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X4: Foundations
X4: Foundations lets you build an empire from a single ship, with trading, real-time combat and station production at the center of its sandbox. At $5.57 from 
Eneba, weigh that breadth against your interest in a large-scale space simulation; Steam players rate it 79% positive across 25,568 reviews. If you are not in a hurry, Dec 17, 2026 – Jan 4, 2027 is the next announced Steam sale window, though participation is not guaranteed. The merchant price is $4.42 below Steam's current price of $9.99.
GGselX4: Foundations РФ+СНГ+ВЕСЬ МИР Steam КЛЮЧAll-time low ~ $4.00across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $4.002025-12Current Low Across Stores~ $5.57Enebavs. Historical Low+39%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
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01About X4: Foundations
Begin with one ship and shape a space empire through trading, fighting, exploring and building. X4: Foundations simulates a changing universe where factions trade, build and wage war independently, while you can construct stations, manage production chains and command ships or fleets. Steam player reviews: 79% positive from 25,568 reviews. Interface languages: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese-Brazil, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish-Latin America, Polish, and Czech. Released: November 30, 2018.
Credits
Developer
Egosoft
Publisher
Egosoft
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$4.002025-12-22 · GreenManGamingBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Show 11 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| French | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Korean | Yes | Yes | — |
| Japanese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish-Latin America | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Czech | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-11-08
02Before you buy
Interface and audio languages
Steam PC lists 14 interface languages. Full audio is marked for English, German, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Korean.
Solo play and controls
The Steam PC listing identifies single-player and full controller support.
03Frequently asked questions
What can I do in the game?
Trade, fight, explore, build stations and develop production chains as you grow from a lone pilot toward commanding fleets and an empire.
Does the universe continue to change?
Yes. Factions independently trade, build and wage war, and the simulated economy and universe continue evolving.
Can I directly pilot ships?
Yes. The description says you can take direct control of ships or command fleets strategically.
5.5
Overall Score
Graphics7.5
Audio6
Gameplay5
Story3.5
Content6.5
“Hyper-realistic economy systems and fleet command mechanics define this sprawling space sandbox, offering immense freedom that collapses under a steep learning curve and surface-level gameplay.”
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
I played many hundreds of hours in X3TC and X3AP before registering my old copies onto Steam. I'm now 10 hours into X4 and here's my early impressions - First, no bugs of any sort. Sometimes I'll get frames drop into the 20s or 30s when I've got a lot going on. I've got a 1080 ti and I'm running with everything on ultra. Had one wonky thing happen in a mission but that was largely due to me not doing what it told me to do and I just restored before I messed it up. Second, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game is deep and complex. Sure it has some tutorials but even with almost a decade of X3 behind me I still struggled to figure out how to do some stuff. That's because there's a truly stupid amount of stuff to do. If you're someone who gets frustrated easily when everything isn't super clear then take a xanax before you play X4 - but do play it. This game is what ED wants to be when it grows up. A mile wide AND a mile deep. Newtonian physics, tons of ships each of them customizable in a variety of ways but you can hire NPCs to fly everything with you. Capture enemy ships, repair them and sell them or keep them. Buy/steal/even BUILD ships, hire NPCs and set those NPCs to trading with them. build a network of satellites to track prices in different systems in this living, breathing economy and find good price opportunities to exploit but instead of having to spend your entire day being a space trucker you just pull up your 3D map, pick ships and crews for the task and say: 'Hey. Bucko. Go hook up some space widgets from this system and go sell them at this station over here. Since that station makes Exploding Super Space Widgets when it's got enough regular space widgets, you just hang tight while they whip those up using what you delivered, buy those and sell them over HERE, cuz that guy? Oh man, he really, really, *really* wants Exploding Super Space Widgets." That's maybe not exactly the menu choices you have to make but close enough. I can buy, fly, control or fight anything from tiny speedy zippy little fighters of various sorts up to massive carriers. Build fleets. Build space stations and take a direct role in the economy. Why buy space widgets when you can