Xenonauts-2 is a "strategic planetary defense simulator" that puts you in charge of a clandestine military force attempting to protect the planet from extraterrestrial invasion.

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.

Goldhawk Interactive are building a hugely complex strategy / tactics game that gives you total control of your organisation all the way from the command staff in your base down to the troops on the battlefield. The formula will be familiar to anyone who has played the classic X-Com games from the 90's (or the modern reboots), but Xenonauts-2 expands those foundations to create something deeper and more distinctive!

The action takes place in the modern day - but in an alternative timeline where decades of alien interference has prevented the end of the Cold War, leaving NATO and the Soviet Union teetering on the brink of a catastrophic nuclear war. Can you hold humanity together long enough to end the alien threat forever?

Xenonauts-2 is not a chronological sequel to the first Xenonauts but rather an updated portrayal of similar events. The game is in development on Windows PC and is expected to launch on Steam & GOG in late 2018; we will hopefully natively support Linux and Mac on release but cannot yet offer a firm promise of this (please see the FAQ for further details).

Goldhawk Interactive have been developing Xenonauts-2 for three years now and the game is in an advanced state. If you want to check out how things are progressing, you can download a free demo (here or here) of a single tactical combat mission at the link below. Bear in mind this is still an alpha; expect it to improve a lot before release!

We're a small team working on a really big idea - and we need your help, hence the $65,802 kickstarter campaign.

So far we have been able to fund the development of Xenonauts-2 from the sales of the first Xenonauts, but we simply don't have enough money to include everything we want in the game. Instead of trying to raise money from publishers, we're turning to the people who have always supported us when we needed it most - our fans!

We are aiming to launch the game into closed beta in approximately three months, and we're targeting a launch into Early Access on GOG / Steam by the end of the year. We are aiming to have all the core gameplay systems complete by the start of the closed beta, then spend the rest of development working with our community to polish the game (adding new features and content, fixing bugs, improving UI & usability, etc).

Raising additional funds would allow us the breathing space we need to properly polish the game up before release. Some of this will be spent on adding cool new features and neat little touches to the game, but we'll also use it to ensure there is an extended period of community playtesting that will allow us to iron out countless balance issues, bugs and usability problems.

You can see all the cool rewards available to backers to the right of this page. As well as getting access to the game on Steam or DRM-free on GOG, higher tiers give players digital copies of the soundtrack and access to our closed beta.

Those willing to back at £35 or above can put a custom soldier in the game with their own name, nationality and a unique portrait created from our free Portrait Generator tool (see the FAQ for full details). This soldier will appear in your starting squad every game!

Those willing to back at the highest tiers can have a custom portrait painted from a photo by our portrait artist. You can see an example of the results above, painted from a still in our Kickstarter video!

As we're asking for your help to add extra features to the game, we thought we should let you choose the order of the stretch goals! 

For the first week of this Kickstarter, we will be running a vote to set the order of the stretch goals, with the most popular features becoming the first stretch goals!

• £50,000 - Stretch Goal Choice #1 (unlocked by hitting our funding goal!)
• £75,000 - Stretch Goal Choice #2
• £100,000 - Stretch Goal Choice #3
• £150,000 - Stretch Goal Choice #4
• £200,000 - Stretch Goal Choice #5
• £250,000 - Stretch Goal Choice #6

These are the features that you'll be able to vote for - click the link if you're interested in more detail on what each one involves!

• MARS Weapon Platform & Sentry Guns
• Modular Weapons
• Locational Injuries
• Orchestral Soundtrack Recording
• Additional Xenonauts-2: Community Edition / Modding Support
• Reaper Hives
• Weather Conditions
• Geoscape Situations

These are all features we'd like to experiment with, so we may implement some of them even if they don't make it as a stretch goals - this vote is just to let us know the ideas you think are most exciting!

Key Features:

• TACTICAL COMBAT: Xenonauts-2 delivers tense turn-based combat across realistic, varied and fully-destructible 3d battlefields. The combat is just as deep as it was in the first Xenonauts - but now you have a wider variety of missions to tackle, a larger selection of equipment to do it with, and more deadly enemies to face in battle!
• STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: You have been tasked with defending the planet against extraterrestial infiltration, trying to hold humanity together as the aliens try to spark a nuclear war that will end our species forever! The Geoscape is expanded and improved since Xenonauts 1, giving you more freedom and more choices to make. Your interceptors will need to defend your funding regions against UFO activity, but your soldiers can also intervene directly in funding regions as field agents to support your strategic goals.
• RESEARCH TREE: Xenonauts-2 has an even more extensive research tree than its predecessor, allowing the player to unlock new battlefield equipment and aircraft whilst slowly revealing the intentions and origins of the invaders. There is now more varied and exotic equipment for you to play with, and players now have the ability to further develop technology and equipment they have already researched - provided they can spare the scientists!
• PERSISTENT SOLDIERS: Soldiers in Xenonauts are persistent from mission to mission, improving their stats and gaining ranks with combat experience - but their deaths are always only a single bad move away. You will grow to care about the brave men and women under your command as they slowly grow from green rookies into hardened veterans, but that only makes it more painful when their heroic tale is cruelly cut short by a burst of plasma fire...