X4: Foundations

Well, it's a good game really. It has a very steep learning curve and things can feel clumsy. Yet, once you learn you sort of realize that it isn't too bad the way things work. There are some minor things about how ships move through space but really once you let go of something being perfect it turns out to be really fun.

It's also quite in-depth so far. The stations have build queues for ships and you're ship isn't the only one being built. The ships need raw materials which are delivered by the NPCs but you can also transport the stuff or you can sit back and wait.

There is mining, missions, combat, and trading so far. There is more but I have not got to that yet at just 24 hours of playtime so I can't comment on it. It appears to me when you first start the game it has to warm up which means the prices are going to start to get out of whack. That's just the impression I got so the trading game is going to be tough but there are some trades you can make for decent money. Mission wise you can make great money once you figure out how to do them. For combat I'm just getting into it but it's for sure got some depth to it.

The graphics are not bad at all. There are some things that really could use some polish like how when a ship enters a highway it sort of slides sideways and the same when it comes out but when you think about it I guess that might just be the way it works in a physics sense. So I say take it with a grain of salt and don't get distracted by the little minor imperfections.

The game glitched a few times. It had a cut scene come up that wouldn't go away. I can't use windowed mode so I'm stuck in full screen because of the screen going black. So it has a few bugs here and there but as long as I save often it isn't a problem. I've not seen a game without a bug or two at the least.

What I like about it the best is how I can sit back and control everything from the map. I can set up miners, traders, and fighter groups that are all automated. Or, I can jump in the seat of any one of them, fly the plane, and do the work myself.

I like the stations. You sort of teleport using an elevator of sorts between the rooms but to be honest I thought about it and having to run through endless corridors would have been less fun. So, I'm glad they sort of simplified it and I like the way they did it. Yeah, you can land and walk around the stations. I also like how you can dock onto other ships - I've not experienced if you own ships you can dock onto yet but I suspect you might.

The game is open ended which means there isn't much of a target for what you need to do to beat the game. You sort of set your own goals. Do you want to eliminate the Xenon threat? Become rich? Run your own set of stations? Become proficient at combat? You sort of just play and go your own direction. You might even find exploring the world interesting and watching things as they unfold. I find this style really fun compared to having a set path of events you must complete.

I've known about this game for some time and wanted to try it out. I've watched and read several videos and recommendations about the game and all of them pretty much said:
"It's like EVE Online without PVP and scamming"
"It's like ELITE but without just being boring and Arcarde-like"
"It's the space-simulation sandbox game I've always wanted"
Sounded too good to be true. It does alot of things EVE does, in a more simple way and some things ELITE does but in a more ugly way.
-The world/sectors are really REALLY boring. ELITE is full of placeholders too but they're at least AAA-tier eyecatchers. The only "exploration" you can do is "unlocking" the sectors by visiting them and flying to the facilities. On ocasion you'll find a storage box in space.
-The ship-UI is really bad and is rather exhausting. Flying the ships feels unspectacular and boring. It's not Arcarde-like but also not simulator-like, it's just plain janky. But not in a fun way like EVE. The autopilot sucks and will fly you into some shit - but don't worry, you'll just bounce right off the station or asteroid like both your ship and it was made out of jelly gum.
-Optimisation is not that good. I'm getting alot of stutters on old rig whereas other games run fine.
-The walkable space stations are really unnecessary. I wish they cut that part and instead put more content in game.
-Missions are a pain in the ass and always the same boring principles.
-Planets are just there as background graphic. They have no use or not even names.

I haven't gotten to the strategy point and yet and I hope it's where the game truly shines but for 50 Euros? I would have expected alot better game. It's not really fun. I'm kinda dissapointed. I hope it gets better. For 50 Euros I could have gotten some pipes instead and weld my own space ship.

Best power to space converter i know. The amount of time my Pc runs my spaceempire in the background while i enjoy the space sound and views of the game while basically doing nothing is crazy. Its a real fun game too, my only gripe with the game is the focus on fighters without mods as i like big battleships, but mods fix that easily.

It's a great game for strategic players who enjoy mount and blade but wanna trade out the horses for space ships. Amazing simulation features especially for an offline game, but you miss out on a lot if you want to play it as a solo space sim.

