X4 Foundations Review - An Indie Space Empire Builder
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 มิ.ย. 2024
- X4 Foundations is like Eve Online, but singleplayer and MUCH easier to get into. It's empire building like in Mount & Blade Bannerlord. It's automation, supply chains and logistics like in Factorio, minus the conveyor belts. It's your way to helpless addiction like in Stellaris or Civilization.
But X4: Foundations is so much more. It is a one-of-a-kind game with basically no competition. It's incredibly unique. Join me in this X4: Foundations Review and I'll do my best to highlight why X4: Foundations is the BEST space sim that you've probably never heard of.
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
04:29 - Sandbox Basics
09:10 - Cockpit feeling
15:49 - Gamefeel
22:04 - Visual Design
26:38 - Modding
29:51 - Criticism
35:38 - Conclusion
Some relevant links:
X4 Foundations on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/39... - เกม
X4 can look terrifyingly complex to new players. But don't worry, I've got you covered! Join my community discord and I'll answer any questions you might have and help you find your way into the game!
discord.gg/MdszAPKnqc
There is an EVE Mod aswell. Maybe you can show it too😊
it is complex. certainly more so than previous entries in the series.
The upcoming 7.0 patch is also aimed at making the tutorials and new player experience better, apparently.
It would have been nice if you covered more of a miners/traders game play.. Like in Space Engineers I like to do the digging and let my friends go off and do the fight of different fractions... In the vid I think you said the bankers clan is friends with everyone, can you join that group or is it AI only?
@@jonathanbair523 You can't really join any factions per se, though you can befriend them more and more and get discounts, even a trade subscription to have up-to-date information on prices in their sector.
You can absolutely avoid all combat and do trading only, and you can build up your headquarters in Teladi territory (the neutral traders) and put most of your stations and fleet there. You can avoid fighting entirely, if you supply factions with resources they will build combat ships and help keep areas clean.
Hope that answers your question!
Thank you for this video, it's much appreciated! 🤩 /greg
Keep doing what you are doing. 100% disagree on the FPS criticism. You added just the best and important bits (that others haven't) that complement your kind of game. Finding ways to improve the core gameplay and adding onto it in that direction would be most welcome from the X community. To that end, my humble criticism would be lack of purpose in some features, like docking bays on medium+ sized ships that don't seem required - as there are no fuel requirements, all sectors are connected for any ship, no jump drives to jump to other sectors. And only a few ship types can repair docked ships. I hope if/when there is an X5, the universe is - less connected and more strategic/tactical, maybe. Thanks.
Wenn man bedenkt was ihr mit eurem kleinen Team seit Jahren leistet, danke dafür! *Klenkes*
#Beta
*inhale* TIMELINES WHE- joking. Thanks a lot for this game guys. Usually when a game catch my eyes for years without me actually playing it, I'm disappointed when I actually start actually playing. It wasn't the case with X4, in fact, after discovering it through a French TH-camr a few years ago and after starting to play around Christmas last year, I had a hard time leaving the game for most of my paid vacations. I even converted a friend to the game and we had an awesome time sharing our experiences, exchanging tips and tricks, complaining about that F'ing K disrupting our trades... This novelty plus the interactions with my friend made it feel like when I was playing Pokemon in primary school, then middle school, with the few friends I had, and this was a surprise. But a welcome one.
I wish Egosoft the best for the future, and I hope that either through expanding X4 or through other games, you'll continue to allow us to live incredible experiences. Now if you'll excuse me, a Xenon destroyer thinks it can trespass on a sector which is my private property, and my opinion diverges.
Suggestion for the menus being overwhelming thing that was mentioned, break them up between different terminals, allows first person mode to be more immersive and breaks a big menu sheet into smaller bite sized and digestible pieces. Just make sure the terminals aren't too far apart or else it could become tedious (or allow custom placing for best results)
For example, the fleet section of the menu goes into the fleet manager menu exclusively, maybe offer a high end terminal add on somewhere like a "commander terminal" that opens up everything in separate pages
Sorry if this is an uncalled for suggestion but I'm a big advocate for finding ways to hide menus in "in universe" context like that
I have 1,184 hours of gameplay.
In my game I started with the earth, I created a company called Cerberus, this company operates in the area of mining, transport and war, I really love using the company to help raise empires that were destroyed.
The splits in my game had been destroyed by the zenons, I sent my fleets to split space, expelled the zenos, and with the help of the mining and transportation sectors of my company I helped the splits to rise from the ashes, I was very happy when I I saw a raptor carrier flying through space again.
This game is incredible.
I did a similar thing in my game. I'm RPing as a Terran parent company conglomerate consisting of 3 separate divisions. An arbitrage trading company, an industrial company, and a PMC. Well, in my RP, the trading company and PMC are authorized to operate outside of Terran space, but the industrial company is barred from doing so (Terrans don't want their specialized tech to be manufactured in Commonwealth space).
This posed a problem when I found the isolated Boron colonies, who were suffering from a severe drought in their sectors. I couldn't establish an Ice Refinery nearby because the Terrans don't refine ice to water (it goes directly to Protein Paste and Medical) and the industrial company wasn't even authorized to establish an extrasolar factory using Commonwealth tech.
I ended up making a trading outpost just outside their territory (to maximize coverage of the 5 jumpgate limit) and used the arbitrage trading company to cart in water en masse from the nearby Split and Paranid sectors. This essentially jumpstarted their economy and even 50+ hours later, they're still recovering.
That cash cow of a trade route made me enough millions to make even a Teladi green with envy.
The start of your comment reminded me of one of those cheap mobile game commercials.
You have 10mill power? But hoow…
Well, I started with Rome and I knew technology would be strong so I researched bla bla bla. 😁
That sounds like so much fun. If you have the imagination to roleplay there's so many cool stories to experience with X4.
@@theunkownbanana1823 Your story is cooler than mine lol.
This game is so incredible, so many stories.
I'm intrigued 🤔🙂
I think one thing that's quite unique to X4 is, how the game really sells you your personal accomplishments by giving you the feeling of insignificance right at the start. You are not the chosen one, the main character. You are but a humble pilot setting out into a large world. It's not only the possibilities that feel intimidating, it's the scale of the world around you which adds to that feeling. In most space games fighters feel like small cars that you hop in. But in X4 you realize: even the smallest ships are the size of an actual bus and that lasers that make this sweet "pew pew pew" sound are big enough to blow your head clean off.
