X4: Foundations

With all the expansions that they've released. You'd think they would have tried to actually improve the game. But nothing has really been improved. The stories are bland and lifeless. Ai controlled ships are often brainless. Missiles are just annoying. The way friendly fire works is just idiocy, If you're on a grand mission, and a massive battle. A couple of your shots go wide or worse your AI controlled turrets, hit an ally, or none enemy, and boom. They're now attacking you too. No way to apologist. you just gotta reload. It's to the point where a good majority of the time. if I am escorting, or part of an AI group, I turn my turrets off entirely to avoid friendly fire. There are so many flaws in this game, and after quite a few years. I doubt they're ever going to be fixed.

This game is for a very specific kind of person. If you are looking for a relaxing game with intuitive controls, looks elsewhere.
Also, could they not afford VAs for this? All the voices sound like emotionless TTS bots.

The best space simulation game there is with frequent quality of life updates, one of the easiest buys i've ever made.
DLCs add a huge amount of content and are worth buying.

May be overwhelming for new players at the beginning with the user interface, controls and possibilities but provides an extensive tutorial to learn almost everything you will need.

The amount of fun you get is priceless!
10/10 recommend

Absolutely fantastic sim. You can be a fighter pilot, a space trucker, a pirate, a hacker, an admiral, a CEO, or all of the above. The universe is fully simulated and every ship you build or destroy is going to be used or missed somewhere. The only caveat is that it's very slow-paced. If you like to see instant action, X4 probably isn't for you. If you like the idea of spending hundreds of hours growing from a humble pilot with only one small craft into a tycoon who prints a billion credits an hour, try this game out.

Best single player space game ever imho.

This is a wonderful sandbox. You can play it in whatever way you want, be whatever you want. The only thing that I would love to see in here is a multiplayer mode where you could have 2 or 3 friends each with their own business. That would be the game of the century!

Beautiful frustrating game is the way i call it. Sadly there is no mixed reviews for 1 person.

PRO: -Very nice space sandbox with multiple races and factions where you can be and do whatever you want: pirate, trader, gun for hire, miner, taxi driver ...
-You can own every ship you see in the game.

CON: Can you deal with - the learning curve - collisions - auto-pilot - clipping - others little things (knowing that you need to set a buying offer with excluding all races to things you mine for your workers to do the job for example).

I love to hate games, or i hate to love them .. not sure.

amazing space sim, no real fast travel and the bigger the ship the slower you gona move but im 130 hours in and well....this has few tutirals but yeah...highly recomend playing them you dont get anything but at least you kind aknow wtf your doing. i also recomend doing a start that has star(recomended for new players) as this will walk you through diffrent aspects of the game alot slower. this a very large rpg space with rts 4x lite and very lite, you get to have fleets and can give them diffrent orders. you can bluid staions of diffrent kinds, crash ecomonys start wars, the sand box mode lets you go hog wild. 2

Alot of fun , huge universe , only bigger one i can think of is Avioron

This is what happens when unneeded complexity meets bad UI. Just to build a section of a base, you need to unlock the blueprint (good luck), have enough materials, hire a builder (no idea how to do this), have enough money for the estimate, and then it takes about 2 hours in real time to actually build it. but good luck figuring any of that out without looking up a youtube video. I have absolutely no idea what the point of this game is and even after basically putting it in creative mode, i still have no idea how to play, what to do, who to talk to, or where to go. the graphics and audio are terrible, even for the date it came out (btw this is still in beta? what a joke) and dont even get me started on the glitches and frequent crashes. one of the worst games ive ever bought and i would do anything to get a refund and my time back.

I can't with the UI, it's so overly complicated and bloated. Idk why it's so messy but it's so bad that even the UI starts having trouble with itself when trying to do stuff.
A lot of times you gotta go through 20 clicks just to make a simple auto trade.

You'd think it'd be easy to automate simple trade routes in your empire but you gotta make blacklists rules and trade rules and then your stations needs a ton of money to "buy" from YOUR stations.
They don't even use the money, they just need to hold on to it so the AI can work. Then you gotta hope the AI can figure out what the hell is going on.

