For anyone who wants this style of game, but doesn’t want to support this, Xenonauts 2 released version 1.0 a few months ago. It’s trying to be more classic X-COM, rather than modern XCOM, like what this game is copying (and simplifying even more). It’s easily the best of the genre I’ve played, and it’ll also run on pretty much any system you’ve got fine.
Submitted 23 hours ago by mrsilkworm@piefed.social to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 2 hours ago
Xenonauts 2
Eh, played the shit out of it and happy to give them money. But holy shit is the late game kinda poop.
Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
I was considering buying this as a massive fan of XCOM 2.
Was.
I’ll just keep playing Cyber Knights: Flashpoint thank you very much.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Check out Xenonauts 2. It’s positioned as a spiritual sequel of classic X-COM, rather than modern XCOM though, so there are differences.
Probably the best difference, and I don’t understand why modern XCOM did this, is classic and Xenonauts have larger squad sizes. This is huge, because the entire genre is about gambling on actions. If you only have four actions, taking a 50% shot, but potentially being in danger, is an issue. If you have 8+ actions (8 squad members minimum, and you’ll often get multiple actions per member), a 50% shot is a lot less risky. It’s more about setting yourself up to get many attacks, rather than one perfect attack. There’s a lot more opportunities to mitigate risk.
It also has a much stronger strategic game, which I feel is largely lacking in modern XCOM. It’s all about tactical battles. This game, in particular, I think is almost entirely tactical battles, with little strategic opportunity, and no strategic layer IIRC.
danielfm123@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
If CEO fire whole team, how will you create a new success?
Good teams are not conodity.
GolfFoxtrotLima@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Yet another certified bruh moment, I won’t even buy the game
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
This is why I pirate most games unless it’s from indie devs. Fuck any and every corpo entity.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
He went on: "It is a gross but all too common sight to see, another corporate game hitting the top of Steam while the team is left looking for work and cut off from any possible profit sharing.
And, there it is.
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Unions. Not just for blue collars anymore.
Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
All devs should be entitled to royalties
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Honestly, I don’t understand why any studio wouldn’t do this. Not only does it mean you can differ some pay until later effectively, but it actively encourages devs to make the best game possible. If they’re just working for a salary, they have no skin in the game. Give them a reason to make the absolute best thing they possibly can make.
username_1@discuss.tchncs.de 23 hours ago
They did their thing. No use of them anymore :)
gedfromgont@piefed.ca 23 hours ago
Gane dev gig economy
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joranm1@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
I’m sick of this
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 8 hours ago
What’s the point? You can’t even enjoy your laurels. Just fucked the minute release hits so they dont have to pay you. Fucked up. Nobody should work for a game corporation.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Nobody should work for a
gamecorporation.My actual goal, anymore.
Toasticus@piefed.social 16 hours ago
This whole industry is job security hell. Man, people decades ago dreamed of being somewhere in the industry. I don’t really know now who’d want to be in it knowing how awful job security even is.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
It’s like the movie industry, now. They only have a job as long as the game is in production, and all they get is the weekly paycheck.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
When I was a teenager, I really wanted to work in the video game industry. Really glad I don’t. I still want to learn to make video games, but I never want to work for any video game company. Especially any that have been around for say… 20 years and/or publicly traded.
TheBluetoofs@piefed.social 19 hours ago
At this point in human evolution, I can’t understand how anybody would want to be in the gaming industry anymore. I would not blame any developer if they just decided “fuck it” and quit altogether. I’d applaud it, actually.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I wanted to be in the video game industry when I was younger and followed through with it by learning programming and pretty much everything I could with computers.
But then while I was in university, the story about EA’s working culture broke. How they’d say hours were normal but they might need extra hours during “crunch time”, which sounded reasonable until you learned that they just set deadlines such that it was always crunch time. The partners of EA workers did a class action suit against the company and won it IIRC.
That was enough for me to adjust my trajectory. I realized the suddenly obvious bit: people usually go into the video game industry because they have a passion for video games, which sets them up for exploitation like any other job that many people want to get in to.
I might still make a video game but I never intend to be a peon in the video game industry.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
they’d say hours were normal but they might need extra hours during “crunch time”,
I always had this arrangement at the companies I worked for, except the “normal hours” were actually me doing next to nothing, and the “crunch time” was me genuinely busting my ass for a few weeks to get the software finished and out the door. It was nothing more than an extension of how I handled college rather than some arrangement that the companies intentionally offered. Management was always just so utterly fucking clueless about anything related to the technical side of software development that it was easy to fool them into thinking that my way of doing things was just normal for the field.
I_Jedi@lemmy.today 15 hours ago
The corpo gaming industry, perhaps. I’ve seen various indie developers have a great time.
Vlyn@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
The 0.1% who actually hit it big. Let’s not include survivorship bias here :)
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Thos game has absolutely horrendous performance problems. It baffles me that people are rating this higher than games like KOTOR and Republic Commando.
hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Well the gameplay is very different, and maybe people like the way star wars feels when applied to XCOM type strategy games?
People are not looking at the performance in isolation when rating games.
