14 DAY TRIAL // A powerful alien fleet is parked above Earth and its occupants seem to be determined to attack the planet below, kill all those who oppose them, enslave the rest, and then occupy the resulting empty space in order to re-develop their own civilization.
This is the core premise of Xenonauts, its old inspiration X-Com and the Firaxis-driven Enemy Unknown remake, and on a pure intellectual level such a situation should inspire dread and despair into even the most capable of humans.
In the real world, a situation like this seems impossible, but given how little we known about the space around us and the way life could have evolved, it’s entirely possible that first contact with an alien race would result in our extermination at their hands.
But neither Xenonauts nor other video games that use the same core premise can make gamers feel despair and fear, mostly because we have already fought off plenty of aliens in the virtual world before and we are confident that we can do it again.
Sure, the video games can make the initial battles against the enemy forces hard to win and can create situations where entire squads of human soldiers are decimated in short order, but the player tends to be frustrated when this happens rather than scared in any way.
Goldhawk Interactive has created a darker and deeper game in Xenonauts than Firaxis has delivered with XCOM: Enemy Unknown but, while I was surprised, delighted, stressed and sometime frustrated by it, I always knew that I could simply restart and try again if my campaign ended in defeat.
How to create consequences for gamers and to make each experience unique are some of the most difficult challenges in the video game industry, and it would be interesting to see how the development team that created Xenonauts could try to solve them while also mixing horror into its core turn-based strategy mechanics.
Maybe the company could try to create a shorter and smaller game experience that is unique and can only be played once a month, to increase the stakes and make every decision feel more important, or maybe the answer lies somewhere else.
Until the developers reveal their next projects, I intend to continue playing Xenonauts for the challenges that it offers, even if I am never truly horrified by the alien assault and the consequences it can have for humanity.