It’s not every day a new gargantuan space opera drops on Steam. And yet, at the start of the month, a space simulator promising all the exploration and trading you’d expect from Elite: Dangerous or Star Citizen arrived.
That game was X4: Foundations, the continuation of German developer Egosoft’s space trader and combat series that has been running since 1999. Foundations is the first new entry since X: Rebirth, which launched in 2013 and was re-launched as a VR experience last year.
Foundations has had a vastly better reception at launch than Rebirth, mind you. People are still having troubles launching the game, but for the majority who have gotten past that hurdle, they’re having a fun time.
The game is sitting at a 71% rating from just over 3,200 reviews at the time of writing. Positive reviews have praised it as a solid base for a space opera/trader/simulator, with an enjoyable flight model, an excellent map system, solid trading, mining and station building systems, and a thriving in-game economy.
Bugs and an overall lack of polish have been the main detractors in negative reviews. Even some of the positive comments have noted users unfamiliar with Egosoft games might want to wait a few months for the next round of patches (which are released very frequently – the game has been patched 8 times since December 1).
Other complaints centre on broken automation, particularly the autopilot (one user complained about losing 15 minutes of progress because the autopilot sent them into a collision course with an asteroid), buggy quests, a cluttered UI, lack of instruction and game-breaking issues in general.
Here’s what people are saying about X4: Foundations:
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