

Flying around space feels weighty with combat especially being quite satisfying.

Visually it can be quite a pretty game with detailed ship and station models as well as lovely ship interiors. It still looks extremely utilitarian and drilling down through your assets feels like you are using a spreadsheet. The user interface for viewing all this information is much improved from earlier games but does still have its fair share of issues. Hiring crew to fill positions on ships and stations you own is important too, with every NPC having specific skills which improve as they perform tasks. Not only that but you can seamlessly dock small ships on larger ships before getting out and taking control of it. 11 Best X4 Foundations Mods for Space ExplorationĪt any point you can leave your ship, walk around and even spacewalk. And this is the point you realise that the X series is very different, you can send your newly acquired ship off to mine, trade or hunt entirely autonomously and the NPCs will improve as they do so. Whether this ship is for you to use or whether you entrust it to the whims of an NPC is entirely your decision. Push through the initial learning curve however and there is a lot to love about this new iteration of the franchise. X4: Foundations opens with you selecting one of three starting archetypes, which essentially give you a different starting ship and equipment focusing on combat, trade or exploration. With whole fleets under your control, fighting, supplying materials and cornering markets as you see fit. Where most space games see you as a lone soul in a single ship eking out a living, these games let you create an empire. You are thrust into space with a ship and a handful of credits and have to survive and prosper however you see fit whether that be by trading, mining or bounty hunting. The series is a take on the space sandbox genre, in much the same vein as classics like Elite and its sequels and titles like Freelancer.