I play space sims to live an alternate life in a sci-fi universe as a pilot, not to be a venture capitalist. If you're looking for an alternative to Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky, try Evochron Legacy. I hope that some day they expand the X series' gameplay options for solo playthroughs, as it'd probably net them many more players.

I find the comparisons to EVE Online strange. While I'm not a big fan of EVE, I did enjoy it much more than this and didn't see many similarities.

As close to a masterpiece as i can imagine ... gently flawed, a little rough in some areas, but deeply engrossing, deeply satisfying, and awash with rich gameplay options.

Movement and UI leave A LOT to be desired compared to similar games. I feel like I'm constantly fighting the game just to do anything when I need to move.

Reminds me of EVE online without the multiplayer element. This game is complex and unforgiving but it's easy to cheat a little with saves if a decision made was a bad one.
I wish I known about this game sooner.

Sometimes game feels very good. Great music, great atmosphere spoiled by the worst UI/UX in industry, cringe ugly looking NPC scenes & quests and stupid AI. Once you get your first full fleet the game starts falling apart. First there is no absolute reason to control any sectors or go to war with anyone. Second you will only feel frustration at this time. Destroyers assigned to "bombardment" duty do nothing. Fighters assigned to "interceptor" duty fly under enemy station in batch of 3-5 trying to chase some random miner/trader and die quickly. It looks like AI was not designed to take surrounding environment into account, May be the game could be better without turrets on the stations, like it was in X3

As for the final note you will get bad performance, in one sector you have 140 FPS in another 40-60 (60 if you are really lucky) due to some fog effects (hello Sanctuary of Darkness and couple of other sectors which eats FPS even with vol. fog disabled) and ugly shimmering/aliasing everywhere which is only mitigated by 2.25x DLDSR (forget about it if you don't own 3090/4090). And CPU single-core bound issues, yes

I tried over multiple releases, none of these issues have been solved over years. Release date was 6!!!! years ago. 4.0 (when i bought) was 3.5 years ago. I believe there should be a better way to spend German taxpayer's money than you do now.

Also the one who designed/worked on station builder deserves own specialized cauldron in hell

Clunky interface, dense, confusing, not approachable at all.

The only way to play this game is by watching a ton of videos. It's not a bad game, it's just dense and does a terrible job at giving information to the player, about ANYTHING. I'm sure it's great for long time players, but as someone with very little exposure to this series I don't recommend to people who haven't played before. We are not the audience for this game.

X4 was long in my backlog. I remember it launched back in 2018, but that the launch was rough and that its learning curve was steep. Now, in 2024 I finally gave it a try, and I am glad I did.

But what this game even is? Answer is not as straightforward as one may think. X4 is usually described as space sim, but in reality, its an ambitious mix of space sim, RTS, and Tycoon.

How does it fare? Its not better space sim than Elite. Its worse Tycoon than Anno, and its way worse RTS that Homeworld (yes, even the third one). The UI sucks, learning curve is rough and the world is quite formulaic and built on tired scifi tropes. But while on individual level it may loose in comparison with dedicated games from these genres, X4 is more than just sum of its parts. Its draws its strength from combining these elements and allowing you do the cool stuff you cant do elsewhere.

For example, while its space RTS aspect may be less complex and way more clunky than the Homeworld, Homeworld does not allow you to enter and fly any individual ship you have. Or it doesnt let you defeat enemy empires economically by starving them of one critical resource in their supply chain, without firing a shot.

Dont let anyone tell you you can only choose between the ponzi-scheme tech demo of Star Citizen or the empty grind of Elite Dangerous. There IS another space sim, that, while maybe less impressive in certain aspects, present much more better, complete and coherent package, and even offers some gameplay aspect those two dont at all.

Disclaimer: While the game is finished and fun, some of the DLCs are pretty much must have for complete experience. But for a game thats out for six years and still supported, I believe thats fair.

Game is a solid mediocre. Has a lot of systems going at once, which means they're all pretty shallow. Flying ships does not feel good, flight system is very arcadey, not as weighted as other games. Voice acting is mediocre at best.

This one is hard, the concept of the game is amazing and highly addictive. The AI is horrrrrible, and the UI is good in some parts and terrible in most others, these two factors often end up making you want to punt your PC out the window.