And you get this feeling along the journey all the time. In still remember the first time I went up to my first Corvette class ship on the shipyard. I was used to an M class ship from my trader which I felt was pretty impressive, but standing in front of the guns, that I could easily stand upright in, was something else.
And with the game showing you how small and insignificant you are throughout each stage, each personal goal feels so rewarding. First it's better equipment, a better ship just to survive, but soon you find that the further you progress, the more your actions mean. You played a role in that fight and killed 3 ships, you brought the materials to enable this faction to complete their destroyer, you built this station, that is now buzzing like a bee hive, you singlehandedly stopped the invasion on that sector with your fleet.
And not because the game made the choice for you by laying out a path or making you so special with special background, special abilities and special friends. No, you did all this because you chose to and you walked that path by the results of your actions. This dynamic reaction of the world also makes each play through unique. One time you have X4 n' chill and I. The next game due to some circumstances that you may not have for seen, all hell breaks lose and you lose an entire faction.
It's just such a rewarding feeling and I can see the same in your comparison to Mount & Blade Bannerlord which gives you the same feeling of freedom and insignificance evolving to the feeling of power.
X4 is the best example of emergent gameplay if i ever saw one... and it's trully impressive how deep and meaningful your choices can be, you don't have a light or dark side meter to se how your actions affect the universe, but you can clearly see the after effects of your choices once you made them.
For example, i never expect much from Egosoft regarding choice and consequence, but, my God, they deliver on this regard, specially in the cradle of humanity dlc, there's a pretty big choice that you could make the if you make the right one, little to nothing change in the universe, but if you take the "wrong" even the logic of the choice is brutal, you can LITERALLY SEE what you did, and and it's terrifying to think your actions could cause so much damage, so fast and, you are basically impotent to do anything, it was the first time in a game that i got scare of myself.
The X-series is like a power fantasy manwha (eg, Solo Leveling) about being the loser character with a unique skill no one else has access to that becomes the most powerful character in the world. Except with X-series your unique power is: competence, and the ability to strafe. It's definitely rewarding once you're on the deck of a carrier watching as your bomber wing heads out to blow something up.
The amount of people I’ve come across that absolutely LOVE the space genre, but have never heard of the X series or X4 is shocking! I mention it and people go “What’s X4?” Meanwhile their entire steam library is filled with space titles. Maybe they need a good marketing team, because this game is so slept on and it has almost everything people have asked for in a space game. I was searching for years for a game like this and only found X4 by complete chance. Even after looking at space games on steam. It was barely ever recommended
This game might be amazing(I truly believe it when people say that), but there are a lot of things that hold it back tremendously. The ships look like they are made of paper(textures are super low res and suck), the graphics are terrible for the most part, the cockpits alone look like a low poly game from the 2009s(absolute dealbreaker), and the UI is just utterly bad. I remember the first time I opened the game (been playing X beyond the frontier and the followup titles like a maniac back in the day, so I was kind of positively biased towards x4) I couldn't stand to play the game for more than 15 minutes.
I hope that most of these things have been fixed right now, but I'm not too sure. And if thats not the case, people wont flock to this game, no matter how good the marketing is.
@@gravity00x what you said was true several years ago, but the graphics have been majorly improved and keep improving.
I'm one of those people. I just discovered this game from this video and I have no idea why I've never heard of this series before. I feel like this game was made specifically for me.
@@JB-ue6lf Exactly, the game looks absolutely stunning in the new Beta
@@gravity00x The UIs never going to be fixed because I don't think there's a better or more streamlined way of handling the amount of complexity it does. That will always be the greatest barrier to the game. That said, I remember playing X3:R way back and still enjoying just the fighter combat even though I never got very far past it (first couple of games). You don't need to play all aspects of the game to play X4:F. To win against the Xenon? Yes, you do, but you can just play low level and it's still quite enjoyable. And it'd make for a decent comeback story if you do manage to help the factions survive at the 11th hour once you're finally ready to get into production and trade.
I remember the first time I played X4, I absolutely did not like it. After a few hours I uninstalled and moved on. It was complicated, it was buggy, and I wasn't the biggest fan of the controls. Then some time later I was sitting at my desk bored, and I saw X4 in my library... it had all the ingredients for a game I wanted to play... so I decided to give it another go, and really give it a solid chance. I have 2,448 hours in the game, and It has won a spot in my heart. The game has come a long way since release, and anyone who wants a space empire should try it.
That's really the thing with X4 isn't it. You have to give it a very solid chance.
@@Carbon_Cola amen brother
Only 500 hours here but the story is exactly the same. Bought near launch, had no idea what I'm doing, uninstalled. Re-discovered years later, poured about 100 hours and everything just suddenly ticks. I imagine a lot of players shares the same experience.
One of the biggest realizations for me with this game is that I don't have to become an industrialist and build an empire. Since than I'm only doing 'restricted' playthroughs and I'm having the best time. For example I once had a mercenary character only allowed to work for pay, ended up with 2 fighter squadrons, one frigate and one old large freighter as a mobile base, kind of a rag tag fleet. Almost felt like playing Battletech, managing your mercenary company.
Another character was only allowed to produce pharma and drugs, acting as a criminal syndicate, pirating, smuggling and because it's generally not a good business model I started to manipulate the market, raid competition, hack their productions, buy empty the market, sit on it, drive prices up, in other words behaving like a real syndicate. These playthroughs were some of my best gaming experiences of my life, period. I recommend anyone to try that. This is the perfect sandbox for it, but without restrictions you end up doing the same thing over and over again.
Do not buy that first miner! Because otherwise you are playing a... well a miner. A working man. That can be fun of course, but the only way to do something else in the game is not buy your first miner and figure out other ways of making money.
Sounds like the fun of Starsector and X4 has a lot of overlap like that. I'll have to check the game out then.
Yes! That is so important, so many people are put off by the empire building aspect, but it is entirely optional!
a mercenary group? thats a really cool idea. i might try that
I did something similar in X3:AP. Not allowed to use captured ships (except to sell), and not allowed to build industry or use remote traders. I ended up getting an M7 frigate fairly early as I didn't have much else to spend money on. The M7 acted as my home base while I'd often be fighting from an M3 heavy fighter with a small wing. Couldn't really use missile frigates since there wasn't enough production in the universe to support it. I felt like a Split warlord, jumping into a sector and getting paid to save or kill as the Profitsss dictate.