13igTyme@piefed.social 17 hours ago
Steam reviews for other games says otherwise. Plenty of games with reviews only on performance.
swooper@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I guess because it’s new? Xcom has s big fan base too
whoisearth@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
And wasn’t xcom buggy as shit too? Lol
Nurgus@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Performance is a stinking mess but gameplay is a joy. It’s not XCOM but it’s great in its own right.
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 18 hours ago
Because people like us in the tactics genre really are used to incredibly buggy and laggy games. XCOM, anything made by paradox - all of that suffers from performance issues and gameplay bugs. It’s a bit like buying something from bethesda - you just expect those kinds of problems, which is why it doesn’t really influence our rating.
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
Also, it isn’t that big of a deal in a turn based tactics game to have all the animations be silky smooth or responsive like it is in games with real-time combat. The quality doesn’t directly affect the game play experience for the most part.
A turn based game at 30 frames plays the same as it does at 60 or 120. Can’t say the same for other genres.
NIB@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Meh, i can tolerate shitty fps and even some stutter on turned based games. It’s not ideal but not as much of a deal breaker.
deft@lemmy.wtf 19 hours ago
Can’t even play with your wookie in this game
NuanceDemon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
Games having dodgy performance on release is effectively normal now.
It makes more sense to rate based on the gameplay otherwise 99% of releases would be 1 star.
IWW4@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
Now?
The first video game I ever l played was Pong.
Dodgy performance on release has always been the case. Would like to hear the tale of the Atari ET game?
creamfresh@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
performance is not everything
Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
I would still say it’s worth buying at least from my personal experience. I’m still really enjoying the game despite the performance but it’s probably heavily dependent on your system.
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
Not worth buying with how they have treated the dev team with these lay offs but it’s a perfectly reasonable game to pirate if one wants to play it.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The unfortunate reality of it now, like having to keep your CV constantly updated and ready if ever to be laid off at any time. And it’s worse than ever.
mursejoy@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
There go my hopes of a post launch performance patch.
The game runs like arse even on a 9070XT.
TwitchingCheese@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
60-70fps with egregious cutscene pop-in even after the INI engine tweaks mod on a 5090 is criminal.
slaacaa@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
“Firaxis” developers create a working game challenge (impossible)
Tidesphere@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Lmao I built my computer 8 years ago, and it was mid tier even then. Runs it just fine. You may need to tweak some settings.
mursejoy@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
I think we have a very different opinion on what runs fine. I wouldn’t be PC gaming on eight year old hardware. My PS5 and Series X are five years old and I don’t much like how they run modern games.
I’m sure your setup is fine for you but ZCOM has obvious performance issues represented by the Steam user reviews. Ignoring that isn’t truthful.
kn0wmad1c@programming.dev 18 hours ago
Game runs fine for me (4070 Super), but I can’t play more than 20 minutes without hitting bugs.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
I’m not sure I’d say not being able to play longer than 20 min without hitting bugs is “running fine”
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
So to reduce time spent looking for new jobs, devs should make sure games take even longer to develop and are in even worse shape at release so they have to hold onto the team for bug fixes.
NastyNative@mander.xyz 15 hours ago
A wise man once said devs that are afraid of losing their jobs dont go on to make great games. I was going to purchase this game but now ill wait till its on super sale.
faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 8 hours ago
I saw it available on high seas
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Leveraged buyout. Any dev still on payroll is a liability, and it’s not like these guys make Ultimate Team. EA’s got a lot of debt to service.
cheat700000007@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Made by bit reactor who are independent
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Yeah, maybe that’s in the paywalled article that this one cites, but it was only via summaries I saw elsewhere that I realized EA might not own them.
khepri@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Well that is what happens when a project is done and there is no immediate need for that staff for another project. If you want job security don’t work on TV shows, films, or video games.
SparroHawc@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
One of the best assets of a game company is people who know how to make a good game. This is one of the most idiotic takes I’ve ever seen. Treating veteran game makers like replaceable cogs is how you get the current AAA game industry, with nothing but overpriced lukewarm soul-dead rehashes of prior games that are full of bugs and devoid of merit.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Yeah, this isn’t reasonable. A good studio will have been preparing for what they’re doing next before the project is finished. Keeping a team together who knows what they’re doing and already knows how to cooperate together is worth a lot. This is just a sign of bad management, and sadly they’re not the ones losing pay.
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
The art world is dog eat dog. You are not owed a living in the slightest.
Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
Everyone who works is owed a living. The entertainment industry is needlessly vicious.
Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
This is some dogshit bootlicking mentality.
Sort your priorities, mate, and quit carrying water for your oppressors.
garretble@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I haven’t run into any game breaking bugs on PS5 (Pro, at least). It’s unfortunate that it seems like PC has had the brunt of the bugs.
I’ve definitely seen some shadow bugs and texture things, but the game runs smooth for the most part otherwise.
I hope they get a chance to fix the issues.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Gamerant is saying the studio was legitimately out of funds and they were furloughed weeks prior to launch and that dozens gave already been brought back.
This was their first game, and if they do bring back the team members (with back pay) now that the game is a sucess, I would actually be much more understanding.