mine the resources and build a facility to make your own? Maybe because you don't want to play spreadsheets! Know what? Don't have to. Ever. You can start out in a tiny ship and just shoot, murder, pirate, kill loot and thieve your way into better and better ships and huge piles of space bucks because it's a fookin' sandbox, man. YOU DO YOU. IN SPACE. This game isn't a quick fix of dopamine. It's not a Candy Crush click boom get your ego pellet reward Electronic Arts title. It's a massive space sandbox, wide and deep and it's not easy or forgiving or simple but you'll play it for a decade and love it because you, you my friend, you are not the kind of person who gets told 'You've got a phone, don't you' and thinks 'Wow, yeah, I do have a phone! My gosh, I could just play all my nice, simple, dumbed down, microtransaction-riddled games on my phone! GENIUS!' You're an explorer, a fighter, a cunning trader and the kind of person who get ♥♥♥♥ done - in fact tons of ♥♥♥♥, all over the galaxy, all at the same time. Because this is the right game for you.Show moreShow less
43 hours at review1,353 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I like this game. But it does not get my recommendation because, much like X3 before it, the game is not very approachable. I don't want my friends to buy it only to give up 10 minutes in, never to return. They did exactly that with X3:TC after my recommendation. Many things about this game are great, but you have to be willing wade through a bad user experience to get there. For a full review, read on. The Good or Great + deep lore + large universe + interesting ship designs + amazing space environments + large variety of ships to outfit, modify, fly, or command + economy sim that you can influence and exploit + empire building, meaning automation and remotely commanding assets + many different activities. examples: trade, combat, piracy, station building, exploration, conquer territory + missions expose you to most activities + interesting and consequential plots These are enough for me to make it worth playing despite the negatives below. The Bad User Experience I don't mean the visual elements, but the interaction design. The core mistake Egosoft made was organizing the interactivity by game system (the developer's perspective), instead of by use case (the player's perspective). This misalignment begets every other problem with the user experience. Frequently used Information and activities are fragmented across different sub menus instead of being in easy reach. They tried to compensate for this fragmentation by cramming what they could into right-click menus or keyboard shortcuts. But it's still not very coherent. You can also tell the the UI is a tacked-on afterthought. In many cases it doesn't update in response to game events... you have to close and reopen a menu/panel to see new information. Some screens being open prevent notifications or quest updates, like its mutually exclusive with those game systems. It's fairly common for me late game to be in the property list for a while (esp considering SETA) managing my empire. It isn't until I exit the menu that the notifications play back-to-back. Then I find out that one of my ships was destroyed... 2 hrs ago. Or I'll be remotely completing a mission step and the mission won't update. I have to close out of menus. Sometimes even have to sit in a ship to get the update. And sometimes there's just a delay between steps. It's a confusing user experience. Kha'ak This could be fairly categorized as a UX problem. Probably my largest late-game irritation is the Kha'ak. Finding and blowing them up is easy. The tedious part is using the map interface to get my fleets to their stations. They always spawn way outside the map border, which you can't target with orders. So you have to keep inching the fleet to the edge of the map over and over to make the sector border expand until you reach the station. Usually multiple hives and raid stations spawn at a time, so this process is repeated half a dozen times back-to-back. It's a mind-numbing boredom that sometimes frustrates me enough to end the play session. Many players advocate just avoiding them. Use large miners/traders exclusively which can mostly ignore their attacks. Or build in Terran sectors where they can't spawn. (Or use mods.) But these bandaids cut the player out of gameplay options (or achievements). I might have to mod them out to preserve my sanity. But ultimately this is a poor gameplay design. It's not fun. Station Building Station building is something that I enjoy conceptually. But it is painful for 3 main reasons. 1. It takes a million years. Not only do the individual modules take a long time to build (some 20+ minutes), but they are built one at a time. Even a somewhat focused station might take the better part of a day to build. Large self-sustaining factories are all but infeasible. Sure you can set up a giant station to build, but you might finish the rest of the game with it still building. And heaven help you if you need to make changes -- see 3. 