Xenonauts 2 News

Experience the intense strategic gameplay of Xenonauts 2, now 35% off as part of the Hooded Horse Spring Publisher Sale.

In Xenonauts 2, you command a global defense organization tasked with intercepting alien threats and leading tactical ground missions. Build your base, manage resources, and engage in turn-based combat to protect humanity.

[Hooded Horse Spring Publisher Sale 2025

https://store.steampowered.com/app/538030/Xenonauts_2/

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!

We're aware of a number of other bugs in the current version and we're working on patching them as soon as possible.

[h3]Gameplay Changes:[/h3]

• Added artwork for the Waveform Analysis and UOO-1 Analysis research projects.
  
• Strategic Operations buttons now correctly go into the cooldown state immediately after being used.
  
• All Geoscape timers now display "1 day" rather than "0 days" when the timer goes below 24 hours.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where the UOO-1 Bridge Assault mission would not unlock correctly if you did not complete the UOO-1 Sabotage mission quickly enough. This may not fix games where you are already past that point - if you have a save from before day 283 (which was the cut-off point) then I'd roll back to that and do the Sabotage mission immediately!
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur at end of turn if a Reaper zombified a civilian who was crouching (as zombies are not permitted to crouch).
  
• Fixed certain alien base double blast doors autoclosing after units move through them.
  
• Fixed the external walls of the UOO-1 Bridge Assault mission being indestructible.
  
• Fixed air combat autoresolve treating fuel inconsistently with manual air combat, and forcing planes to retreat in some circumstances where they could fight in the manual combat.
  
• Fixed the shroud drawing over fire and the human laboratory tubes.
  
• Fixed a couple of texture errors on the human Fusion Pistol and Fusion LMG weapons.
  
• Fixed a visual issue on the Arid cliffs.
  

The Hooded Horse Spring Sale is live, with Xenonauts 2 at 35% off alongside discounts on other games. Check it out on Steam.

Hooded Horse Spring Publisher Sale 2025

[h3]Milestone 5 Nears Public Release[/h3][hr][/hr]The team has been hard at work finalizing Milestone 5, which remains on track for a March release, pending final bug fixes and localization work. This update refines tactical combat mechanics, improving shooting path calculations to better align with player expectations.

On the writing front, the game’s narrative is now fully written, with all research text, phase briefings, and tactical mission dialogue complete. The updated script ties together the motivations of the game’s factions, providing a more cohesive experience. The latest text has been sent for localization, ensuring a fully translated version at launch.

New illustrations have been added to UI popups related to Geoscape mechanics, with additional unique art for strategic operations. Once Milestone 5 is out, the team will shift focus to the remaining roadmap items, including the Air Combat Revamp, Ending Cinematic, Soviet Town Biome, and Mod Tools. They’re also reviewing community feedback to determine what can be incorporated into future updates.

Stay tuned for a big announcement on the public release of Milestone 5 in the coming weeks!

Read more about it here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/538030/announcements/detail/545603039390598149

https://store.steampowered.com/app/538030/Xenonauts_2/

This update is also only accessible by switching to our Experimental branches (instructions on how to do so here) - although please be aware they have slower load times and worse performance than normal builds due to the extra logging they contain!

This patch contains quite a few balancing changes and it might cause some weirdness in campaigns from 5.15.0. If that happens to you, I've set 5.15.0 live on the Experimental Legacy branch so you switch back to it and finish your campaign.

[h3]Balance Changes:[/h3]

• Rebalance of Operation Points values. You start with more OPs and lower Doomsday, but Supporters now cost about 60% more (a basic supporter is now 250 OP rather than 100 OP, etc). Strategic operations now have longer cooldowns, and Request Alenium has been buffed a little.
  
• Phase 4 (and the Orbital Bombardment mechanic) has been moved forward about one month, and the first Harvesters have been moved forward two weeks. However, the second UOO-1 mission can now not be unlocked until roughly a month after Phase 4 starts. This improves the pacing at the end of Phase 3, which previously had about a month of dead time immediately followed by two UOO-1 missions in quick succession (causing a very short Phase 4).
  
• Xenobiology research now also requires Waveform Analysis research to unlock.
  
• Added an engineering project which allows Phantom interceptors to be upgraded to the speed of Gemini interceptors.
  
• Added a Corpse Analysis project for the Eternals.
  
• Construction times increased on Gemini / Pegasus aircraft, and on Gauss / Fusion weapons.
  
• Cruiser UFOs now have a slightly lower top speed, as Phantoms could often struggle to catch them.
  
• Interceptor UFOs now have a much higher turning rate and turn acceleration.
  

[h3]Content Changes:[/h3]

• Added translations for most of the new Milestone 5 text.
  