What I love is that X4 has something for everyone, because I AM an industrialist and I just cackle when I pull up in a Xenon system with my fleet of 20 Asgards. And it's just as valid as any other way of playing! For all its annoying bugs and quirks (looking at you autopilot ships that stop travel mode half the sector away from the gate and crawl the rest of the way at impulse speed)
X might be my favourite game series of all time. The highest praise I can give it is that Egosoft is ambitious in all the right ways. They want to give you the fantasy of being a starfaring pilot in a vibrant universe, but haven't fallen into the traps of scope that might result in half-baked systems. There's no landing on planets, no infinite procedurally-generated stars, no multiplayer, because their focus has always been on making sure the experience in space is great. The hundred or so sectors they have are chock-full of activity, interest and intrigue, and there's an incredible gradient of homely core worlds and hostile unknown frontiers. I dare say that Elite and Star Citizen, whose ambition has often led them into dead ends, have never approached the depth and complexity on offer in X4.
Landing on planets, FPS ground combat and planetary base building, would be a incredible addition to X series, i dare to say that if they manage to pull this off one day, they would have done it the perfect simulation.
@@efxnews4776 maybe. But an issue I have with Star Citizen is I like flying space ships and their recent event forces me to FPS for the Hornet F7a MK II upgrade. Ugh.
@@efxnews4776 I don't think ground combat for X4 would be very good, just looking at what the company is capable of making. They've got a niche and it's an excellent niche. I could see them fleshing out ship boarding combat, or combat to take over/subdue stations, but I think that's about as far as they should go. Improving ship/station interiors would be pretty nice; I'd like to see a bit more life inside of ships/stations themselves.
If you are looking for planetary or intership combat, there's always games like Planetside 2 or Angels Fall First. Or Battlefront and Galaxy at War for Star Wars.
First let me start by saying yes you have convinced me to buy the game and give it some time to sink in. Second, this video is done so well. I normally can't sit through long reviews but the content you provided was engaging and entertaining from start to finish. Thank you!
I'm so happy about your comment!!! I am glad my video had that effect.
Thank you for telling me!
Bold of you to assume that I don't have a 4 digit amount of hours in X4 and a 5 digit in the entire series
That would be sad…
@@kuuktuu4414 That game is really BIG. It lives. If you have a lot of free time, and no interest in hobby atm, it will be a time well spent.
@@kuuktuu4414 no, those would be rookie numbers xD hahaha
It's hard for me to believe that 5 digit claim.
@@Humanaut. sorry using vr hand tracking, its 4 digit. its hard unless i take my time typing
The good thing is, you can get the base game, play it, and if you enjoy it you buy the DLC activate them and you can keep playing the same save game because each new DLC just opens up more gates and you don't have to start all over. And honestly for a new player the size of the base game universe is already fairly big. You can totally get a good vibe with that already.
Also i think, many people just get the game for the Star Wars mod witch is incredible. Just check out some videos here about it. I would say X4 is maybe the best Star Wars game, even thou it isn't even a Star Wars game in the first place.
You basically get 2 games for the price of one, i played the Star Wars mod, and it is awesome, but at the same time, i do love more the X universe, because it feels like i belong there...
I've been playing X Games since when i was a kid playing X2. I remember being a teenager leaving my PC on all night while my factories and traders made credits in the background. I would have alerts that would wake me up so that i could respond to attacks on my ships and stations 😂
This video is scratching a *very* old itch I had ever since I played "Freelancer" many years back - and from the looks of it, it feels like this is it, only much more matured and modernized visualization of what could've been years ago, thank you algorithm for pointing me towards this video of yours, and thank you for showcasing it so damn well :)
Thank you for your comment!! I'm very happy the video could show you a new game and that you liked my presentation!
If you want, you can drop by my community discord and I'd be happy to help you with any questions or confusions you may have with the game :)
But whatever you do - commit to at least 10 hours! You really need them for the game to click.
It has nothing to do with freelancer.
My father who was a fan of it never hooked on X series.
It's more of a 4X but 1st person.
High pace combat is a thing but the game isn't designed around it.
Depends on your taste it's one of the best space game a 44 yo gamer like me ever witnessed, (Every DLC is worth it, and Devs take good care of their gem)I play since X2. But making a comparison with freelancer isn't the way to approach it if you want to enjoy. There are actually no game to compare to it except previous X series.
In short it's an update of X3 but with better graphics and mechanics.
@@guiguijol you are right, X4 is no Freelancer, but it is a unique game among space sims, you do have combat, and lots of it if you do wanted, but the game goes beyond this in many aspect, soner or later, you would need to engage with the empire building mechanics, because even if you somehow could take a xenon K with a single fighter, no way in hell you could do that with an entire fleet of xenons, so you would be forced to start build your empire so you could engage in large battles with backup of your own ships.
A buddy of mine has over 10,000 hours playing X4: Foundations. He's been playing their games on and off since the very first game. Personally, I've played most all of them some but never found any of them to be fully compelling. X4: Foundations reaches that threshold to me. They have made the best game they ever made.
How does somebody spend that much time in a game and not get bored?
@@Old299dfk That's how good the X series was and still is, since the 1st game, X: Beyond the Frontier :)
@@Old299dfk It's pretty easy not to get bored. A Vanilla X3/X4 playthrough can be a couple hundred hours to get to a point where you can start steamrolling sectors. You get there through piracy, missions, trading, and building. You'll likely be doing some of all 4 as well as secondary tasks like exploring, fleet/logistics management, and defensive combat during those first 200 hours. After, if you're planning on playing long-term you might AFK while leaving the game on to simulate time. I've seen mentions of people playing for more than an in-game year, coming back to make changes to production and defenses as needed in order to focus on putting together massive fleets.