2. The build planner SUCKS. This thing is on the minimum threshold of being functional. Sometimes it won't let you select or connect modules even with a clear line of sight. It takes a great deal of playing around with camera controls to find just the right position/angle/zoom so the build planner will let you actually play the game. And it gets a lot worse as the station gets larger. There are also just random occurrences: Click or drag gestures are ignored. Modules I didn't click are selected. (Terran?) Modules change rotation when moved. Or flip around weird ways when rotated. Hot mess. 3. Stations aren't modular. Changes to already-built stations are extremely painful. (Nerd note: this is because they used the wrong data structure -- a tree -- to represent module connections). Modules are not allowed to have redundant connections. And disconnected modules can't be reconnected to the station. Consequently, it's impossible to make isolated changes. (Examples: replace a container storage module with liquid storage OR rotate a module 180 degrees for aesthetics.) Every module connected downstream of the one you change ultimately has to be deconstructed and built all over again. This could mean rebuilding the entire station to change 1 module! See 1. This is the opposite of modularity. Other issues - loads and saves take FOREVER - runs badly on linux - Xenon keep starting useless stations in conquered sectors Conclusion Clearly I've put a lot of time into the game. I've enjoyed it. But I had to dig for the fun. If that's something you're willing to do, then consider buying it, maybe after trying a deeply discounted X3:TC bundle first. (Note: X games generally need all DLC to be whole.) Otherwise avoid.Show moreShow less
709.4 hours at review851 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Never have I seen a game that does so many different things, and connects them together so well. When you start the game, it feels like playing the single player version of Elite Dangerous in the best sense possible. After about 20 hours, the game suddenly turns into Kenshi, setting up automated productions and building bases, After about 40 hours, the game suddenly turns into mount and blade, as you'll lead a fleet from the front and get into combat. After 60 hours, the game basically turns into a city/colony management game, where you make huge production lines and create your own ships and building in a self sustaining system. I'm currently at around 80 hours, and I'm no longer playing a colony management game, but it feels more like Stellaris as I am actually forming a new empire that can contest other empires. Send help, I have not slept in 2 days.Show moreShow less
70.5 hours at review1,072 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I'll try to go as deep as I can to explain what's the deal with this game, sorry for a big wall of text, but some things needs to be explained as in the end, the game no way worth this money. You can build stations. Big stations and different industry all over the place. You can hire miners to mine stuff for you, and traders to trade stuff for you or to assign them to do the job for a factory of yours. You can have big fleets and big ships like a carrier, you can land, pilot or just watch stuff around the cockpit of this ships. It's really great to be honest, any space game enthusiast would like to do that. Game looks really nice, asteroids fields looks good and some sectors have impressive views. There is actually one where the sun is consumed by a blackhole, how cool is that? You can't get close to any planet, planets are just for views. Missions? There a lot of missions. Not so great and most of them are a bit buggy. Starting the main mission will be a mystery for many. Space legs? You got them. You can get out of your ship in your spacesuit and wonder around space. Some things can be done, like searching some wrecks, scanning stations for some leaks, but after a time you will forget you have them. So, if they have all this, where is the problem? To keep in line with they title, the lever to move the world is really broken, and that's the AI. The AI is so retarded, I didn't seen such a bad AI in a game at this price. It's really bad. So bad that it will break you. You will go back into the game after raging and it will break you again. All the things in the game depends on it, and it's useless. So lets go again: - Building stations: You can build a lot of stuff. But miners, they get stuck and at some point not doing anything. They also go far into space and just stop. They can get stuck into the asteroid fields. They can get stuck into own factory or NPC factories. They can get stuck everywhere. If you build 5 factories you mostly need to assign like 5 medium miners for every factory you have to babysit them and this builds the frustration up. 5 stars pilots? Who cares, they act the same. There is some ranking for the pilots and managers, 1 star thru 5 star. And it's so hard to train them at least to 4 stars and when you have them there, surprise, same retarded AI Traders? Well, same stupid AI. Even if you have some sectors on blacklist, your manager (1 star or 5 star doesn't matter) is still sending them thru those systems. Lets say you have 3 factories and one needs some stuff from the others. Old issue also. Your station that needs the goods that other station produce, will not get it from that