X4:foundations, an overwhelming space sandbox game where you can do whatever you want and in whatever way possible. The game offers you options to write your own story, just like the popular Elite Dangerous. As a player, you’ll be able to trade, fight, explore and think about what kind of empire you truly want to build. Let’s talk about it.
The game is set in the near future where a bunch of aliens made it possible to connect scattered systems within the galaxy with each other by building giant portals that made “traveling with the speed of light” possible. Humans were venturing out to become more aware of their space surrounding and build different AI drones and probes to do the exploring for them. Drones were sent out to find new planets that could be terraformed to make human life possible outside the earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately, the AI-controlled drones became more self-aware and started to terraform planets more suitable for their needs instead of human needs. The smart AI took over and saw every sort of organic life as pollution that posed a threat to the universe. It became their goal to rid all forms of organic life. In the end, it was all about survival, it was the battle between organic life and the machines. The Xenon war had begun.
“A mysterious group of leaders called “The Old Ones” saw this unending battle and intervened…”
Later on, a military Terran that goes by the name Nathan R. Gunnar lead the earthlings into battle against the Xenon and scored a big win. The Xenon took a big hit but the war was far from over. Eventually, the battle against the Xeon rages on. The damage was done and the universe started to change. A mysterious group of leaders called “The Old Ones” saw this unending battle and intervened by reorganizing the total jump network, cutting off different colonies such as Earth. Years later, humans succeeded in making their own form of jump gates and continued their conquest throughout the universe. The Terran made their way into the cut-off territories and made a big entrance. After many battles, the Terrans decided to re-organize the jump network again, placing different sections, that were affected by the war between the Xenon and humans, into quarantine sectors. The universe concludes a handful of sectors that are distinguished from each other by a decent amount of light years but still accessible within minutes, this is the stage that’s being set up to start your journey.
In X4 foundations, you start off as an unknown pilot with a decent spaceship and some easily earned credits. The game starts off slow but very steep. X4 foundation doesn’t hold your hand as it should but it does give you some different “learning schools” to give you some insights on how to fly your spaceship and how to interact with the world around you. After all these rookie missions, you’re dropped into space, next to a space station. Right off the bat, you’ll get the first storyline mission that’ll direct you to your first station, a personal headquarters as you will.
“Eventually, it all comes down to one thing: earning money.”
It’s a sandbox game, so even though there’s a short storyline quest to follow, it’s all up to you on how you want to play. Eventually, it all comes down to one thing: earning money. Just like in real life, money is the only way to get something done and eventually build your empire. In X4 you can earn credits by lots of things: trading, taking over ships ( piracy), mercenary missions, eliminating Xenons, mining, … Your destiny is forged with your own hands.
There are different races and factions that all have their own styled spaceships with different strengths and weaknesses. You can earn a good and bad reputation with them to get into a certain rank. Different ranks let you unlock tech but also other military and capital spaceships. This reputation system is all about doing stuff for a certain faction like trading with them, killing their enemies, and doing faction-based missions. So you’ll have to be careful and choose every action wisely, especially when you’re building towards a certain rank within the desired faction.
“Try to be friends with everyone and gain benefits from all around you.”
This reputation system goes from -30 towards +30, you can already guess what way you’re supposed to go. Try to be friends with everyone and gain benefits from all around you. However, some factions will still remain enemy forces, no matter what you do. Not only do these factions offer you ships, but they also offer different blueprints to gain the technical knowledge of different kinds of weapons, astral architectural parts, factory machines, starbase parts, …
In the end, your goal is to be one of the most influential space pioneers the game can get by building towards a society that’s all up in your alleyway. You can create an organization and build thousands of factories that’ll make you rich inexpensive materials and influence. You can eventually claim system sectors from the NPC by destroying all defensive platforms and create an administration building. It doesn’t necessarily do a lot of things but it does give you the pleasure of owning your very own sector. Be careful who you attack because this can also decrease your reputation towards another faction.
“Eventually, you start to think about improving and getting more wealth.”
I am of course getting ahead of myself as I didn’t explain the “in-between” steps to get there. Like I said before, you can do anything to earn credits but this game also offers you to hire different characters to do that work for you. You can earn credits to buy yourself a decent mining machine but you hire a crew to do the mining for you. Eventually, you start to think about improving and getting more wealth. So one ship becomes 5 ships and 5 ships become 20 ships. In the end, you’ll have an own company that’ll give you money and resources to go even further. After gaining resources and credits, you’ll also be able to build your own space station as you see fit. The game also allows you to sabotage other companies to influence the market to your benefit or even block trading routes by eliminating miners from other companies and take off with their collection of raw materials.
Your empire starts to grow and you’ll be able to create your own navy fleet that’ll help you to take control of the different sectors. In the end, the Xenon is the least of your problem and you take the battle straight to the economic battlefield. Of course, this is just only one way to play the game, you’ll eventually have to decide how you’ll play the game yourself.
“The game has a serious learning curve and you’ll have to sink in a lot of hours…”
All of this is just a great example of how X4 has been built. It truly is an economical simulation and a micromanaging system poured into a 3D environment. The game is huge and offers a lot of options to form your own space economy but isn’t without its flaws. The game has a serious learning curve and you’ll have to sink in a lot of hours before you truly see a glimpse of the product that you’re working on. The game itself looks gorgeous and detailed but I do believe the game’s graphic system feels outdated. I also have to mention that the game runs fluently early on, however, the more hours you sink into this game, the bigger the environment grows and the more drops in frames you’ll get. Even though the game does something mind-blowing, the system is outdated.
Conclusion:
X4 is truly a big space sandbox game with lots of things to offer. You have different factions, with all of their own set of spaceships, space bases, technology and looks. The crafting system is tremendous with lots of different materials that can be converted to something a bit more worthy. Ship boarding and running around in these pre-made space stations creates a great feeling of immersion and there aren’t many games that truly succeed in this idea. The game is just huge and expands constantly with more features and Quality of Life improvements. In other words, if you have the time and you’re looking for something bigger than your ordinary space games, this is the one for you. One tip: take it one step at a time and think about where you’re going!