Then when you get bored of Vanilla, there's mods. You can play in the Star Wars Universe or play overhaul mods like Litcube which adds an enemy corporation who will aggressively target your holdings. Or you could restart the game and play with limitations on yourself, like only allowing trade with certain factions or not allowing yourself to purchase ships from shipyards. Then put the game down, do other things, and come back to it a few years later. 10,000 hours is pretty doable. I've probably got 2,500 hours combined in the games and I still come back to them frequently, and about half that time was playing a "Dead is Dead" mode. That's without any AFK simulation or mods. They (X3AP/X3FL and X4:F) are part of my rotation of about a dozen games I generally swap between as I get bored.
Really nice summary of what X4 is! A lot of what I experienced as frustrating with the game, you hit the nail on it's head.
And also why i've sunk my hours into it! :D
The thing that helped to make things "Click" for me is when I realized that the game is a Full on Space sim, that evolves through game play into a Tactical Strategy Game (4X) that CAN, if you chose, swap back to Space Sim, wrapped up in a sandbox. The flexibility to swap between both game-play styles is honestly one of the biggest selling points, but you should utilize both in order to get the most out of it.
its sooo good to see the X series becoming more popular egosoft truly deserves it imo they have created hands down the BEST single player space sim franchise
And no real competitor in that segment. Other big space games are either multiplayer, action centered or less polished Indy games.
Every time nice to see someone finds out about the X Series and falls in love with it. This games are not perfect and obviously kind of hard to step in, but they are so good in the end because this is what i call a game that focused on gameplay not a shit ton of shiny Cutscenes and kind of boring gamplay in the end.
I started with X2 because my brother played it like crazy and i sit next to him looking what the hell was going on that he was so in this game, and it jumped over and I'm a fan of the series since than.
Nice Video👍
Enjoyable video, thank you for the good, bad and the ugly ;)
Greetings from the Egosoft HQ ;)
Hey Lino! :)
I always pronounced it "An-Tig-Uh-Nee" in my head. Excellent video! Glad the algorithm united us :)
After 300 hours and downloading 150 mods, I have to say: this is the best space game I have every played. I already felt that way playing vanilla, but with mods? Oh boy, the quantity and quality of ships you can add is just beautiful.
This game had everything I wanted in a space game. Though it could be more polished in many aspects (UI, AI, Diplomacy, etc), the excitement of owning and customizing a spaceship, and being able to trade and build stations in the universe is just awesome.
It isn't that complex, though. The UI makes it looks way more inaccessible than it really is.
This is one of the best reviews of a videogame I've ever seen. I usually watch obsidian ant and to compare, your video is packed with so much information, well structured and efficient. It helped me make a easy decision because of all the information you gave. I have a hard time biting the bullet and making a decision but you made it so easy!!!
I'm one of the few brazilians watching your chanel!
I have 5000 hours playing X4, with all DLCs and tons of mods...
Should i say that i love this game?
To no meio do few aí também
How to you cope with the slow savegame system. Is there a trick that loading doesn't take longer than a minute?
@@timoblubb if you wan't smaller save times, you should set for the game to auto save more frequently, if you don't mind longer saving time, then set up for a longer window.
In both cases the game will stop for a time, while saving and there's not much else to do about it.
@@efxnews4776
I haven't noticed that saving takes less time if you save more often, but I can try.
Saving itself takes about 5-10 seconds at that stage. Having the game pause every 5 minutes for 5-10 seconds would break the immersion quite a bit.
Does anything help for loading times, which is around a minute in mid-lategame. Hardware is already beefy :(
@@timoblubb sorry to take this long...
But no, theres not much else to do about it, i usually use longer save times, because i get used to wait sometimes even 5 minutes every 1 and a half hour to save the game.
Although i heard that having some good RAM memory and play the game from an SSD helps.
How have I never heard of this game (or your channel) until now? Thanks for the review, this game looks incredible and can't wait to play.
(had to go add up my playtimes over the last 20 years) At least 4,000 hours in X1, X2, X3 and X4. we've DEFINITELY heard of the X series.
Rebirth is after all the patches and using some mods also quite enjoyable. It has at parts more atmosphere than X4.
X4 seems really similar to starsector which is one of my favorite games. It's weird how I've never checked it out before. Added to my wish list. Great video btw!
My pleasure!!
Starsector with the Nexerelin may come close to the vibe of X4, though ironically I struggled to get into Starsector but got hooked on X4. Starsector is on my "try to play this properly" list though, so I will get to it eventually :).
If you do end up buying and playing X4, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the game and if you found my video to be a useful introduction to it!
I never got around to understand how to properly fight in Starsector. I don't think I managed to flee a fight even once lol
Don't add it to your wishlist. Just buy it .
@@Falk4711 It just went on sale today so I might do that. I still need to decide whether the AI I've seen people complaining about is a determent big enough for me not to play this game
@@0.001mm_tolerancy Just saw it.
The Ai+"problem" is very seldom. I have just about 600 hours in the game and i had it 2 to 3 times and could handle it easy.
But if you buy it, you have to play min 10 hours. It is hard to start.
This game is the real "Freelancer" for me.
You will find always new things and challanges.
It is bot waste of money. And the actual price is realy good.
Thanks for this. You encouraged me to give X4 another chance. Happy to see it was on sale on Steam at the movement. Also kudos for fitting in the "Rules of acquisition" into your video, Deep Space 9 is a blast from the past. I didn't know about the custom game starts. Starting over if I screwed up is always the worst. I'm glad they added something to help with that.
Its so good seeing this game getting recognized
I've seen this game recommended to me in steam, and as someone who love space games, like Elite and No Man's Sky, but I was always skeptical from the empire management section. A break down like this is exactly what I've needed. Definitely will pick it up one of these days. Even if it doesn't end up for me, something this ambitious and unique deserves love
always nice to see someone help out and give more visibility to the game. it's one of my all time favourite and definitely the most under rated games i've ever played. the devs are absolute legends, they really listen and adjust and really care about the game just as much as us, i'm sure they play it just as much as us too.
I came here while looking up Pathologic 2 and subscribed after seeing your video about it.
Honestly I will probably not play this game any time soon, but your in depth style of review and the enthusiasm you present the games with make it a lot more intriguing and makes me curious about a game I usually wouldn't pay much attention to.
I hope your videos blow up the algorithm soon, you deserve it
This comment warms my heart. Thank you bullahub.
Great video. One of the things that keep for me the game fresh is to set up the story, targets and restrictions. eg fly ships of a certain faction only. Trade with a certain faction only. Do one of the campaigns having predetermined which way will steer it this time base on the Roleplaying of the current "campaign". As the campaigns alter the universe depending out choices, keep something new to try for different outcome in another run.