station. The stupid AI is still buying from NPC station. The menu of controlling all this stuff is so clunky, a maze, some old players don't even knew about some functionality until somebody told them. And your factories will not share goods to each other because your AI don't know how to do this things. You'll get tired of this and just leave it be. And this AI problem is nullifying the joy of having factories. Maybe some fun when building them, and that's it. Also some NPC stations will not produce as it should and what you build might be useless because nobody is buying. And you need some wars for somebody to buy from you. Big fleets and big ships? Guess what, same stupid AI will take that joy too. At some point in the game if you want to advance you will need some empire. Your factories will consume you with the AI problems, and fleets will too. I'll explain. For destroying enemy stations you better use destroyers. They have big guns that can shoot from 10 km. Stations on the other hand, have this nasty turrets that can melt your destroyers if they get close. But they shouldn't right? Because I said they can shoot from 10 km. Guess what, the AI is so stupid that whatever the skill of your pilots will still go in and hug the station and just die. The AI is so bad, even then he don't know to stay put and make use of the range. And imagine training 10 pilots on miner ships, where they will still do stupid stuff, to move them on your destroyers as pilots, to do more stupid stuff. Is pathetic guys, really game breaking. Even the simple order FLY HERE is broken. See? Whatever you try to do, AI WILL BREAK YOU. Carriers? Well, after assigning fighters to it (small ships piloted by same AI logic) as DEFENSE lets say, the little fighters should dock on the carrier and get out only when the carrier gets attacked. They are not. They will get out whatever the order is and they will start wonder in the system, attacking stuff around, attacking a station. All dead in seconds. So, imagine the horror of trying to control a big fleet, you will go crazy why isn't working as intended. Not to say checking all the time what are your miners doing and which trader died again, because there are sounds that you can't find nowhere what those sounds mean. So yes, AI will take this fleet joy too away from you so this advertising of huge fleets is broken because of the AI. Yes, moving big ships around also is a HUGE mess. They will stop travel drive before even getting close to a gate and using normal speed till they reach the gate, wombling around the gate really slowly, going back of the gate, and jumping in. Slow. If you pilot yourself a trip in 2 hours game time with a big ship. Leave the AI to it, he will make it in 10 hours. 4 stars pilot. If that isn't game breaking, I don't know what is. So, fleet joy is out. Split race have a really broken economy in the game. They have the Xenon (the main enemy of all) very close, their shipyards don't build their ships, so without ships they get exterminated very soon. I tried to build many of their ships with no success. They get in queue and never get build. Voices of split are just awful, you just have to listen to them once and you'll never use split pilots. So, new race split? that joy is out too. Game needs more characters. I went to many shipyards and couldn't find a single character around the landing area. Want to buy a better pilot? I found one with 4 stars asking 400 millions to hire him. WHAT? get out of here he will crash even a bicycle, with helping wheels :) Forum and community: I gonna cut it, devs will delete your threads when the matter is getting too real. Ask much about AI and whats the deal with it, might get your thread deleted. Others users will help as most part, but there are no active devs talking about what matters around there. Another bad thing is the menu and the lack of explaining of how things work. So many things are hidden behind countless menu clicks, some things you will never know are there. The only help you can find are on some yt channels, 2 years old. So whats left? Doing missions, because going for the empire building stuff will consume you. Missions, exploring, trading, and mining. All this you be the pilot. Going for the plot missions will be the only thing worth in the end as much buggy as some of those are. Why so much hype around it? It's the only game that offers this, on the surface. Diving in, it's a mess. But having all this advertised for some people is great, but they really wait for this game to be as intended. This is an old problem with X games as AI will ruin the game in the end. I will get so much hate on this, I don't care this is the truth, the AI is making all this game is trying to have, useless. Not if you pilot yourself, and all that's left besides that is out of discussion. There is no way this game worth the full price. If they fix this AI yes, it's a gem. But in this state, when can really enjoy just a little part of the game, better wait for some sales as the full price is simply not worth it or better yet wait for this fixes.Show moreShow less
258.8 hours at review662 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
