Egosoft has just revealed some new details about their upcoming game, X4: Foundations, ahead of the launch of the immersive space game on November 30th.
If you didn’t know about this game, prepare to be amazed. I’ll talk about X3: AP since it’s the game I have the most experience with. Players would pick a starting character, each with their own starship, bank of credits and useful skills. You were then set loose in an entirely open star cluster with several dozen star systems, multiple factions, and an ever-changing economy. You could trade, mine, build and brawl to your hearts content in an incredibly complex but intuitive game for hours on end.
And that’s all with just the base game. The X series of games is famous for it’s mod compatability, made possible by the incredibly complex and useful scripting language the games used as a core mechanic. It started with “just” being able to queue up a complex series of orders for an entire star cluster worth of ships, each craft getting their own orders for trading commodities, mining, production and hunting pirates. At some point the games would eventually play themselves as you had an entire fleet of factories and ships doing all of the work for you, although it could take dozens or even hundreds of hours to get there.
And then PC crowd took things a step further and starting modding in new content. More products to create, ships to fly, factions to fight and different gameplay alterations that streamlined some aspects made the X series the dream games for open-world space sim fans.
And even though fans of the games might have been a bit miffed due to the serious change in tone and scale from other games like X Rebirth, X4: Foundations looks like it could be the return to form fans have been waiting for. Seriously, it looks that good. This iteration not only brings the core gameplay elements fans love back to the forefront, it does so with a much more visually appealing style that’s incredibly immersive.
Egosoft has listed the following as some of the key features that you can expect to see in X4: Foundations.
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Spaceflight sandbox: Acquire ships and upgrade their systems or create fleets of hundreds. From small scouts to massive capital ships. Fly them all from cockpit or bridge and remote command with a powerful map.
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Research: Research new technologies like teleportation, blueprints for station and ship construction and much more
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Build: Full creativity with station construction. Station and factory modules can be freely connected to form ever growing economic or military installations.
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Explore: A massive universe awaits sheer endless opportunities for exploration. Find resources for mining and crafting, to acquire rare technologies. Explore ancient installations.
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Sandbox Gamestarts: Start into X4 from a variety of angles. Represent different factions, ships and technologies. Every start offers a new view at the universe, but all allow you to unlock everything.
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Dynamic universe: Factions build and expand stations dynamically and react to the economy and military threats. Every game can take a new and unexpected turn for the entire universe.
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Complex Economy: Trade with a single ship or rise to become an empire manager competing with entire civilizations. A fully simulated and dynamic economy reacts to changes on every level.
As someone who spent hundreds of hours in X3: Albion Prelude building virtual factories and pumping out all manner of ships, weapons and other products, these games are basically a dream come true for me. If you want to check out the game in more detail, I’ve included some trailers and gameplay footage down below.
X4: Foundations will retail for $49.99 and will be available via Steam when it releases next week.