100 of my hours were mostly me going afk to google crap that I thought would be super easy.
UI change is desperately needed

I loved previous games in this series and I gave every possible attempt for this game to work. But it just endless struggle for no reason. Nothing is working as one would expect. You hire a ship to do local-zone auto trade, but you can only select a single good. After 2 runs, this good runs out of opportunity. You hire a mining ship and it is the same thing, there is nowhere to sell the goods. All stations are empty and identical with a few lonely pilots waiting to be hired. Many things just don't make sense to me which makes it very hard to immerse myself in this world.

This game wasn't good, and now, many years and many updates later, it is.

So far I am in absolute love with this game. Graphics are absolutely stunning. I love how technical everything is, like you really have to pay attention and play the tutorials or your going to be scratching your head super confused. As of now I only have a small and med ship so I have no idea what the large and xl ships are like but they all look awesome. What I love most is how truly open this game is, like you can do whatever you want, however you want. There is no set quest line. You can choose to play missions however you like, and you can always jump back and forth between them. I def recommend to all who enjoy the space sim type games. This one maybe a little difficult but the challenge is worth it.

Older game, but still awesome fun. sank a lot of hours into it and still just getting started.

Its a fun game to a extent but it feels strangely empty. It feels like there is so much to do but too little at the same time, hard to explain but once you play it you will understand what I mean. Very complicated to learn. I would like to see somethings such as planets to go to and some more diplomacy stuff such at nations and all that (might be in this game already I havent played much). Between this, No Mans Sky, and Starsector I would rather play Starsector than this to itch my space sim needs.

This game is so addicting - I had to uninstall it because it was taking over my life.
I wanted a single player Eve Online - and this is exactly what I was looking for.

10/10 - Will be back as soon as real life opens up another slot for expanding my space empire.

I put down Baldur's Gate 3 "to chill in space for a couple hours" and now I can't stop playing. Its been 130 hours since then and I want to stop but can't.

I really need to beat BG3 before I forget the story lines.

can't enjoy X3, too dated maybe
can't enjoy elite dangerous idk why

yet absolutely love X4
one of the best for space games for sure

This is a child of Elite Dangerous and Mount & Blade.

As i write this review the game is running in the background. I am waiting for my, hopefully optimal, station to generate money, to create a fleet that will grow large enough to overcome the AI's capability with sheer numbers.

If you complete the tutorials and Timelines (which are great and bad at the same time) you should be able to handle yourself for about ~5 hours of the Sandbox gameplay.

"Elite" part ends very quickly. If you are a Elite refugee you will most likely be disappointed. M&B in space describes this game best.

After the initial 5 hours you will either get started with a mining fleet or a destroyer and a couple of fighters. This means that from this point onward you will mostly play by looking at the galaxy map. And sadly you will be fighting the UI and AI. Trying to figure out why your traders don't trade the product of your station despite meeting the prices or gate jump limits.
Why are my fighters so useless against the weakest of foes?
The amount of micro managing the player has to learn in order to overcome the AI and UI downsides is a bit too much.

The game is best left running in the background to passively grind money.

Google is certainly a must. However... i had hard time finding answers for my questions. X4 subreddit is extermely helpful, i recommend going straight there if you have questions.

I came across this and I thought, wow its on sale. I bought it not expecting much as I've not seen or heard much about it. Anyways, I started it up and it was difficult. There was some learning involved at the likes I have never experienced with a game. My beloved safari search tab on my phone and you tube shorts have been like a Korean sleeper agent mentor to me for this game. I'm only 30 hours in, and starting to get the hang of it. But I love this game its very nice of the germans, thank you germans.

10 hours of gametime, 2 hours of youtube tutorials, and i STILL dont have a clue how to play this game.
The tutorials are useless, teach you nothing at all apart from basic movement and trading.

I started the Terran cadet chain, as thats what people were saying would teach me the game, its literally just go here, go there, scan that, shoot at this for HOURS on end, i learned nothing. Still know nothing about mining, exploring, ship upgrades, weapons systems, who knows what a nav beacon does because it explains nothing. Missions are the worst, so extremely vague. Simple mission like deliver 2 food. They could have just told me it needs to be crafted using meat spice etc. But no, the guy who typed out these missions was clearly a fat lazy cunt because i had to learn that off youtube. Then i get a 'very easy' mission to find a few lootbox, 4 hours of searching, scanning, back and forth till i finally find a ? symbol, race towards it, and of course its not a lootbox but a MINE and now my ship is destroyed.