> Spawn on loading dock > See NPC ship coming in to land > Decide to have a closer look at their ship > Loading ramp deployed > Run up the loading ramp, look around and make small talk with pilot > Pilot raises loading ramp and takes of with me still inside > Watch him fly about continuing his normal daily life with me sat in the back > That moment when I just got kidnapped by an NPC His name is Steve, he doesn't have much to say, but I am thinking of asking him to marry meShow moreShow less
27.2 hours at review924 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Pros: - Big galaxy with mechanics and content available for all aspects of 4X experience - Technically works okay, and it's a great technological accomplishment for the devs - You can have lots of fun flying your own ship Cons: - The galaxy FEELS dead. It may be technically functional, mostly, but does not feel like a living and breathing organism. - Main quests are mediocre at best, but I personally found them to be horrible for the most part. Some main characters I wanted to be able to get rid of to never deal with them again, but that would've made my further progression impossible. - Generic quests are awful before you even get to them. Their availability is absolutely random and you have little in a way of shaping your "career" if you were to choose one by working for NPC factions. - If you want to lead a big fleet of ships and wage massive wars, be ready to get absolutely frustrated with how AI flies in formations and executes orders you give. I played many hours to get to the point where I could start assembling my own combat fleet only to find out that commanding it would be the worst experience I had in the game so far. Pathfinding is BAD, the bigger the ship is. Combat AI is even worse, with my own ships acting ridiculous even if I do everything right - equip them properly and give correct orders. - Wanna know more about how the game works, about the factions, lore, equipment? The encyclopedia is barely there. It lacks even the most basic descriptions for some of the items listed which makes me wonder how something like that is even possible. You add a ship to the game but fail to provide even a couple of lines of text for its description? I had two fantasies I wanted to fulfill with this game. 1. I wanted to join a certain faction's military and participate in their wars. All factions feel absolutely the same, with only ships looking different and equipment having a different stat focus, and getting to know each faction and why you should even join them is something you can barely do and have to dig into google to find out. Actually joining their military is impossible. Running missions for them feels random, ungrateful (risk vs reward is badly balanced), and chaotic. 2. Having failed #1, I figured I'd assemble my own big fleet. As I am a big fan of carrier warfare, I wanted to get myself a carrier to act as a flagship and main striking force and go from there. I got myself a carrier and a destroyer to escort it. I bought ~20 fighters and equipped them separating into 3 squadrons - 1 torpedo squadron and 2 fighter squadrons. I managed to get a mission to destroy Xenon station. Flying two capital ships in formation turned out to be A VERY SLOW and frustrating experience, but I got where I needed to be. On my way to the enemy station I encountered enemy fighters and my fighters were able to deal with them easily. The way carrier/parasite craft operations work is far from ideal or the way it is done in real life, but okay, I can manually order squadrons around and deal with enemy fighters before they get closer to the carrier. Can use scouts to find targets and deploy torpedo bombers. Then I encountered a single enemy capital ship, which destroyed my own destroyer numerous times (I reloaded the save file many times to practice). But okay, I learned not to allow enemy capital ships to get closer to mine and my torpedo fighters were able to destroy enemy capital ships with almost no problems. But I already noticed that I get horribly frustrated with fleet operations, both capital and fighter ops. Then I get to Xenon station. I deploy my torpedo bombers and they... go die stupidly at point blank range under station's flak fire. Yeah, why shoot torpedoes or even dumb fire rockets from kilometers away? Let's all hug the station and let it shoot at us. Okay, what about my own capital ships? They also have weapons that outrange the station. Why not order them to destroy it from afar? Oh, what do you mean they dance around the station almost without firing at it, even if you configure their weapons/targeting orders perfectly? Well, at least they don't crush into the damn thing! Basically, the combat AI, its awareness and pathinding is really bad for fleet combat. You can stand on the bridge of your flagship and facepalm yourself till your nose and skin hurt, but your fleet WILL fail you over and over again. Oh, and even if you do manage to destroy some enemy capital ships, you won't get any award or recognition. Good luck even looting the remaining wreckage. So save your time. You can grind your way to be able to build many stations and there's tycoon building, but using these funds to deploy your own fleet to wage war is the most frustrating part of this game. All this big scale of the game universe is there for nothing when it feels dead and plays dead.Show moreShow less
