Suggestions for a forthcoming Xeno Crisis sequel

[Mr Nostalgia]

I have thoroughly enjoyed this old school game. Now that the gameplay foundations and fan base have been established, I think the developers could really maximize the potential of a sequel. These are my three main suggestions:

-More variation in the procedurally generated levels themselves. It seems like I mostly get to change the direction of travel in any given stage, but everything else feels relatively same-y. I always know the types and mixes of enemies that will start appearing in the 3rd, 4th, 5th rooms etc. regardless of the exploration. The micro-events (“Rescue the hostages!” or “An ambush!”) and mildly different room layouts don’t significantly change the gameplay or break up the repetitiveness. Ideally the procedural algorithm could pull from a pool of more enemy types (so the same ones don’t necessarily appear, if at all), add more variability the mixes/waves/behaviors on subsequent rooms, or randomly insert some minibosses or environmental hazards so that I never know what to expect in the next room. Perhaps the rooms could even occasionally have varying conditions for success, such as surviving the final minute against a 2x enemy wave, shooting down the heavily fortified barrier to the next room while under constant assault, rescuing all the hostages before an enemy touches them to get a health kit, destroying in-room monster generators (ala Gauntlet), freeing a hostage who will help you fight in that room, etc.

-A total game-changer would be a procedurally generated game as a whole. Meaning you let the player choose their start level or else have a default start level, but then randomizing the order of the next 4-5 levels so players are guaranteed a wholly new gameplay path and experience every time. Between levels players are then compelled to adapt their upgrades for the upcoming level. The subsequent levels and enemies themselves would obviously need scaling difficulty to account for players becoming incrementally more powerful deeper into the game. Another similar idea would be to let the players completely choose the level order themselves, ala Mega Man, although I think it’s better to use randomness to guarantee a variable play experience every game and reduce players min-maxing their approach to beating the game.

-More player choice and agency in their upgrades. By level 6, I always have the same upgrades (i.e. all of them) and obtained in the same order. There needs to be some upgrade branching or metering so I can make distinct decisions to accommodate my playstyle and situation. Also, if the overall order of levels is variable, along the lines of the suggestion above, I would be incentivized to upgrade differently on every playthrough. Finally, and I won’t get into it here, but there are obviously dozens of simple yet distinct upgrades that could be added to the game to really customize characters.

[musashi]

They won’t even bother fixing issues in the first game. Asking for a sequel seems moot