Now I know where Eve online got the premise for their game. At first I thought X4 had ripped off CCP but I now know its the other way around :P
Still, very fun with nobody griefing you 24/7 like on Eve. Stations are a bit laggy but hopefully Egosoft gets that sorted soon. Overall a very fun and in depth game to play...9/10

Game looks to have a lot of stuff from the outset but pretty terrible player experience and a general lack of polish.

Honestly, you need to be just the right kind of acoustic to enjoy it through awkward controls, Excel-like interface, and giant sandbox the game is.
But once it clicks you are gone for weeks.

It has everything:
- space miniguns
- lasers
- rockets
- spreadsheets
- spaceships of all kinds & sizes
- greedy reptiloids
- the coolest Star Wars-esque name there is Dal Busta
- spreadsheets
- living & breathing universe
- taxes & embargoes
- spreadsheets
- free market
- multiple good quest lines, that affect the Universe afterwards
- Good and ambitious space colonist and angry & petty metropoly
- spreadsheets

probably one of the best space sims I have tried. others may look better but there is less to do this one gives you an actual large amount of options love it.

I have very mixed feelings about this game. Overall it provides a pretty impressive depth and scale of space sim that no one else provides. It does also have many faults that are hard to ignore.

I think the best way to put this into words without turning it into a dissertation is to summarize it as this; The systems you engage with are fun. Flying a ship, fighting, trading, and exploring are fun. Everything that is offloaded to automation or AI is mostly not.

Some major sticking points for me are:

The AI does not interface well with most of the systems in the game and requires a lot of micromanagement and teleporting around the universe to resolve simple logistical problems or confused orders. Carrier operations and fleet management are unreliable at best and are frustrating to work through.

There are some components of the game that are extremely superficial and would be well served to be expanded upon. Boarding and Crew management are prime candidates for expansion as capital ship fights are really fun, but boarding and constantly restaffing marines is tedious at best.

The overall universe seems very much alive with factions making territorial gains, shifting allegiances, destroying entire sectors and whatnot and feels great to be a part of. Having a better universal map and political visibility system in your headquarters would be nice so you aren't having to teleport or fly to various faction HQs all the time.

Overall the game is beautiful, has some of the best space combat in the business, and massive ambitions. It just needs to develop into it's systems a bit more to make it user friendly.

Just a bit too boring. You fly about space forever to get somewhere only for the game to say "Oh, you need to get something else" so you fly for a long long time to get it, then fly back. The game says "Oh, go get this now" and so you do. Back and forth and basically you aren't doing anything and everything is confusing. This just wasn't for me even though I really hoped it was.

I've been playing video games since Pong and this is one of the funnest games I have ever played. It is also one of the most frustrating games I have ever played. There are aspects of the AI that are terrible. The UI is convoluted. I yell and I scream and yet I have a blast. There are so many things to do that you could easily put 1000's of hours into this game. The music is awesome. Beautiful graphics. Plan on spending at least 100 hours to thoroughly learn the game. I highly recommend this game if you are willing to put in the effort and you are willing to put up with a not so perfect AI or UI. Two thumbs up from me!

Completely immersive. Egosoft has done what they always do, continue to polish and build and polish again until they have a glowing game like X4. I'm still playing after the initial rough version released in 2018, that should say plenty. Oh yeah, fair warning, I did say immersive, yes? Say goodbye to you partner, friends, family, pets, plants, work, ect. It pulls you in. You've been warned.

X4 have its flaws but yet, this game is one of its kind and offers a lot unique experience unlike any other space games out there. This game allows you to do a lot of things including pirating, own command stations and bases, trading, and fight in a massive battle.

The choice is yours.

Another game that desprately calls for a middle button on steam, this game is fun but it feels like everything in the game is working against you, from the UI,to the atrociously bad AI and autopilot(still running into asteroids like its X3R babeyyy, at least my ships dont run into eachother anymore), to the performance issues. but like 20 people worked on this game so the fact it works at all is pretty impressive. the 7.00 update did fix alot my issues but man there are just so many times playing this game where something fucks up and it becomes mega fustrating as your backtracking 20-40 minutes of progresss. if you have the patience of a saint, get this game

Steep learning curve but this is by far the most immersive Space Sim out there.

You have multiple ways to start, with or without a story, with just a ship...and by the end you command huge space stations and fleets from small ships all the way up to capital ships that are the size of an entire city.

