Xenonauts

Xenonauts

Goldhawk Interactive · June 16, 2014 · Turn-Based Tactics, Turn-Based Strategy, Turn-Based Combat, Base Building, Grand Strategy

Buy Xenonauts from GOG at $4.99 — the cheapest of 5 stores we compare. The cheapest Xenonauts key from a keyshop is $7.00 at CJS CD Keys.

PC
Very Positive87% · 5,07677Metacritic27playing now
Best price 67 Great deal
$4.99-80%
$24.99lowest tracked $3.79
GOG Buy at GOG

Prices last checked

More games under $5 →More GOG deals →

Where to buy Xenonauts — official stores

GOG
GOG
Standard Edition · DRM-Free
-80%
$4.99
$24.99
Buy
Steam
Steam
Standard Edition · Steam
$24.99
Buy

Cheapest Xenonauts keys — keyshops

Keyshops are third-party marketplaces — keys are resold and can be region-locked or a different edition. Check the listing's region & edition before buying.

CJS CD Keys
CJS CD Keys
Standard Edition · Steam
$7.00
Buy
Eneba
Standard Edition · Steam
$13.95
Buy
Driffle INC
Standard Edition · Steam
$14.55
Buy

Some store links are affiliate links — playze may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes the price you pay, and the cheapest confirmed price is always shown in the Best price box above.

Xenonauts price by region

Xenonauts costs £3.95 in the United Kingdom, €4.55 in Europe (EUR), $4.99 in the United States, $4.99 in Georgia (USD), CA$6.79 in Canada, NZ$7.19 in New Zealand, A$7.55 in Australia, R$9.19 in Brazil and zł15.99 in Poland right now.

Cheapest Xenonauts offer in each region, in local currency
RegionBest priceOfficial storeKey shopStores
United Kingdom £3.95 −80% £3.95 £5.30 5
Europe (EUR) €4.55 −80% €4.55 €9.74 5
United Statesyour region $4.99 −80% $4.99 $7.00 5
Georgia (USD) $4.99 −80% $4.99 $7.00 5
Canada CA$6.79 −80% CA$6.79 — 2
New Zealand NZ$7.19 −80% NZ$7.19 — 2
Australia A$7.55 −80% A$7.55 — 2
Brazil R$9.19 −80% R$9.19 R$73.14 3
Poland zł15.99 −80% zł15.99 zł57.84 3

Each row is a real price from that region's own stores, not a currency conversion, so the figures are not directly comparable. Switch regions in the header to shop the one you buy in.

Trailers & screenshots

Watch the Xenonauts trailer →

About Xenonauts

✦ AI summary

Lead an elite multinational squad through tense turn-based combat against alien invaders in Cold War Earth, then manage planetary defense by intercepting UFOs and researching captured technology to unlock new weapons and equipment. This spiritual successor to classic X-Com delivers procedurally varied missions across fully destructible battlefields where your persistent soldiers grow from rookies to veterans—if they survive.

Xenonauts is a strategy game in which you control a multi-national military organisation defending a Cold War-era Earth from alien invasion, using small squads of persistent soldiers to eliminate the extraterrestrials and recover their technology in turn-based ground combat. A detailed strategic layer allows you to co-ordinate the defence of the planet, using your interceptors to shoot down UFOs and researching captured artefacts to learn about your foes and unlock new combat equipment to use on your missions.

Xenonauts is a spiritual successor to the classic X-Com strategy games from the 1990s. We aim to improve the graphics, add new content and streamline the interface whilst still retaining all of the key mechanics of the original games. Devoted fans should love this game, but we're also keen to introduce the joys of old-school grand strategy to a whole new generation of players who might not otherwise experience it!

Please note that the native Mac / Linux versions of the game are still in beta, however older WINE-wrapped "ports" are available and known to be stable whilst development of the native ports is still ongoing.

Key Features


  • Ground Combat: Xenonauts delivers tense turn-based combat across realistic, varied and fully-destructible battlefields, against almost fifty different variants of enemy. Missions range from capturing crashed UFOs or alien bases to defending cities (or even Xenonaut facilities) against alien attack. You'll experience the chill of encountering a new alien for the first time and the joys of test-firing a new weapon for the first time. Deeply asymmetric combat keeps the battles interesting - after all, you're fighting intergalactic invaders with 1970's ballistic technology!
  • Strategic Management: You will also be managing the defence of the planet, dealing with the invading alien UFOs with your customisable interceptors. You need to balance the needs of your funding nations with your own. Your funds are limited - are you going to spend them on battlefield equipment, more scientists, or expanding your coverage of the planet? Your priorities must be balanced carefully if you are to win the war.
  • Research Tree: Xenonauts has an extensive research tree with almost a hundred projects to unlock, each with its own unique description and painted artwork. It slowly reveals the intentions and origins of the invaders, while also unlocking new battlefield equipment, aircraft and vehicles for you to use as you harness alien technology and turn it against them.
  • 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...
  • Detailed, Emergent Simulation: Xenonauts contains no scripted missions, just broad rules setting the pace of the invasion. As such, no game plays out the same twice. If you shoot a Scout UFO down over a polar area, you get a Crash Site mission where you can capture a crashed Scout UFO in an Arctic tileset. Commence a battle at night and you'll be fighting the mission in the darkness with reduced sight range. If your base is attacked, you fight the defence in a perfect replica of your base. A lot of time has gone into weaving the two very different halves of the game together into something that feels both natural and enjoyable.