Sure, i see theres a great game hidden somewhere inside this mess, but fuck spending literally days of my life figuing it out. I mean i seen the videos and then read the reviews thinking 'it cant be THAT bad surely' but wow, it was way worse than i expected. I could maybe tolerate it all if the movement and combat was a little smoother, but its stupid and janky, the ship your in has two speeds, too slow, or too fast, thats it, no inbetween.

Im kinda in shock with this one, fancy making a game so complex, so deep, but then completely neglecting a decent tutorial for it, or a decent quest chain that drip feeds you features without delving straight into the repetitive fetch quest routine. And dont even get me started on the voice acting, its so bad, its like they didnt even hire actors but made the staff do it instead, as you can literally hear the 'i dont want to be doing this' attitude coming from every voice actor.

Id rate this game 3 out of 10

Stupid collection of mini games with unrealistic targets that take hours to complete, (who actually attacks a capital ship in a small fighter?). More frustratingly boring than fun, save your money on this one.

My goal buying and playing X4 Foundations and all DLC (yup) years after release was to experience a polished space sim.

It delivers on an enjoyable exploration experience, with the most interesting faction being the Boron imo.
The space combat at the S/M ship level is also very satisfying and fairly balanced, but fast-paced action stops there.
Fleet dynamics for larger ships are well-implemented, but do not measure up to my point of comparison, Starsector.

The crux of the game remains its industry / economy simulation which will be the backbone of your empire and fleets.
I didn't get all the way there, as the game successfully bored me before I could get to enjoy its main selling point fully, for the following reasons:
- NPCs are bland and inaesthetic - they will all greet you with the same death stare and monotone AI-generated voice.
- Ships are varied and carry great faction identity, but again are not pleasant to look at save for Terran and Boron.
- Weapons and systems variety is a letdown. They are few, sport generic names, and are functionally similar.
- Of the few weapons available, Missiles, Plasma and Flak dominate unequivocally, and seeking variety seems a suboptimal move in a game that simulates battles on a numbers contest.
- Performance starts to tank as the game progresses and more active elements populate the map, to the point I could foresee Stellaris levels of game stalling if I continued into the lategame, which I have borne enough of for a lifetime already.

X4 might resonate with your inner spreadsheet enthusiast, but it wasn't the space sim I was looking for.

---
I am also aware that mods exist, and tried them out. They successfully throw balance through the window and the game remains similarly boring and unsightly, just with more variety populating the expanse. A handful of modded ships like the ATF Freyr are very aesthetically and functionally pleasing however.

I played X3 years and years ago, and yeah it was pretty janky with weird cutscenes and such. But it was beautiful and fun, and it worked. I've played this game for 7 hours - half of which have been playing through the awful tutorials...which frankly didn't help at all.
I then started up a new game (after realising nearly all of it was locked behind extra DLC) and went out in my space suit to explore the station for hacks....I promptly Got dragged through an asteroid field by a large sip and thrown out into space. After hitching a ride on another ship, I found that I couldn't call my ship for help, as I hadn't bought a pilot for it yet, and was lsot on the other side of the galaxy with no way of buy a new ship or getting back to mine.
Well, restart and a few moments later my shipglitched through the middle of another ship and exploded.
Okay, thrid time is the charm apparently...I finally found a little distress beacon, started a conversation with a boron scientist who...stalled, went silent, and promptly locked me out of all menus and controls. I couldn't even save. I wouldn't be too bothered if it wasn't for the fact that this game has four DLCs but the core game still hasn't been fixed of basic game breaking glitches like this. I loved the idea of being able to walk through my ship (which you also cant do, btw) but found the game, in the end, awful.

needs to replace the X-Y-Z axes with map will be a better choice.Work on the turbo engine cool down timer is to long and not powerful enough

Start out in a teensy ship, struggling against other teensy ships that want to steal your lunch. Keep winning, buy bigger ships, buy friendly ships, buy good investments. Eventually control a multi-star system empire, helping or crushing empires at will.