Been playing X since X2: The threat, started playing the demo on a PC that could barely run it, and over the years have played every X game since, I am so grateful that EGOSOFT has continued this series and even after years of X4 being out still come back and play it for long periods at a time.

Highly recommend for anyone who likes sandbox space games that have a lot to offer.

Amazing game. Always changing, with economy, factions and available play. Just when you get bored of doing something you find something new to do, next thing you know its been 6 hours. Combat, Trading, Missions there's a little something for everyone and every play style. Buy it, It's worth it 110%.

X4 is a space empire simulation game that is the culmination of 20+ years of such games from Egosoft. So, this latest release includes many things to do in a sandbox environment, like space exploration, trading, mining, space ship combat, space station building/management, economy management, fleet management/combat, storyline questing, side questing, and diplomacy. The implementation of virtually all these features is average to poor, but as there are hardly any games out there with X4's size and scope, maybe you can forgive the fleet combat flaws because you want to build space stations and claim sectors. Maybe you can ignore the awful crew member graphics and largely deserted space station environs because you can pilot a ship and shoot enemies down while your crew help with repairs or board enemy ships. So, maybe X4 has enough to offer you, and in the right combination, when something like Stellaris, Elite Dangerous, or Civ VI won't quite fit.

The reason I'm not recommending this game is because my current game seems to have devolved into an endless fleet combat simulation in a single sector against waves and waves of unrelenting enemy AI fleets. I can't do any of the above activities because I'm spending all of my time just maintaining the status quo in this single sector. There are friendly and neutral AIs that should be fighting off enemy AIs, but they seem to be INTENTIONALLY HANDICAPPED, as the enemy AIs in practice seem to be 3x stronger, with ships that fly 3x faster (than even my own AI controlled fleets), and show up in endless waves, seemingly to match any fleets I bring to bear. Perhaps Egosoft did this to challenge players, and if so, I worked. It's challenging, I can gain no ground, and I haven't had fun the past week. Thumbs down.

One of the most unique space management & flight sims on the market. You'll have a hard time finding it's match. If you were a fan of Elite: Dangerous, this can fill that hole.

I feel I can enjoyed this game for a long long time. It's deeply engaging on many levels.

It's a spreadsheet game disguised as a space adventure. Manage your cargo routes right and you might just have enough time to shoot a Xenon or two.

11/10 would not recommend unless you are a sadist or an accountant.

Great space based game with multiple ways to play. Kind of a cross between a single player E-V-E-like experience with elite dangerous elements, but with full fleet size action (you aren't just limited to a single ship at a time, but you can certainly do that if you like). It's been around a while, not a new game (came out 6 years ago), but a lot of fun and a great way to spend some free time. I'll even add the economics model is pretty good, and has some real-world educational benefits! The only thing I don't really like are the 'space highways,' they are a bit toony, as in not realistic at all, they don't even make sense in a sci-fi acceptable kind of way ;-) But all in all, two thumbs up!

At its core its the concept of this game is brilliant. Open and vast. That being said. The 2 biggest problems i have with this game are 1. The controls are clunky and make it very hard to anything more complex than just flying from point A to point B. And secondly the missions are bland. With the briefings being vague and the steps to your objectives being a bit contrived. Almost as if trying to "fluff out" the content. If i have to get into my space suit and climb out of my ship more than one time during a mission its too much and makes me want to shoot the mission giver in the face. All in all a decent game,

Update: Nope fuck this game cant recommend it. This bullshit Torus Aeternal puzzle is stupid.

I've been playing the Star Wars: Interworlds mod and have been enjoying it a ton

If you into space games this game it's great lots of replaybility is single player but has tons of content this game is made to play for a lot of hours Also if you like it I recommend getting all the expansions.

Could be a great game but the piloting and manoeuvring AI especially when boarding is completely broken. AI trading doesn't seem to work efficiently. AI combat is abysmal as well. The only thing that's 'good' about this game in the station builder but even that suffers from UI problems.

An interesting and complex universe. It takes time to learn but once you have it the game opens up in an epic way. I love this game.

Incredible complex, excellent mods, with a sense of liberty and vastness of space. I loved almost all X series games and this is an excellent one.