Xenonauts — game info

Platforms
Windows, macOS, Linux / SteamOS
Steam Deck
Unsupported
Player modes
Single-player
PC Game Pass
Not included
More games like this:Mac gamesLinux games

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

Not recommended Sep 25, 2026
Got this game because it reminded me of the early X-Com games. A lot of the game play and terms used are very similar. I found this to be very unbalanced and almost unfair as the aliens advance far faster than your troops do. Even on easy setting I found this to be the case. I tried the community Mod but that seemed to make it even worst because you get to the larger alien ships and the interior is completely black out and you can't make any progress. I thought it was because I started using the Mod with a save from a game that did not originally have it installed. I quit that game, deleted all previous saves and restarted the game just using the Community Mod but ran into exactly the same issue as before (all larger ships had the interior of the ship blacked out). I tried reloading saves, exiting the game and restarting from previous saves but nothing I did made any difference. I found the game to be a big disappointment and the only positive thing I can say is that the game was on sale at a very big discount but even that is not enough to make this worth trying.
Not recommended Sep 20, 2026
Xenonauts is a turn based strategy game where you play as a multi-national organisation as you need to defend earth from an alien invasion using soldiers, boats and jets. Graphics- Not great Soundtrack- Not too good Audience- Adults Difficulty- Decent Story- Small story Game time- It's not to long Price- Its a bit too expensive 4/10
Recommended Sep 10, 2026
Studio Goldhawk Interactive zrobiło to, czego wielcy wydawcy bali się dotknąć: wzięło klasyczną formułę i bezkompromisowo ją doszlifowało. Jest rok 1979. Świat stoi na krawędzi konfliktu między USA a ZSRR, ale nagła inwazja obcej cywilizacji zmusza oba mocarstwa do potajemnej współpracy i sfinansowania międzynarodowej organizacji, tytułowych Xenonautów. Estetyka retro, rewelacyjne rysowane portrety w gazecie, chłodna kolorystyka i surowy interfejs sprawiają, że naprawdę czujesz się jak dowódca tajnego sztabu kryzysowego z okresu zimnej wojny, który dysponuje myśliwcami z przestarzałą bronią palną przeciwko laserom z kosmosu. Gra idzie w ślady klasyka i dzieli się na dwie, równie wciągające części: a) warstwa strategiczna (Geosfera): Rozbudowujesz bazy w różnych zakątkach globu, zarządzasz budżetem przyznawanym przez państwa fundujące, prowadzisz badania nad technologią obcych i produkujesz wyposażenie. Kapitalnie rozwiązano tu minigrę przechwytywania UFO – starcia powietrzne naszych myśliwców z obcymi wymagają taktycznego manewrowania, doganiania celów i używania odpowiednich rakiet. Moim zdaniem jest to najlepszy system walki myśliwców jaki wsytęouje we wszystkich gra X-Com pod…
Not recommended Sep 10, 2026
Was great, right up until I started getting good enough to beat aliens in fair encounters and realised how many times I've lost men to unfair game mechanics. Over the course of two missions, I lost three soldiers to aliens shooting at me from corners that I couldn't see around. I'm not doing it justice with how unfair it is, I would recommend searching it online. Lots of players complained about the LoS bugs. It's not an intentional mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, the Devs themselves have admitted that. Apparently they took steps to fix it in Xenonauts 2 but from what I can tell X2 is still a long way away from being finished and polished up. TL;DR The game has glaring bugs that can and will get your soldiers killed for no good reason. It's fairly common and once you get good at the game you'll realise the game's still setting you up for failure with them. Edit: I just checked Xenonauts 2's reviews and guess what? Not only does it have a whole array of issues that can only be explained by the Devs not listening to any player feedback at all (instead of the game just being in its infancy stage) it has the EXACT SAME corner issue! The exact same!
Recommended Sep 9, 2026
A love letter to the fans of the original Microprose XCOM: UFO Defense.
Recommended Sep 8, 2026
Not sure how to feel about this game, obviously inspired from XCOM: UFO Defense (1994), but it feels like someone chucked in UFO: Alien Invasion in for some reason. It is still unforgiving, it improves the UI and graphics (not a high bar to clear tbh), it has made air combat actually exciting... it just feels like it is missing something. There is little things like the damage and hitting enemies feeling less impactful - you have no idea in UFOD (or OpenXcom if you prefer) if you just shot pixie dust or it will kill the enemy in one hit. What mattered is each shot is visually clear and meaningful when they hit. Many guns in this game are automatic fire with a spray of damage numbers or misses in a split second, it is losing the impact and importance behind every single action you take. These settings are adjustable in OpenXcom, you want fast then you get fast, if you want immersive then the camera pans and follows the shot - you are praying the whole time you haven't just lost your experienced captain. It appeals to many types of players through the customisation it offers. Your units are expendable in both games but each conditions you to emotionally react in very different ways…

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