Then go fly that teensy starter ship through your grand economic machine, just for the hell of it.

#goodfeels

If you buy more than the first part meaning all expansions it's amazing. Nice work on the Hyperion too it's an awesome ship to pilot.

at this point ive hit the 300hours mark.
i have every expension and plan to buy the next ones that will come.
The game is so deep that after 300 hours you will still learn new stuff and or figure new things out.
better or efficient ways to run your stations.
ways to impact the econemy .

Best to descibe this game to someone who never played.
Eve online/elite dangerous, single player mixed with GTA that evolves to stellaris during your playtime.
Dogfights, station managment builder, galaxy sim. econemy tycoon.


for devs.
we want ventures back! not as beta but as part of the game. make it a new dlc. so you make some money.
autopilot can use some love
For endgame when you have an empire. there should be a better option to make peace with another faction. or atleast a cease fire

still runs like crap
and the flight model makes anything bigger than scout fighter feel like fly a 1000 ton bar of soap.
its fair enough to update the flight model but it seems that none of the environments or controls have been updated to take into account the new model. for example the already terrible auto pilot is now now completely unusable as it just crashes into everything and travel drive speed instead of just regular speed.

X4 is one of those titles that falls into the Worst Best game category. I feel like it really is the absolute best 4X/Grand Strategy/Space Sim on the market but so much about it is unintuitive and poorly implemented. You start out small, just you in your little ship, and work your way up to conquering the galaxy through might and economics. When you begin a game you take on missions to start building reputation and your fortune, you can buy more ships, buy pilots to fly the ships, have a crew follow you around, buy real estate in space, build space stations, undercut the competition by providing more goods at a lower cost, or just offer what the competition cant, eventually you can automate building your own fleet and dominating everyone that isnt you. The big downsides are that the default controls dont really mesh with what the rest of the flight/space sim market have come up with. Its a bit odd figuring out how to set up your controls, for instance I eventually bound acceleration and deceleration to my scroll wheel. Strange but it works well. Some missions are difficult to understand, what are my objectives? Where do I need to go? Who am i supposed to talk to? Where do I get whats requested? Sometimes its best to take a mission and forget about it for a while and take on some other ones. The absolute worst part about X4 though is the menus. Learning to navigate and use the menus is a game all on its own and its annoying and terrible. Nearly everything you do in the grand strategy portion of the game is done through the menus and most of the important interactions are hidden in sub menus inside sub menus inside sub menus. There isnt a good tutorial in game to teach any of it to you so youll need to go on forums or youtube to get educated on how it all works. Some information youll want in the late game isnt even in the game at all and some resourceful people have put together spreadsheets and tools to help you figure out the info youre looking for. If you have the will to learn the menus and rebind your keys in a way that works for you X4 opens up and is the most feature rich space sim period. Games like elite dangerous and star citizen dont even come close. The only other game thats really similar would be eve, but that has the downside of being an mmo and taking an incredibly long time to come close to the scale of X4, like years.

I bought this game just for the Star Wars Interworlds Mod, great game besides that!

Bad UI which is the main cause of the steep learning curve of this game.
If you can look past that (Youtube videos are your friend), there's a pretty good game for hours and hours of fun and entertainment. Enjoy!

This game offers everything I haven't found so far in a space game, the ability to enter and take command of multiple types of ships, actually enter stations and other areas, as well as build your own facilities, while interacting with other life forms. Most space games I have played have either been primarily human focused with the belligerent or invading alien race that you have no contact with other than fighting. This game is truly one of a kind, a shame I haven't found it sooner.

Overall, I like that game and what it tries to do.
But there are some major issues that ruin the experience more and more as I progress into late game.

1)NPC piracy is horrendous, "I was asked to drop my cargo" If you have a substantial fleet of traders, you will be hearing it a lot. No matter how aggressively you destroy pirates there is always more.

It is ridiculous, no matter what you do right now, fighting huge fleet to save galaxy from Xenon, doing quest in order to stop civil war, building station to trade or want to just explore space in peace, you will get this idiotic message: "I was asked to drop my cargo" again and again and again and again.