Awesome game, once I finally got past the tutorials I started getting the hang of things. My only real complaint is that there are no working displays in cockpits/ bridges everything is just displayed through the HUD which is useful but I do like physical displays if only for additional information outside combat. Can't speak to end game issues as I only have 11 hrs and I tend to get overwhelmed or side tracked but to me it all seems very solid and even waiting years to start getting into it, I've been quite impressed with everything so far.

A space sim, trading, fighting, exploration, building, game that you can play your way. Loving it! Pay attention with the tutorials and read the steam community help.

65 hours on this game i still get bullied by the enemy, build factory that only generate 1 mill per hour and didn't know anything about this game and i still love it how you can do anything and still suck at it. and i don't even touch the DLC yet.

although voice actor was mid and the story is lack but the stations and economy is what i love this game

10/10 would place mine at enemy territory and explode again

3 hours in and I'm not done with the tutorials. It seems they went all in with systems and depth and forgot the goal of a game was to have fun. And forget playing this with a controller alone, you will need mouse and keyboard: planning orders with a controller is just painful, and station building is downright nightmarish. Radial shortcut menus that open tabbed menu, with nested sub-tabs, X4 makes excel feel user friendly and exciting. The controls are loose and floaty, even when on foot.

The game shows its age and feels like a chore. It does a bad job at hooking you in (with a story or otherwise) and pacing introduction of new systems. It's just "here's a list of 40 tutorials". It seems proud to be player hostile and hard to approach. It's rife with tedium and sci-fi cruft: you have to request permission for entering your own ship when coming back from a space walk, you have to manually pick an option 2 menus deep to undock, etc. Even if Starfield robbed you of the joy of piloting your ship with crazy fast-travel, this game is going to make you miss that, dearly. And the characters and voiceovers, oh boy, those were bad and obsolete when the game released a decade ago.

There are other good space sims out there (go play Everspace 2), don't do this to yourself unless you intended to play with a mouse, keyboard and flight stick and feel like seriously nerding out with spreadsheet gameplay, route planing, repetitive trading and mining and are looking for the overall excitement of working a day job.

I fineally began understanding this complex game, took me quite a while. But i can recommended. But there is glaring FLAWS.
- Not much immersion/RP (its mostly sandbox, where you create your own immersion and goals. Wich is a shame, they should build on this.)
- Badly optimized (big combats = big lag)
- Global orders and research seem unessesary complex and user unfriendly.
- Crew level mechanic seems like a chore, no real option to buy experienced pilots for more credits.

But despite this, there is a REAL gem here, with modding on top.

- Cool ships (ESPECIALLY modding i recommend nexus mods with VRO + Rise of the Ossirian Raider and CPSDO for the COOLEST syn destroyer variant and the COOLEST Gharial inspired FLAGSHIP, i cannot thank these guys enough for making such cool ships).

I've put a lot of time into this game and there are awesome and very cool idea's. At the end of the day I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but someone who liked the other X games for 2 reasons.

1 terrible UI, I mean it hurts to look at it sometimes.
2 terrible AI, how hard is it to make a ship fly straight and not drop out of travel mode constantly. Also watching them trying to avoid an asteroid, is painful.
3 barely functional automated trade and mining features, can do it yourself 100x more efficiently which becomes impossible ones you get beyond a certain size.

Some very cool features and next level complexity if that’s your thing, but the drawbacks and bugs are a true barrier to entry for new players. If they haven’t fixed them by now, they won’t.

Finally got to sink a bunch of hours into this X4, And so far i'm liking it. I'm still a long way off from learning everything but right now, I'm enjoying every moment. Some missions are pretty difficult but googling some guides, At least you will still have half your hair intact. Have yet to do any of the building side of this X4, Slowly but surely. Recommended.

On a side note, The majority of space games that are out or have come out recently, they all are using that really saturated cartoon look which is pretty trash. This game use's that crisp HD look as in the pic's and vids on the store page. Just wish this X4 had multiplayer that u could visit other players universe's and dock/have multi universe wars. Maybe X5?

been a fan from the very beginning -- X4 adds new details and game play. Nicely done -- but I do wish the controls were the same. I have a hard time targeting enemies quickly and I am always hitting the . to activate the map (which is now the "M" key).