This looks totally amazing. I have many many space games in my library. The first ever was wing commanders Privateer back in the old Dos days. I have never had this game recommended to me by anything. I will be checking it out tonight. Thank you so much as I look forwards to playing this.
Happy to make you excited for something new!
Just make sure you bring time and patience. Trust me, it takes a few hours until you understand what you are playing.
Feel free to ask questions on my discord, I'd be happy to help!
You finally sold me on X4. I've been eyeing this game for months since it doesn't just look like a niche game, but one that is specifically tailored to what I like. Combining the 4X-like empire building mechanics of M&B and Starsector, the automation and management of Factorio and (partly) Rimworld and a space sim like the (ever disappointing) Elite: Dangerous. Not to mention designing stations and modifying and customizing ships.
The thing holding me back was always the UI. But I guess we'll just need to try and get over that!
Happy to hear I could hype you for it!
The UI and UX is very intuitive but it does give you a lot of control. Like I said in the video, if you bring 10 hours of patience things will start falling into place. But you really have to give it those 10 hours.
Salve, ho iniziato a giocare all'universo X con l'apparizione dei Kaak e non ho più smesso! Mi sono comprato tutte le uscite, dalla prima all'ultima. Ho passato una quantità di ore a giocare in X che è senza ombra di dubbio il mio gioco più giocato! Un enorme grazie a Egosoft per questo bellissimo universo che ci ha regalato!
Excel ,"heatdeath of your gpu"-edition. Jokes aside, I love the series, killed my sleep cylces since 2000 and X beyond the frontier. It's clunky, it's complex, hard to get in but somehow it still has this weird charme. And yeah, full agreement with your statement regarding to "damn, i could do alot of things this weekend.....aww damn, xenon at the gates again, where is my builder for the 10th defense station"
Great video btw, just one point of criticism: the lack of mentioning the soundtrack. It's actually pretty good, "Rise of the protectorate" or "return to kingom end" for example. Rise captures the visual theme of the terrans you described with their history in universe. And the boron one is a loveletter to the old x3 games and as with the terrans the musical representation of their peaceful mindset. Alexei Zakharov did a really good job there.
Thanks for the criticism! I was debating to include a chapter on it, but I was worried the video was already too long and I didn't want to bloat it. Figured I'd go for something more subtle with the music for the transitions between chapters, but in hindsight I should have at least briefly mentioned it somewhere.
No worries, everything else was straight on point 👌🏻 you earned that sub for this one!
And i'm biased. First time in the new kingdom end sector hit me hard in the nostalgia department 🥲
X4 was my second most played game of 2023. And I only played the game in May........ Many games claim to make you forget that it's 3am, but X4 actually delivers on that statement. Now I'm playing again since the new beta has been released, and I'm lost in it once again lol. It's just crazy all the things you can do in this game, and is by far one of the best space games out there
Great video. Would add: the music and sound is just terrific in this game. Their composer is truly talented and each DLC adds new tracks.
Good review
thanks for the effort and time you put into this
The scanning for loot boxes is a time sink but so so relaxing and can eat up an entire evening. "How's the mining empire coming along son?" - "Ohh haven't started yet I got a three purple pings next to each other so I hunted them down."
Apparently there's also ships that you can (with mine clearance skills and a spare pilot) find floating in space good luck.
X series (especially since X3 reunion) is always a heavy hitter in the space "sim" genre and one of the rare few dev/IP nowadays thats still not going for the watered down turn everything arcade-ish route simplifying their product for the sake of pleasing everyone... Still wish they will come up with multiplayer option though.
Because flying with friend... Is just awesome.
I'm really enjoying the content on your channel, @CarbonCola. The TH-cam algorithm did a fantastic job by recommending this video, especially since I'm a long-term fan of X4, Eve, and space simulators in general. You're clearly dedicated, and it shows that you have a lot of potential to grow.
In terms of feedback, I'd suggest speeding up the pacing of your presentations. You start off strong by setting the background and context, which is great. However, it might enhance your videos to mention Egosoft's recent updates to X4, their commitment to their fanbase, and the modding community. Including relevant buzzwords could also help to build excitement and engagement.
Your video was thorough and detailed, and I particularly enjoyed the segments you presented. Keep up the great work!
Found your review through the algorithem! Thank you for making the video! It was well structured and informative, seen this game on steam from time to time but your video is really selling it to me!
Thank you very much for the comment! I make my videos for exactly this reason :)
If you do end up giving it a shot, let me know how it goes! And feel free to drop by my discord if you have any questions! It's a tough game to start.
Whenever somebody asks me if X4 is good and if it's worth playing, I use this analogy:
Imagine you order a meal in a restaurant that is loud, smells weird, has uncomfortable chairs and the service is barely passable. But the meal is fantastic and possibly one of the best things you've ever eaten. X4 is much like that, it's a video game that forces you to navigate through a lot of nonsense and experience some genuine frustration, but underneath all this it hides something that is truly extraordinary and one of a kind. And if you play this game for long enough you will also understand why that is. You are playing the biggest, most ambitious and complex space sim that has ever been made, and it was made by a remarkably small number of people. It's a small wonder the game like this even exists and works as well as it does, it would be a genuine miracle if it didn't have some problems.
I remember a few years ago I was looking for a game like EVE but single player (don’t like PVP). And I saw X4 on steam and decided to buy it… right now I am standing at 2,232.7 hours in game and is one of my best purchases.
EVE isn´t a game, it´s a fulltime job.
If you like Eve, I've heard that Astrox Imperium plays very close to it. I've not played Eve myself, so I can't confirm.
Great review and introduction to the game. I’m going to reinstall this and give it another go thanks to this vid. Subbed
WOW best review of ANY GAME to date ....... more thorough , more complete , more informative , more in-depth !! ....... than any reviewer EVER ...... bar none ....... Im excited to play , Im scared of learning curve , I now know to research game play online , I ..... I ... am out of breath .... Thank You
Thank you Steve!! I really appreciate your comment. Still trying to find my style and all with videomaking so your comment really means a lot. I'll keep making videos like this for sure!