What is worse it's all fake, pirates are appearing out of thin air, and you cannot prevent attacks by destroying their station or through deterrents like well-equipped traders or increased patrols. And your traders are actually actively trying to get killed! Their default response is to stop and then flee, which is what actually making them vulnerable for attack, if they would just ignore it, pirates would never catch them. But Egosoft didn't give us option to just ignore pirate demands, because pirates are too stupid and that would basically remove npc piracy from a game.

And as cherry on top, if you drop your cargo pirates don't even try to pick it up, so everything about that mechanic is fake.

2)Station sieges take a ridiculous amount of time, even when you're using 10+ destroyers. I understand that factions need some time to react to an attack, but still, it's insane how long it takes. And what's worse every now and then your destroyers just randomly charge into melee range and get obliterated in seconds, despite having 4-5 KILOMETERS range advantage, why?! Why 7 years after release ships cannot hold distance to a STATIC object.

3)The new flight model in 7.5 has ruined S-class ships for me, they are completely uncontrollable. Maybe the old model was unrealistic, but it felt good. The ship was responsive and handled nicely. Now small ships tend to drift all the time.

Also there are some minor stuff that is just weird, why it works like that 7 years after release:
Why there is no stats on weapon/equipment icons in the wharf/shipyard? Why you need to open encyclopedia to see something as basic as range or damage.
Why you can only compare 3 ships at a time, if there is space for more ships to be compared?
When you target subsystems on L-class, after you destroy them, your target frequently jumps to something random on the other side of the ship, which completely disrupts your attack, it would be so much better if it select only elements that are visible to you right now.
Why there is no command to mine in the whole sector? Only to mine at specific position in the sector.
There is new button in 7.5 to move everything in your inventory to and from storage, which is great in theory, but why it also moves SETA, EMP bombs, launcher, blaster, repair laser etc to storage?! it doesn't make any sence, why would you want to lose all your equipment every time you want quickly drop illigal stuff...

Just want to say a quick shout out to the devs for seemingly achieving the impossible and maintaining a fantastic native Linux version of X4. It's been running great for me for years, all major functions of the game seem to work well; cloud saves are saving, graphics are beautiful (High Settings, Native FSR3, 75-90 FPS), game is stable over hours-long play sessions.

I'm running the game on CachyOS (Arch) Plasma Wayland
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT
32GB RAM

Thanks for all your efforts Egosoft, I love this game :)

A little buggy still, but very fun and immersive!!

It's an immensely satisfying and fun space sim, as long as you're not defeated by the learning curve and UI like I was originally 5 years ago. I would still recommend the tutorials as they are helpful, but a Youtube video will quickly get you running and show you most of those dumb menu interactions actually have pretty good hotkeys that avoid the worst bits of the UI, at least for your own ship/commander. And once you're past that... Boy it's goooooddd.

I always thought the X games sounded kind of small and overly ambitious, but they're actually fantastic. The easiest and quickest way to describe it is Space Kenshi. Factions have different relationships and will trade each other supplies in the detailed economy or go to war with rude neighbors. You pick a typically solo game start, maybe begin doing random missions, your own thing like mining, or one of the many mini plots in the game/dlc. You quickly pick up additional ships, assign crew to support you, build a space station, and transition into running your fledgling faction from the Captain's seat.

The DLCs do offer a lot of content and a couple features that make them important additions but you can also just add them slowly over time without issue. Unless you want to do certain mods, like Star Wars Interworlds. Most big updates to core game are free though, such as the flight model update (which if you didn't have 1000 hrs on the old model, the new one is better). Future free Diplomacy and Exploration updates sound great and like they'll round out the gameplay. Now where's the line for a graphic refresh on some of the old sky...star..spaceboxes?

Don't like the new update for flight. 3600 hrs now I don't enjoy it.

Actually, I liked this game until I finally got my big station for a lot of credits, and I realised that all promised buttons are just fake... AI is stupid as hell. They cannot mine properly; they don't sell properly or buy properly; they don't get resources from your own nearby station. I mean, yes, you needed some mods and a script editor to run such stations comfortably in X3, but X4 has no script editor. That would be fine if the "programmed" stuff would work, but it does not. I don't want to "micro-manage" my station for things that are supposed to work. I only need it to get money for my fleet!