• The region information minibars on the Geoscape (that show the Supporters) are now hidden until Operation Points are unlocked after the ATLAS Base mission.
  
• Updated the various Geoscape objective strings to fit the new story research chain.
  
• The second UOO-1 mission now has much clearer objective text that includes the timing of the enemy reinforcements, plus a custom "end mission" effect that reflects the fact the space station is exploding.
  
• The "Sell Junk" button in the base stores is now disabled if there's no junk to sell.
  
• The "region bonus unlocked" popups now display a more informative text line about what you've unlocked.
  
• Removed the duplicate "Eternal Interrogation" project unlocked after capturing an Eternal, as it didn't do anything (the Eternal Observation project worked as intended and is still in the game).
  
• Reworked one of the Cruiser UFO interior variants to improve gameplay.
  
• UFOs now contain the final props for the Alien Singularity Core and Alien Antigravity Generator, which are both also now animated.
  
• Added artwork for the Request Alenium strategic operation, so each strategic operation now has unique artwork.
  
• Added artwork for the Andron Praetorian corpse.
  
• Added correct preview artwork for the Fusion Grenade engineering project.
  
• Fixed some typos in the Operation Endgame research project.
  
• Set the AI to avoid crushing various types of alien walls that Androns were previously just smashing through for convenience.
  
• The  campaign defeat / campaign victory screens now play their custom music correctly.
  
• Added injured / wounded text colouring on the Soldier screen soldier list.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a crash that could occur in the AI turn of the tactical combat linked to Mind Control.
  
• Fixed the alien base large doors incorrectly autoclosing when a unit tries to move through them, and fixed the MARS being unable to path through them.
  
• Fixed the Orbital Bombardment timer (the UI element in the bottom left) not visually updating after the UOO-1 Sabotage mission is completed, and then disappearing entirely after the first bombardment occurs.
  
• Fixed the ammo capacity tooltip being broken when comparing items on the Soldier Equip screen.
  
• Fixed fast interceptors getting locked into a pattern of overshooting UFOs when speed is flowing at max speed and failing to engage them.
  
• Fixed the Doomsday Counter tooltip bugging out if the Doomsday daily gain turned negative.
  
• Fixed Androns crouching after spawning as reinforcements (they shouldn't be able to crouch).
  

Hello everyone - we're now into March, so here's our regular update on what we got done during February!

[h2]Milestone 5 Progress[/h2]
As always, our focus has been on getting Milestone 5 ready for public release. I said in the last update that we're hoping to do this in March and we're still on track for that, although the exact date depends on how smoothly the bugfixes go over the next few weeks, and whether there are any other things worth thinking about in terms of the best timing for the update.

In coding terms, a lot of this month was spent ironing out gameplay / stability issues and tidying up some loose ends regarding new features added in Milestone 5, so although our programmers have done a lot of work there's not much in the way of exciting new headline additions for me to talk about here. However, we did find a few days to improve the shooting path calculations in the tactical combat so the permitted fire paths better match what the player would expect, particularly around doorways and corners, as community feedback suggested this area needed more polish (turns out the system had a couple of subtle bugs that needed fixing).

[h2]Writing & Art[/h2]
Last month was a big month on the writing front - the writing in the game is now largely complete. This means that all research projects now have research text, the phase briefings have been revised, more tactical missions have introductory character conversations, and there should be a more consistent narrative thread running throughout the whole game. Hopefully it's now much clearer why all the factions in the game are acting the way they are.

Finishing this allowed us to send all the new game text off for translation, and we should have localised text ready for Milestone 5's public release (this was another factor that influenced the timing).

We've added some new illustrations to the game over the past month, most of which are just adding flavour art to the new UI popups related to the new Geoscape mechanics in Milestone 5. In our recent 5.13 Experimental update we also added unique illustrations for three of the five strategic operations (which should make it easier to tell them apart) and we're expecting to have the remaining two done shortly.

[h2]Community Suggestion Review[/h2]
Once Milestone 5 is done we'll start looking at what's next. Alongside the last remaining features on our roadmap (Air Combat Revamp, Ending Cinematic, Soviet Town Biome, Mod Tools) we've been reading through the many, many community suggestions that have been posted on Steam, our Discord and our forums during the Early Access period.

We're now reviewing all these suggestions as a team and looking at which ones we can include in the next major update. Although we can't add every suggestion to the game, there's a lot of good ideas here and we want to thank everyone who has given us feedback and suggestions during development - we may not always have responded immediately, but we did read them all eventually!

That's everything for this update - thanks for reading, and hopefully we'll have a big announcement in the next few weeks about the public release of Milestone 5!