Regarding the learning curve - you are welcome to join my discord and I'll try and answer any questions you may have! discord.gg/MdszAPKnqc
2500 hours in and you taught me something new about the advanced start feature
I have yet to play X4, but have too many casual hours in X2-X3, and the number of times I touch the mouse when playing, is
easilly counted on one hand. Usually it is only when I click the icon to start the game. "The arrow keys are your friends..."
The game (well... at least X2 to X3AP), I find best played with joystick and keyboard, without using the mouse.
The menu system all have quick keyboard commands which after... an unspecified number of hours, become muscle memory.
You will become a lightning monkey, traversing the branches of the menu tree, in a flash.
It's good to see more people discover the X4. I've been playing since X2 and other than X: Rebirth, it's been a solid series. The amount of emergent gameplay is just unprecedented, like claiming a sector and producing wares to sell from my station but then pirating traders as they try to exit my system after buying my wares and adding the wares they bought back into my stock 🤣
this game is so underrated, I never understood that.
I think players will think that a solo space game will be boring, and don't get how complex that game is.
I am not the kind to enjoy very complex game I am casual, but x4 is complexe in a good way, you can just build an economy and then just go fighting ships while your economy pay for your war effort.
I have made a mod that bounty give you more money, in a way to support player who want to fight rather than build an empire. myself when I started I wasn't interested in building an empire and more into combat of the game.
then after hundreds of hours I tried building a factory and made it to end game, where you can literally shape the economy of other factions, and destroy other faction or keep them alive.
have couple thousand hours in the game and really I'm not bored into coming in back, let alone the star wars mod that is insane.
Looks like elite dangerous and eve online had a baby.
I don't know of any other sandbox game where you can do whatever you want in a universe with a simulated economy.
you had me at "eve without other players", you don't have to upsell it, I'm already sold! :D lol
Thank you for the game footage. This really is excel sheet simulator, I had no idea it includes so much trade and production simulation
So this is basically EVE offline with arcade gameplay. Well, I'm thrilled.
Basically yes! Obvs it is unique and has different systems - but like I said in the video it scratched that eve-online-economy itch for me.
X4 is a single player version of what Elite should have been. Best game in the genre by several AUs.
Thank you for this excellent overview!
Been playing since launch. An hour here and there I need to get my finger out and dive in. Thx for the video mate well deserved sub
Thanks for the sub! Glad you liked it !
I love this series of games and I am still such a noob. The complexity of its systems and simulations is staggering yet impressive. Your video perfectly outlines the game and deserves to be found by the many who want to get into the universe and don't know if they should yet. Well done!
I must admit I've almost never played vanilla X without mods. I do very much dig the artistic design and universe the creators have made to begin with; but I am a Star Wars nerd head to toe. Star Wars Interworlds is the mod of mods for Star Wars, and X4 is its home. I've never played anything so amazing and so up the alley. Egosoft embraces their community and supports projects like Interworlds and for that I can only love these devs more and more.
Fantastic game and soundtrack, great community, intense simulation, awesome video. Best Star Wars mod EVER. :)
I don t know how star wars dedicated gaming youtubers don t know or try star wars interworlds, even just the number of star wars ships it has available makes it a star wars encyclopedia
@@jh5kl Ha amen to that. Has something like 1000 modeled Star Wars vessels from all eras. An epic mod to say the least.
The games in the X series, are that kind of sandbox game, where every which way _you_ play it, is the (almost) perfect way.
Sure, we can compare sizes... but what's the fun in that, except in MMO:s. This is not an MMO.
Anyone who remember playing X2, gets a quirky little smile on their face, thinking about getting the hang of the menu system.
But when you (finally) got it, you got fast. Who needs a mouse?
You've done a good job with this video! I am playing X4 for now 6 years with 1000h every year and I am still happy with the game!❤ Btw: friends and me think that the price for the game *and* the DLCs is really low for what you get!
TY for the video! I like the comparison to M&B, another game with very few like minded peers. there are plenty of games that have actiony medieval combat on a battle field, plenty that have a strategic map where you guide your player(or party) around a map and engage in more strategic activities, but almost none that allow you to do both, which really shocks me. I think if a studio put some decent money into a M/B style game, it would be a major hit.
I played X3 terran back in the day and really enjoyed it. I lost interest when I discovered different ships really don't have different cockpits, only different flight models so when I got a cool new ship, it didn't really feel that different. Further the space empire stuff wasn't super fleshed out in an immersive way. I had high hopes for X rebirth until I saw the negative reviews and I kind of got out of flight sim'ing so am getting back into it now and excited to try X4.
I played so many hours of X3: Albion Prelude and Terran Conflict.
Oh man, the hyper-complicated player made guides, thousands of pages long in old school pdf format that I dug into to figure out how to manage building the player headquarters, and setting up and running my own fleets of NPCs ships to trade
So crunchy. So much to bite into. So intimidating but satisfying once you began making things work!
Never tried 4, for whatever reason
Do you feel interested in trying it now, after watching my video?
For immersion, combine with a good flightstick/HOTAS with TrackIR in this game. The depth and freeform nature of play has had me playing this game series since the first version and then X2 the threat so many years ago. Modern mods also add new ships and new gameplay. Even just starting as a different faction and focusing your time in different areas gives a lot of replayability. Want to focus on hijacking starships and selling them for profit, go for it. Want to corner the market of ship shields? Go for it. Want to manage a fleet of trade ships and supply NPC stations. All possible. Just expect to put some time into learning each method of play.
Been thinking about getting into this game for a long time now and I think I will give it a shot once I have more free time to really do a deep dive
I started "X" with X2 and I was hooked. The story was actually good. I swore it off after X Rebirth, then came back after a couple updates of X4 Foundations. I have to watch when I start a game because I will be hooked on it and let my traders and such run overnight lol
Have you tried Rebirth now? It's quite reasonably playable. Also the new free DLC for X3 introduces some significant changes WRT faction relationships & standing that you may find refreshing: I can highly recommend both :)
Omg..
Why am I only learning of this game now ❤
Thx for your review, this is very helpful :)
Great video, really informative, thanks :)
Insta-subbed bro!
I actually only just start started playing this game two days ago. I'm coming from Elite Dangerous and NMS, I'm so lost but I love it lol. I loved X1 and X2 and never played x3. X4 is so fun to get lost in.