I did not buy the add ons - as I wanted to see if the main game was even worth it. It is.
The one thing I have not heard yet - which always cracks me up - is "Will the parents of the argon girl named Susie please report the ..." That always cracked me up.. But having unaccompanied pets will be vaporized is pretty good too :)

At first this game was so complex to me that I refunded it .. but after jumping back in.. i'm literally so addicted and slowly learning the game.. one quest at a time.. one sandbox at a time.. I am learning what freedom of choice is really creating new content and adventure for me. fantastic game.. already bought 2 DLCs !

I love this game, super addictive. it is a lot of fun to go from buying ships from the AI to selling ships to the AI.

X4's main strength is it's scale. From your spacesuit out in space you can board your tiny fighter, land it on a frigate, take that frigate and land it on a carrier. You can take that carrier and dock it at your station. You can look out over the docking ports from your observation deck and enjoy all your hard work.

The universe is almost fully simulated, every ship, every battle, every resource. You could help a factions wartime production by building your own stations and selling to them for cheaper. You could tank an economy by jettisoning the ship building material of a station. You can even start major wars .

I love this game, but it's not for everyone. The ship AI is still pretty buggy, the UI is clunky and not very intuitive, and mods are needed to smooth out some of the rough spots. The game isn't unplayable without mods, but there are a ton of QoL improvements that I'd say are a must. It's not the most well optimized game in the world, but it's getting better.

With that said, my most notable experience in the game was feeling a little slighted by a super annoying (to me) faction. Despite tense but mostly peaceful relations they'd kill a cargo ship of mine here and there. At one point I added corvette escorts to combat the Xenon and Kha'ak. The escorts retaliated, the fight spilled over into the neighboring system, and we were headed for all out war. I barricaded myself in a system I claimed and slowly built an armada while fighting skirmishes around their gates.

Then the armada was unleashed. They've been scoured off the map. I didn't even want their systems, but they're mine now. Nothing will be built there, ever. It is not a place of honor. Every so often they attempt to resurrect themselves and rebuild a station that I stamp out like a weed. My transports and miners are safe again.

I took a long time to buy this, I played x3 and the UI was quite painful and with rebirth being poorly received and a lot of people saying x4 was hard to get into I wasn't sure it was for me.

Turns out it's very janky, as expected, but great.
The UI is much better than X3 which was a huge relief.
Yes it has inherent problems with AI ships tasked with precise movements just flailing around, and things happening more reliably when the AI is off camera. But if you engage with the game with those in mind it's great.

The core loop for me is seeing what's missing in a region, and supplying it. it's easy enough to see when your shiny new ship you've ordered can't be built because there aren't enough ship parts, then you can chase down the ship part factory and see if they need delivering or if something is missing, and so on down the production chain until you find something you can do to help. Trading, Mining, or building a new production station.

Most of the ships look awesome from outside. While you can walk around inside a little the insides feel a little oddly proportioned and full of hallways so it's not Star Citizen (or even starfield) levels of ship design, but it still sells the illusion. The different faction ships and stations feel and look different and it really sells the universe. This can be a problem for space games as you're just looking at generic space most of the time but it manages to give locations a unique feeling.

I got all the dlcs in a cheaper bundle so I can't distinguish them clearly but I'll say I downloaded a save/user file with all timelines missions complete, after trying the first one, and I have zero regrets. Zero.

I've tried to get into this game but nothing is intuitive nor explained sufficiently. And some things don't seem to work as they should. It's very frustrating.

I've been playing this game for a few hours now and, sorry to say, I'll never get those hours back. The game is way to difficult and awkward to get into. I've played Elite Dangerous, No Man's Sky and Starfield and whilst they all have there strong and weak points, this game is just hard, it seems, for the sake of it.
I mean, like, even just getting into a travel lane (whatever you call that) takes forever to get the angle right. You then get told - exit in 30..20..10 but if you don't get it right you end up in the next system. Rinse and repeat. I'm currently trying to do the quest where you scan an station (any station!) to get clandestine info on Scale Plate. But I keep flying to places, shift+2 to go into scan mode and a few blips, beeps and messages but I never get the info required. Maybe I'm not scanning correctly, maybe I've chosen the wrong installation but the guidance you get is woeful. Honestly, how did all this awkwardness not get picked up in user testing. Phew. That's £11.50 I'll never get back :(