X4: Foundations

Looks at played time... Eh, it aight.

X4 Foundations positions you right in to the middle of an entire galaxy of star systems, all of which are populated by distinct factions vying for supremacy over their neighbours; the game makes you feel small, unimportant, and irrelevant to the wider simulation going on across the whole of the playable space (economically & militarily), and if you were to do nothing in the game the entire world space would continue on without you, constantly evolving to larger and more impactful versions of themselves. It's a fantastic game with some very amazing mods like the Star War overhaul mod "Interworlds", you can create trade empires, industry, or entire mercenary fleets to earn money, push your agenda/goals, and prevail over the already-established factions. - The biggest problem I have with the game that I think needs heavily reworked; is that it feels like every faction is SkyNet, robotic AI programs running a perpetual mandate to do two things, build the military to make war, and to increase industry/economy to feed said military and wars which is fantastic for all of us Autistic gamers- but it does take its toll because at no point have I ever experienced any of the very-many life-like factors I'd expect/want from a living population residing in all these places, at the very least I would expect the leader of each faction to change places every once in a while, with each leader having different goals, intentions, strengths, weaknesses, and personal bias. In theory every ship and every station is operated and inhabited by people, the entire game runs on workers/soldiers, yet these people feel dead like mindless drones, military personnel have no problem fighting and dying to the last man in every single engagement with no fears nor anxieties to cause them to even retreat, flee, nor mutiny. Ships don't even need food provisions for their crew and they never get even a single day off work. Civilian populations might be even worse in my opinion, at least with soldiers you can make the excuse that they're trained to be more squared away and to cause less problems, but these civilians are worse because they are completely non-active, they don't have demands, they don't have needs, they don't have preferences, they don't act or react to anything happening including war exhaustion or supply line shortages, they don't rebel against management from over-work or poor conditions, they don't elect representatives nor care for a lack of representation, they don't even get time off work or exist as civilian traffic in the world space, nor is there anywhere for them to even go on vacation/holiday to since every station is industrial and planets aren't interactable.

Zum Zeitpunkt des Erstellens dieser Rezension habe ich nur zwei Spiele, in denen ich mehr Spielzeit reingebuttert habe als in X4 Foundations. Das eine ist ein Endlosspiel im buchstäblichen Sinne und das andere habe ich schon ein Dutzend mal durch. Hier bin ich mit über 500 Stunden in einem Spielstand irgendwo zwischen Anfang und Mitte vom Midgame (ich weiß, das geht auch deutlich schneller, aber warum sollte ich?) Nur drei kleine Warnungen (welche für mich ironischerweise zum Teil genau der Grund sind, warum ich das Spiel so liebe ^^): 1. Das Spiel frisst Zeit wie kaum ein anderes Spiel, das ich kenne. 2. Menüführung ist eines der großen Schwächen dieses Spiels. Wenn du weißt, was du suchst und wo du es findest, ist es in Ordnung, aber wenn nicht, bist du schnell aufgeschmissen. Es hat mich einige dutzend Stunden gebraucht, bis ich mich zurecht fand, und das trotz vorherigem und nebenbei weiter Let's Plays schauen. Mit dem Empire Update wurde das besser, aber es ist und bleibt sehr verwinkelt und schlichtweg *viel* (und oft auch viel unerklärt...) 3. Das Spiel hat keinen Roten Faden, der dich von vorn bis hinten durchs Spiel begleitet, an dem du dich entlang hangeln kannst. Es *wird* der Punkt kommen, wo du dich fragst "Ok, und was jetzt?" Dann musst du für dich selbst ein Ziel stecken, Pläne schmieden, wie du dein Ziel erreichst und diese Schritt für Schritt (vermutlich zeitintensiv) umsetzen. Alles in allem ist dieses Spiel auf Platz drei meiner meist gespielten Spiele überhaupt (mit großem Abstand zu Platz 4) und auf Platz 1 oder 2 wenn man die Spielzeit in Relation zum Kaufzeitpunkt setzt. Alles in Allem definitiv eine Kaufempfehlung, jedoch mit den vorhin ausgeführten Warnungen.

Pretty good if you want to play a space sim - My personal number on i time spent. Still going to enjoy it even more. And I even hear that there is a star wars mod... Maybe later... More space-profitttsss to be made :)

Great game. So easy to get lost in it and suddenly you've time traveled into the future, you're hungry, and you've lost feeling in your lower half. The most recent updates have been great. You're not really going to find another space empire builder of this scale/depth out there with this level of polish. There's some jank, but if you've played any of the prior X games you know there's some charm there.

X4 is a very interesting game, fun to just pilot, then you grow into a space empire managing fleets. I like the storylines and ship designs. The ships that got ship interiors are stunning!

Fantastic Game definitely would buy again, hopefully one day they would atleast let us play 2 player coop :(