Thanks Randal!!
What start did you choose in X4?
@@Carbon_Cola Well I picked Terran at first because I wanted to see Earth, but everyone hated me and it was really hard to get goin, so I restarted as the default Young Gun start to get the full vanilla experience. I do have all the DLC and plan on seeing it all in due time.
This vid was very helpful!
@@randalthor6872Don't give up. You will need some hours to get in.
If you are getting bored as an "arm chair general" in X4 your doing it wrong. A good fighter build can take down a Xenon K class Destroyer which typically can take out many faction destroyers and ships of similar or larger size. I see K ships take out tons of faction ships and even seen them decimate fleets when left to the AI.
When flying larger capital ships there is not as much for you to do other than command the fleet. But I prefer to lead from the front. You can take down K Destroyers the same way you take down most large ships. Get in a fighter and target their subsystems. You can take out their big guns so they are defenseless, then order in either some bombers or capital ships you have waiting just out of range. I use the same tactic against Stations which if you try the direct approach will likely cost you several ships worth hundreds of millions of credits. It's also the primary tactic used by pirates to disable and then board a ship so learning to punch above your weight makes pirating a lot easier.
There are also shield penetrating weapons so even if the ship is heavily shielded you can still take out subsystems. Also building a few fighter wings with these shield pen loadouts and ordered to take out enemy subsystems can be useful as well. But like with any fleet left to the AI you are bound to take some loses so be sure you got a steady passive income.
My fights tend to come down to the following types:
1) Launch from fighter on whatever command ship I'm using. Take out enemy turrets on big ship/station and then order in big ship to take it out or capture.
2) Use Capital ship with Long range to snipe one side of station defense with hit and run attacks until it's got no defense on that side and finish it of.
3) Fleet battles, often required in clearing Xenon systems or holding a gate as Xenon will start sending multiple ships in. Jump into Fighter and take out turret subsystems on big ships as fast as possible while ordering my other fighter squads to do the same and then order capital ships to focus fire on whichever ship we've taken out the guns on. Often keeping an eye on which enemy capital ship guns are firing the most at my big ships and prioritizing taking those out first to minimize my causalities.
In closing the only fights I really arm chair are ones I am so OP in I can just enjoy the fireworks without fear of loses, or if fight is on the other side of galaxy and I'm busy with something else. As Late game I often have 2-3 fleets guarding from Xenon invasion as the AI faction seem to do a terrible job on their own and I can't spend every 10 minutes hopping between them. But at that point I usually got a fleet of like 100+ fighters, 2 carrier ships, and dozen destroyers guarding the gate. If I'm not leading an invasion or other big fight I'm often flying to quest/mission locations while my trade/mining ships earn my money and factories produce goods. But even then sometimes it is nice to sit in an arm char on the deck of one of my carriers and watch as it launches dozens of waves of fighters to take out one small destroyer. :)
Stumbled across this game on sale on the steam store, now im doing research as to weather or not to buy. Thanks for the review! It looks like a game i will play WAYYY too much of.
Happy to help! I made it exactly for cases like yours to help people quickly understand what they may be getting into, or at least what all the (admittedly quiet) fuss is about.
Very good review. It's fair and points out the strengths and weaknesses pretty accurately.
X4 is the fourth installment of the X universe and the culmination of 25+ years blood, sweat and tears by Egosoft iterating what is essentially the same game. It is not a game that everybody will enjoy because it does, as this video points out, take a considerable amount of time to learn how to play it properly and after that the stamina to spend two or three hundred hours building up your empire for the cool end game stuff.
However for those who love space sims and are prepared to put in this time investment X4 absolutely wipes the floor with any other SP space game including ED and SC (unless you are not interested in empire building and fleet strategy, only space combat simulation and mission based gameplay). This is because of it's totally unique real economy, it's automation tools and its emphasis on running huge fleets (without taking anything away from the adventures the player has flying their own ship in cockpit view).
The best description of X4 is a SP version of Eve Online, the only such SP game in existence. It's essentially a combination of a first person space shooter, a 4X strategy game and an open world sandbox with a heavy emphasis on exploration. Indeed the experience of exploring the X universe for the first time blind is a once in a lifetime gaming experience nobody ever forgets. So never, ever, google an X4 map before your first game or you will ruin it for yourself 😉
I think it must have been X3, which I assume was a predecessor to X4, that I tried many years ago. It was too hard to get into for me, but I was a lot younger then, so maybe I'll find X4 more approachable if I give it a shot.
I think it is definitely more approachable. Still tough, but muuch more doable. If you do end up giving it a shot, promise yourself at least 10 hours of playtime. Start with the tutorials to teach you basic controls, then pick a guided playstart. Also consider watching a "how to get started" or "new player guide" video. With that, and some patience, it should work out! If after my video you are still curious and interested, the game is probably a good fit for you!
Probably a weird thing on my part, but I remember how floored I was when I managed to completely drain out a faction's resource coffers building just. LEGIONS of trader ships. In that moment I truly understood just how integrated everything was, and that the AI was mostly playing by the same rules as me sans a handful of exceptions. They have just been "playing" longer than I have. I started to really appreciate what kind of impact I had on the world, and it was a feeling that was actually REPLICATED when I started taking Xenon sectors and pushing them out of the universe.
This game is special, for sure. It's a shame that most people won't even know about this game, let alone play it. But maybe that's for the best... considering how going mainstream goes for a hell of alot of other series and hobbies
Great review, thank you🤠 I just can't stop playing this game anymore 🖖
Haha. My pleasure. Good luck:D
say no more. you had me convinced at 'kinky pirate roleplay' 😏
Egosoft is far from being an indie company...
But yeah, the X saga is really awesome.
X3TC/AP with mods is really extra.
X4 is becoming very good too.
Thank you for making this video, this game deserves more attention!
I'm 300 hours deep, I've amassed a billion credits, conquered several sectors and constructed defense platforms that can take on multiple I's, I befriended all factions I could find and bought every blueprint to build my own massive fleets of carriers, gunboats and destroyers so overkill that I can wipe the Xenon from the universe in one fell swoop!
But the combat AI is kinda wonky so I'm waiting for the 7.00 update which should fix a lot of issues and could drop any day now :)
Agreee in 7.0. really hoping it will noticeably improve the AI experience.
