Xenonauts is a turn-based tactics game where you defend 1970s Earth from alien incursions. You manage a global defense organization, directing interceptor jets to down UFOs and deploying squads of soldiers in ground battles to eliminate extraterrestrials and salvage their tech. Soldiers persist between missions, gaining experience or dying permanently. Between firefights, you research captured alien artifacts to unlock better weapons and armor, build new bases across continents, and allocate funding to different departments. The strategic layer has you balancing radar coverage, aircraft positioning, and which crashed UFOs to investigate. Combat plays out on destructible terrain with action points governing movement and shots. It's Cold War aesthetics meet X-COM structure—no aliens with backstories, just methodical tactical problem-solving against an escalating threat.
