History YMMV / Xenonauts

*** Blaster Launcher still exists, albeit weighing a whooping 50kg, using an incredibly rare alien engine, and 500000$, making it unable to be used by anyone except soldiers in power armor with a huge bank account. And is useless.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The decision to tie the game's backstory into the UsefulNotes/ColdWar was an inspired design choice, and one that could have provided a justification for giving the player a more in-depth and nuanced "diplomacy" system where the player would have to tread carefully between two superpowers who, despite the imminent threat of alien invasion, are almost more paranoid of one another than they are of the aliens and would undoubtedly see the Xenonaut program as yet another prize to fight over for global prestige. Exactly none of this ends up being relevant to the game itself, however, which generally plays like a standard X-COM clone. The sequel looks to be doing this, but time will tell how well it actually works.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The decision to tie the game's backstory into the UsefulNotes/ColdWar was an inspired design choice, and one that could have provided a justification for giving the player a more in-depth and nuanced "diplomacy" system where the player would have to tread carefully between two superpowers who, despite the imminent threat of alien invasion, are almost more paranoid of one another than they are of the aliens and would undoubtedly see the Xenonaut program as yet another prize to fight over for global prestige. Exactly none of this ends up being relevant to the game itself, however, which generally plays like a standard X-COM clone.

* AWinnerIsYou: The ending is just a single splash panel of world leaders celebrating victory. Even the original X-COM for DOS, working on more limited resources, had several of them, telling an actual story.
** After version 1.5, there is a long and detailed description of what happens: All alien captives fall into a coma, and your military advisor tells you that you should neither turn over your equipment to the United States, nor the Soviet Union, but to unite a new Earth free from prejudice and broken political systems.

* DevelopersForesight:
** Considering that the timeline starts in the middle of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, where resources are usually scarce and trying to be accepted by both sides of the world from Communism to Capitalism is what the Xenonauts start off with, [[ShownTheirWork it's likely the case why funding was quite low during the beginning of the game]].
** While the Rocket Launcher stays in regular condition, [[spoiler: its rockets evolve along with the technology as the player progresses, from regular explosives to alienated chemicals to [[PlasmaCannon plasma]] blasts]], the existence of Blaster Launcher may no longer be needed.
** [[RealityEnsues Again]], UsefulNotes/ColdWar, which leaves the ideas of powerful mech units for players behind... [[spoiler: to replace them by PoweredArmor with an active inventory, providing the soldiers greater versatility than X-Com would have provided]].

* MemeticBadass: Josh Eales. Because of an [=RNG=] bug, this name was always in the starting party of every new game. Now he even has his own Steam card.

* JustEatGilligan: The final mission involves boarding the alien's main ship while it descends to start a ZombieApocalypse with a horde of Reapers to kill the alien leader on board. While this main ship is presumably strong (it's classified as a dreadnought, the biggest UFO's you can dogfight are battleships), you're not even given the option to just shoot it down with fighters. There's no reason the otherwise AwesomeButImpractical X-120 Fury couldn't vaporize the dreadnought with its [[WaveMotionGun Singularity Torpedo]]. But then there wouldn't have been a climactic final battle.

* MemeticBadass: Josh Eales. Because of an [=RNG=] bug, this name was always in the starting party of every new game. Now he even has his own Steam card.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The Cold War setting is little more than window dressing and plays no part in the plot of stopping the aliens. It certainly would have been interesting to have deal with not only the alien invasion, but keeping tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact from spilling over while they fight over who gets the spoils of downed [=UFO=]s.

* MemeticBadass: Josh Eales. Because of an [=RNG=] bug, this name was always in the starting party of every new game. Now he even has his own Steam card.

** It used to be possible to have soldiers DualWield...''shields'', who could '''still''' throw grenades while doing so. Not a StoneWall to be laughed at.

** Considering that the timeline starts in the middle of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, where resources are usually scarce and trying to be accepted by both sides of the world from Communism to Democracy is what the Xenonauts start off with, [[ShownTheirWork it's likely the case why funding was quite low during the beginning of the game]].

** Considering that the timeline starts in the middle of the ColdWar, where resources are usually scarce and trying to be accepted by both sides of the world from Communism to Democracy is what the Xenonauts start off with, [[ShownTheirWork it's likely the case why funding was quite low during the beginning of the game]].

** [[RealityEnsues Again]], ColdWar, which leaves the ideas of powerful mech units for players behind... [[spoiler: to replace them by PoweredArmor with an active inventory, providing the soldiers greater versatility than X-Com would have provided]].

* MemeticBadass: Josh Eales. Because of an [=RNG=] bug, this name was always in the starting party of every new game. Now he even has his own Steam card.

* TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything:

* MemeticBadass: Josh Eales. Because of an [=RNG=] bug, this name was always in the starting party of every new game. Now he even has his own Steam card.

** Mechanically fidelity to the original is one of the selling points, but some think it's ''too'' faithful, WithThisHerring and all.

* BrokenBase:

** Is the game too mechanically faithful to the original, WithThisHerring and all?

* BrokenBase: Are the graphics unacceptably bland for a 2010s game, or is their plainness and simplicity the very thing that makes them appealing compared to the flash of ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown''?

* BrokenBase: Are the graphics unacceptably bland for a 2010s game, or is their plainness and simplicity the very thing that makes them appealing?

** Now no longer in play as of v22 Experimental 5, as sending troops out wounded now caps their maximum HP during the fight.

* GoodBadBugs: If you leave an injured soldier in your base to recuperate, it will take many days. However, sending him or her into battle again and using a simple medikit fixes the problem instantly.