To think that one day people would refer to an X series installment as "the game you have never heard of"... sic transit
I've never heard of this and it looks amazing
Will you try it out and give it a shot? A new dlc and update are hitting in a few days!
Maybe when I have more time. I love a good 100 hour + game (Paradox games, Kenshi etc) but not RN
Im tardy to the party.
Incredible video. Great audio and pacing.
Please stick to it. Youll be over 100k subs in no time.
Buying the game now.
Thank you! I will do that :)
Out of curiosity, did you watch any of my other videos? I am trying to understand how easy it is to be a variety-game-channel and nake reviews on many genres (like Mandalore or Sseth)
@Carbon_Cola I have no had the chance too but I am subscribed. You just got tossed into my feed!
Thanks for the Review mate. I am an X games fan, it's been ages since the last time I played one, so I stumbbled on your review and once I watched it all I just bought the game.
I remember playing X3 and all its versions, there is like 3 now which is crazy, and really enjoying it. When I have the money, I'm definitely giving this one a go!
And then you add the Star Wars mod and your few hours of playing turns into the only thing you will play all year
If x4 had a good IA it would be one of the best game ever
Thank you. You've convinced me it's a very good game that I would probably feel frustrated by. I played previous games in the X series but wasn't sure about this as I thought it might start well but end up feeling like I was doing admin for a logistics company. This is a success for your video since it helped me make an informed choice. I'm impressed by what they've achieved and might well buy it at a later date. It's just not my thing right now. I'll still keep it on a back burner but at a lower heat.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot for your comment! I'm happy you've enjoyed the video and derives some useful learning for it. The game certainly isn't for everyone, it IS complex and IS overwhelming at times. With so many other games out there, there's no need to push through a wall of complexity in order to enjoy playing a game :)
Hopefully I'll see you at my next video! Helping to make informed decisions is my main goal!
Thanks for the very thorough review.
It showed really well the game, which I've considered getting my hands on for quite some time.
My main concern and reason why I'm still hesitating to buy it is, because I can totally see myself loving it too much and thus investing way too much time into it.
It's like seeing a wonderful bar of chocolate in the supermarket and not buying it, knowing it wont be good for you.
7.00🎉
About the pricing: I find it hard to call 5-15 bucks overpriced when I consider the amount of time I've clocked up with the game. Compare that to a cinema ticket. I've played 1600+ hours since the release of the last DLC. What would be enough to justify 15 bucks ?
Computer games have ridiculously good value for money. But why you are saying 15 bucks? The base game is 50 bucks...
@@Martinit0 the 1600+ hour refer to the last DLC and so does the price. The DLC did not cost 50 bucks. Btw I clocked up 200+ hours more since that post.
I did not include the time spent before that DLC, so I didn't include the cost either.
Also the base game and all current DLCs are regularly on sale. It had just been on sale when they teasert the upcoming DLC.
Great and accurate review. This really is the closest thing to a singleplayer EVE online for me. The pacing, the wide variety of activities, modding. The game even being fully playable offline and being able to save anywhere at any time is just so nice as well.
The only thing that really bothers me is the AI when attacking stations late game. Maybe ill have to use Asgards instead of Destroyers. The AI just derps around way to often and it's frustrating that they aren't able to fix it.
But the game is so nice to just fiddle around with. Do some expansion, fly a bit yourself, check out some ongoing battles etc. Theres always something to do for every mood
It's a hidden gem together with Prosperous Universe and Eve / Astrox Imperium - love these complex manufacturing chains. And let's not forget X3.
Don't know if you can really call X Series or X4 Indie. It has a very long history and has been around very long and grown quite a lot. Think they outgrew the Indie state quite a while ago.
A valid point. It's a matter of interpretation. They don't have a publisher and are for all intents and purposes a small studio, so personally I think indie is a valid term. But I understand where you are coming from.
@@Carbon_Cola Egosoft had publisher in the past, in fact a lot of indie studios do have a publisher. But more importantly: indie does not mean small. There are indie studios out there with 100 people and more working for them. Pathea games has a good picture of their team on their about page and they are not the biggest indie devs out there.
That being said, i can't decide if i would call them indie or not. The line between indie and A, AA, AAA is too blurry nowadays.
hi, nice review and i want to point out some thing on the criticism. Every reviewer that has under 500 hours points out the UI- "spreadsheet" and never comes out with a solution or some kind of idea to improve that. they are couple of mods that changes the UI but they dont have any success. I know is overwhelming but for how may things are happening in the game i personally believe, after 3600+ hours is the best solution for the UI/Spreadsheet, plus you can always pause the game a do the "split second change" ;).
And yes, AI is bad, but sometime is worse when they have some bugs that ruin the gameplay. but i recommend everyone to try the game.
is it possible that the AI stopping in places is related to weak cpu? The game must be running millions of calculations when he says the entire economy is real and simulated.
I tried to play X4. I got to the tutorial where I needed to bring a few ships over to something.. It was pretty confusing and I ended up giving up. I'll watch your videos and maybe try to give it another go!
this seems like a very good game!!!! it's quite complex though, so thanks for explaining the general feel of it!!
RE FPS Criticism. 100% disagree. This is a an empire building space sim, first and foremost. For those wanting FPS, there are a dime a dozen other options. I'd much rather the devs focused on the core gameplay. Otherwise just see what happened to Elite Dangerous Odyssey! A total waste of time, development, and now required support. Despite all of that, in this game you can EVA into space to investigate derelicts, solve puzzles, and sabotage ships and stations from the inside and outside by hacking or placing EMPs and Explosives via your suit in EVA. No other game has done that. I commend Egosoft for sticking to their strengths and intended gameplay rather than pandering to intermittent, volatile whims of the short attention spanned - for which I doubt a game like this will sell well either way.
You raise some very valid points. I hadn't really thoughts about the EVAs too much to be honest, but you're right there is actually some gameplay there.
Personally I don't like most of it, as I agree the games focus is on the space empire building and to me some of the EVA parts of missions dilute that.
I certainly don't want then to start adding crazy things like planteray missions or anything like that. I wholeheartedly agree they should focus on their strengths.
I just felt disappointed to realise all landing locations play exactly the same, and loose their interest relatively quickly. The same goes for ship interiors. I should have been more detailed in my description.
Thanks for your comment!