76.3 hours at review458 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Hired a pilot to take care of my ship, Was driven by my personal pilot through space, while watching the stars through the cockpit glass. Ordered him to dock on the next station so I can leave the ship and make some crafting and shoping like "ok, I need to do some shoping, dock there, then go explore and pick me up in 10 minutes...". Watched my ship taking off from the docking bay, and understood the scope of this game when I was alone on this station, shipless, fearing that it could never come back to pick me up. Made some crafting and shoping, went to the station manager office while ordering to my pilot to go back to the station. Watched my ship coming back from space, making it's way down to the docking bay above, all of this through the windows of the station manager's office... While going toward the docking bay, a gigantic cargo landed in the center of the station. Couldn't resist to go on board. Two paranids said hello to me, pilot and copilot, and suddenly left the station, with me on board, going on their trading journey... I watched them receiving theirs orders, confirming them and doing their job, while stuck on their bridge. Called my pilot "follow them to rescue me, I'm stuck". My fighter was way more rapid than their cargo and joined us very quickly. Went through their cockpit gate, ejected myself through empty space with my suit on, went back to my ship, which was waiting for my orders in space. Jumped in, took the control of it, then suddenly putting myself away from the screen I thought " holy sh... did all of this just happened ?" Thank you Egosoft. Even if the game actually needs to be ironed out, it is really the game I was waiting for. Plus: every part of the game is made so it can be improved, the structure of the game design seems to be very open, (like the elevator system for the station rooms) so every improvements from egosoft in the futur will only make this game better and better. The game is a bit prematured (missing some details like the whole encyclopedia), but nothing game breaking for me at the moment.Show moreShow less
12.2 hours at review865 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
-- Updated 24/04/2020 -- - it's is a poor space flight simulator. I've had more fun flying in virtually every other space sim I've ever played, which started with wing commander 1. Combat bores quickly. Scanning and exploring bores quickly. Mining starts off boring and gets worse from there. - it's an OK economy simulator but there are so many quality of life items missing and several basics just not working even years after launch (e.g. sensible pilot skill increases) - The pace is just too slow. I love economy simulations but I think here it's hit & miss. War does seem to trigger a vibrant economy but in my experience this is transient and the economy grinds to a halt. Sure you can drive change but that requires a boatload of money (lots of building & waiting) and extensive SETA (time accellaration which you have to craft after killing lots of stuff) fast forwarding. Most of this game's allure is here, but it just isn't grabbing a hold of me. - I've spent a lot of time playing this game sure, but the vast majority is leaving it running while doing other stuff, just to get time to pass to finish building station modules, accumulate some cash etc. - The tutorials are much improved from launch but overall are still not good. - The interface is overcomplicated and is still missing quality of life functionality. - To be honest I've had some fun with this game, it does scratch my space sim itch a bit, overall I rate it a "meh". Good to waste some time with if you have a lot to burn, but this is not and will never be a notable experience in my gaming journey. - My play through now did not include the split expansion and I am glad I did not spend more money on it. I do not consider my purchase a waste, I don't consider it well spent. -- Updated 13/03/2019 -- Version 2 brings massive improvements to the overall game experience. - Tutorials are still bad - I haven't done any missions since 2.0 so I can't comment on them - The economy seems better but appears to function excruciatingly slowly - War is significantly improved but no significant loss of territory seems to occur - what's the point? - I have noticed no significant QoL improvements to the interface - Combat against capital ships has been made significantly more challenging While I acknowledge significant improvements, the game seems too slow and cumbersome to be fun. I spend a lot of time "playing" just waiting for things to happen very, very slowly. I will keep checking in on updates and patches to keep an eye on the development. --- First time X player, have been watching the series for years waiting to jump in. At this stage of the game: - The tutorials are terrible and often don't work. - Missions are broken and dissapear. - The economy doesn't function. - AI ship pathing & control is poor - War is broken - The interface needs many basic QoL improvements - Combat is stupidly easy, even taking out capital ships with a fairly cheap small ship is easily done Despite all of the above, I've played well over a hundred hours and intend to do more. The base game is there and elements of it are still fun. Once all the broken stuff is fixed - which Egosoft seems to have a reputation for eventually getting around to, I'm sure this will be a pretty cool game. My recommendation is; Wait. Don't experience the game in it's current state. Wait a long time till all the frustrating bugs & flaws have been fixed and improved and enjoy the game the way it's supposed to be played. I will keep checking in after major updates and will likely change my recommendation once things are better.Show moreShow less
