Xenonauts Explodes On To Kickstarter – 50% on Day One

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
by GL News

While it may have been the subject of many jokes, and been the reason behind several snorts of derision from others within the GL camp, it’s no secret that our very own Editor-In-Chief, Mark, as well as our Editor, Lorna, are crazy fans of the original Microprose top-down strategy game UFO: Enemy Unknown. It will also come as no surprise that their response to the upcoming shooter “XCOM” from 2K Marin at last year’s E3 was less than favourable, but that the Firaxis remake has started to take a special place in their alien hearts… aside from the streamlining and removal of multiple bases, among other things.

What you may not know, however, is that Goldhawk Interactive, headed by lead developer Chris England, have been working on a true-to-original remake using the same top-down approach for the last three years. The project has had its ups and downs, and even the early press build we first started playing in June last year showed more promise than all of the other clones (UFO Aftermath, UFO Aftershock and UFO Afterlight) put together. It’s very obvious to anyone playing it that this is more of a labour of love than an exercise in flattery, with every aspect of the original being retained and polished to bring a more modern feel.

For a while, it looked like the project may have to be put on hold while PayPal got their act together, but the development took a whole new turn yesterday as they launched their own Kickstarter campaign. In the last twenty-four hours since the campaign launched, their hope of reaching £50,000 GBP is proving to be more than achievable and, at the time of writing, funding has already reached more than 33% of the goal.For those of you who hanker for that original old-school UFO: Enemy Unknown experience on a more up-to-date platform with higher res graphics and a more modern approach, this could be the remake you’ve been waiting for. As far as the folks here at GLHQ are concerned, it is. While Firaxis’ remake is a side-step and a re-imagination of sorts, Xenonauts is exactly what a lot of us have been looking for – original gameplay, but shinier.

The Xenonauts Kickstarter page can be found here and we urge you to download the demo from here to know exactly what you could be playing Q4 2012 if everything goes to plan.

Update: The project has just gone over the 50% funded mark, having raised $25,211 and only 20% of the $200 tier slots remain. Cydonia is looking very close!