the lack of weapons. Sure, you have a couple 'tiers' of weapons, but in reality you just have 4 or 5 weapons that get progressively better.

I actually didn't get to play too much of Xenonauts, but I remember there weren't too many maps, and the game kinda freaks out when it tries to put the crash sites down, clipping into buildings without actually damaging them.

[miljan]

My guess is that they wanted more detail and better graphics... and in some ways the original kinda looked like a flash game in some places.

Anyway it's mostly economy i guess. Look at Gmod and source film maker. Once you have a model going animation is (relatively) easy but with sprites you need to draw dozens if not hundreds... and detailed sprites take time to make.
And naturally a different set of sprites for every set of armor and weapon type (because the soldier holds a rocket launcher, rifle and LMG differently)

Simply put 3D is cheaper to do if you want more detail... because frankly high quality pixel art is surprisingly expensive.

You can have two ways of how sprites are made. Hand drown, or converting 3d models (so if something is 2d, it doesnt mean it must be pixel art or hand drawn)  Also good 3d is actually more expensive and harder to do than 2d. From programing point of view, to detail and complexity 3d will always be more expensive and harder as a whole to do than 2d games.

Anyway I do not like that they are going 3d with this game, as it means they need to meet some minimum things/quality to make the game look at least OK, and that is a lot easier to do if they went 2d.

[Neonivek]

>_< I am actually dreading the 3d already

Nothing looks worse then bad 3d...

But hey, it might look good.

[gimli]

Well yeah, let's wait and see.
PS. Examples of games using Unity[3D] & "looking alright": Endless Legend, Sword Coast Legends, Wasteland 2...on the other hand War of the Overworld is using the Unity3D engine as well, and its butt-ugly.
Anyway, moar info on the default camera setting.

[Ozyton]

So it's basically what RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 did where it sort of snaps to a 45 degree view above, but in that game you could pan and rotate it around freely without being stuck to 45-degree incriments.

Being able to tell if a soldier can shoot an enemy from a certain spot would be nice to know before moving them to said spot.

[gimli]

So it's basically what RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 did where it sort of snaps to a 45 degree view above, but in that game you could pan and rotate it around freely without being stuck to 45-degree incriments.

Being able to tell if a soldier can shoot an enemy from a certain spot would be nice to know before moving them to said spot.

You will be able to unlock it. [The game will be full 3D basically.]

Somehow I've missed this topic on the official forum.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3D Art Style: The image posted above is NOT our final art style. Our biggest concern regarding Xenonauts 2 is whether we can create a workable 3D art style - this not only has to look good in 3D but ideally will also reference the 2D sprite style of Xenonauts 1.

The image shows the sort of quality we think we can reasonably generate in a mission using a standard realistic art style (admittedly we're cheating a bit with the placement of some of the wooden pallets). We've deliberately recreated some assets from Xenonauts 1 to allow us to test and compare it more effectively.

Now we have some decent-quality assets in the engine, we're going to run some tests over the next few weeks on how we can try to make the art style look a bit more 2D and hand-painted. A very important element of this could be creating an outline shader for the game that adds a thin black outline to all of the objects; this was actually something we used extensively in Xenonauts 1 and it played a large part in making props and units "pop" from the background. Unfortunately it's much harder to do in 3D than it is in 2D, but we'll spend some time on it and see if we can make it work.

[Sonlirain]

You can have two ways of how sprites are made. Hand drown, or converting 3d models (so if something is 2d, it doesnt mean it must be pixel art or hand drawn)  Also good 3d is actually more expensive and harder to do than 2d. From programing point of view, to detail and complexity 3d will always be more expensive and harder as a whole to do than 2d games.

Anyway I do not like that they are going 3d with this game, as it means they need to meet some minimum things/quality to make the game look at least OK, and that is a lot easier to do if they went 2d.

Well from what i heard SNK decided to make their latest King of Fighters game in 3D mainly because high quality spritework was too expensive.
Then again maybe they decided to go on with the times and this is just an excuse.