94.4 hours at review455 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Edit: The below review was from launch. after years and multiple content DLC's, X4 is in pretty good shape. This review is aimed at X3 fans. TLDR: This will likely be a great X game someday and worth picking up, but we're not there yet. I initially thought X4 improved on X3 in every way, but after spending some time with it and my hype dying off, I can now clearly see a few places where it falls unfortunately short. This is not a list bashing the game but feedback for Egosoft and a way for people to figure out if they want the game. Here are some issues: - Weapon variety is way down and nothing on offer is really geared towards capital ship use or feel special, it's only a few bland weapons, it's all basic fighter weaponry really. As far as I can see a gun is a gun, no size/class difference. - The map is relatively small compared to even the first X3, which had 97 sectors if i'm not mistaken, X4 has 59. It doesn't help that the highway loop is extremely fast and everything is within 2 or 3sectors of it, making it feel really small, nothing feels remote, it's like the xenons are living in your backyard. I think Egosoft leaned a little too far on the side of convenience here, they obviously haven't given up on X Rebirth's attempt to appeal to and attract a "wider audience". - Different factions' ship equipment seem to have stat variations but you can't see any of the stats except the main one like shield hp. - The encyclopedia lacks info for a lot of important stuff, a lot of entries are just blank. - Missiles don't show up on the radar/map, can't be targeted, don't seem to run out of fuel and will chase you even if you switch to travel mode and eventually hit you if you don't leave the system, which is very annoying for small ships that can get 1-shotted and only hold one flare. Hopefully turrets can shoot them down but seeing how they have issues hitting a ship... - The AI feels worse than in X3, it can't aim straight most of the time and is pretty terrible at managing distance/positioning. It's also way too enthusiastic about wasting all of its shields boosting away and then coming back to you before they've recharged. - Auto traders are pretty bad at the moment, even losing you money at times instead of generating profit, definitely not worth investing in. This is likely to get patched, but for now the economic side of the game is pretty busted. - You'll have to do all the exploration yourself or micromanage an AI ship since the exploration command is woefully inefficient and fails to get anything valuable done in a single sector in any sort of sane timeframe, even with the fastest ship. - The player HQ is in the middle of Teladi space so if you want to play as a pirate you can forget about it unless you keep Teladi friendly. - Haven't found or heard of any special or unique ships or variants yet so I'm pretty sure we're limited to only the 3 factions' designs. - Piracy is very limited not only due to the other issues I've mentioned, but also due to the absence of jump drives. If a ship drops its cargo(and I have yet to see any carry much value) you'll need a cargo ship to pick it up, but since you can't jump cargo ships in or out of the sector and they're slow, they're going to get intercepted by the sector's military. - It might just be a bug some people have, but the radar makes no sense, you can't use it to line up targets, rolling the ship makes it rotate on two axis instead of one for some reason. - I'm still having fun and the UI is definitely so much better than X3's, but I definitely see just how much more work the game needs now that I've had time to get used to things. Hopefully extra content won't come as standalone expansions like they did with X3. I still recommend this game because there's no doubt in my mind that if Egosoft gives X4 the same treatment they did their other games it will eventually be a gem to be enjoyed for thousands of hours. This requires giving honest feedback though, which is what I'm doing here.Show moreShow less
167.1 hours at review670 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I have about 800 hours in this game (I own two copies, Steam and GOG), so it must be good. However, the game has a memory leak, and has had one for years. A few hours of playing, and all of a sudden, it becomes a nightmare to save and exit the game. Until Egosoft fix this, a negative review will stand.Show moreShow less
170.9 hours at review448 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.