+ it's still fun to attack Xenons with a fleet

+ plots are good, but nothing out of the ordinary.

+ compared to previous titles many new different missions

-90% of equipment you will never use, because there is just one that is best

- need to buy all stories thrue DLCs

- no script editor limits the game.

- Completely stupid AI for trading

-no hotkey for fleet commands

So, if you do want to build an empire and get a big fleet. Which is the unique selling point for this game, it's disappointing.

It takes everything I love from all my favorite space sims and puts them into a single game. I love that you can build your fleets any way you want.

Want to claim the galaxy for yourself via war? Go for it.
Trade Empire? You got it.
Mining monopoly? Yessir.
Space exploration? Absolutley.
Lone Merc taking contracts? Yuuup.
Want to pilot your own ship in an immersive 1st person? Of course.
Action combat in the 3rd person? Hell yeah.

You can command entire fleets from a map and manage their resources or tactically command a squad in the middle of a dogfight from the seat of your own fighter. Build space stations. Board ships. Whatever you want.

All in a constantly simulated universe. So the game goes on without you, meaning you can take your time building your empire or just learning the ropes.

Open sandbox or narrative driven adventure? It has both.

I am only 16 hours in and I am obsessed. I can see myself playing this for the next few years EASY.

Space capitalist simulator.
Start in a small space ship and end up being the leading force in the galaxy.

Build space stations, exploit minerals to turn them into usable wares. Use those wares to make more complex wares, Use those wares to build ships. Sell them, or use them to build your own navy.
Set up factions to each others throat, more wars means more profit.

Or just be everyone friends and fight the Xenon threat.

You can be a pirate, a trader, a real estate magnate.

Anything you wish.

Truly a masterpiece.

It's the first time I've hit 100 hours in a game and felt like I've gotten relatively nothing accomplished but still managed to have fun.

Hard to learn, easy to master. Once I learned enough of a % of the game to start having fun, this game grabbed me with its tentacles, hooking me in a mix of Factorio, Mount & Blade, and Kenshi.

The "point" of the game started to click as I learned more, and did a storyline I enjoyed (Emergence). Rewardingly nerdy mechanics in a game that doesn't care whether or not you exist. Getting into fleet management & space station building hooks me the most, but the idea that I can have solid gameplay as a solo fighter pilot too, or even a squadron leader, is some chef's kiss energy.

Also a Star Wars mod exists, and is one of the best produced mods of all time. Get this game if you are OK with a long learning process, and thirsty at the promise of it paying off into one of the most insanely engrossing sandboxes ever made.

This game is not for everyone most sure. But if it clicks with you, prepare to be lost in it. I'm over 150 hours in (began playing GOG version, then repurchased on Steam to use workshop and get faster updates), and feel like I just scratched the surface.

coming from freelancer, miss multiplayer, but otherwise the best space sim currently out there imo

Very good game and totally addictive, love the ships, and the space you fly around in, and the lovely sky boxes in each new area. I like the way the game plays out with the stories and such. My only issue is there is a huge learning curve when you first start to play the game, with all the menu's what each one is for and what everything does. There is tutorials in the game but i dont think theres enough to explane everything there is that you can do. Other than that loving it so far 245.4 hours in only in a few weeks, man thats nuts.

x4 is my favorite space game. its what i always wanted in a space game. u can fly around in a small ship by yourself doing missions or u can make a huge fleet and go to war or u can build space stations and do business and profits and all that. its got a lot of ships and weapon types and a big universe to explore its great.

X4 is a difficult game to get into, but once you do get into it it's great fun. It gets a recommend from me.

I played almost 1400 hour's in this game. It got it up's and down, but by far it a great game. None other comes close. Early game there more action where late you mostly watching the map controlling your empire and fleet's. Think Grunt to admiral. I will put many more hour's into this game. The only bad thing i could ever say about it, is i cannot enjoy it with my friends. Besides that it one of my most favorite game's of all times.

The new update is amazing! The ships fly so well! In 2025 would definitely recommend to players who are looking for a sandbox game with unlimited potential. Thank you developers.