I like this game. But it does not get my recommendation because, much like X3 before it, the game is not very approachable. I don't want my friends to buy it only to give up 10 minutes in, never to return. They did exactly that with X3:TC after my recommendation. Many things about this game are great, but you have to be willing wade through a bad user experience to get there. For a full review, read on.


+ deep lore
+ large universe
+ interesting ship designs
+ amazing space environments
+ large variety of ships to outfit, modify, fly, or command
+ economy sim that you can influence and exploit
+ empire building, meaning automation and remotely commanding assets
+ many different activities. examples: trade, combat, piracy, station building, exploration, conquer territory
+ missions expose you to most activities
+ interesting and consequential plots

These are enough for me to make it worth playing despite the negatives below.



I don't mean the visual elements, but the interaction design. The core mistake Egosoft made was organizing the interactivity by game system (the developer's perspective), instead of by use case (the player's perspective). This misalignment begets every other problem with the user experience. Frequently used Information and activities are fragmented across different sub menus instead of being in easy reach. They tried to compensate for this fragmentation by cramming what they could into right-click menus or keyboard shortcuts. But it's still not very coherent.

You can also tell the the UI is a tacked-on afterthought. In many cases it doesn't update in response to game events... you have to close and reopen a menu/panel to see new information. Some screens being open prevent notifications or quest updates, like its mutually exclusive with those game systems. It's fairly common for me late game to be in the property list for a while (esp considering SETA) managing my empire. It isn't until I exit the menu that the notifications play back-to-back. Then I find out that one of my ships was destroyed... 2 hrs ago. Or I'll be remotely completing a mission step and the mission won't update. I have to close out of menus. Sometimes even have to sit in a ship to get the update. And sometimes there's just a delay between steps. It's a confusing user experience.


This could be fairly categorized as a UX problem. Probably my largest late-game irritation is the Kha'ak. Finding and blowing them up is easy. The tedious part is using the map interface to get my fleets to their stations. They always spawn way outside the map border, which you can't target with orders. So you have to keep inching the fleet to the edge of the map over and over to make the sector border expand until you reach the station. Usually multiple hives and raid stations spawn at a time, so this process is repeated half a dozen times back-to-back. It's a mind-numbing boredom that sometimes frustrates me enough to end the play session.

Many players advocate just avoiding them. Use large miners/traders exclusively which can mostly ignore their attacks. Or build in Terran sectors where they can't spawn. (Or use mods.) But these bandaids cut the player out of gameplay options (or achievements). I might have to mod them out to preserve my sanity. But ultimately this is a poor gameplay design. It's not fun.


Station building is something that I enjoy conceptually. But it is painful for 3 main reasons.

1. It takes a million years.

Not only do the individual modules take a long time to build (some 20+ minutes), but they are built one at a time. Even a somewhat focused station might take the better part of a day to build. Large self-sustaining factories are all but infeasible. Sure you can set up a giant station to build, but you might finish the rest of the game with it still building. And heaven help you if you need to make changes -- see 3.

2. The build planner SUCKS.

This thing is on the minimum threshold of being functional. Sometimes it won't let you select or connect modules even with a clear line of sight. It takes a great deal of playing around with camera controls to find just the right position/angle/zoom so the build planner will let you actually play the game. And it gets a lot worse as the station gets larger. There are also just random occurrences: Click or drag gestures are ignored. Modules I didn't click are selected. (Terran?) Modules change rotation when moved. Or flip around weird ways when rotated. Hot mess.

3. Stations aren't modular.

Changes to already-built stations are extremely painful. (Nerd note: this is because they used the wrong data structure -- a tree -- to represent module connections). Modules are not allowed to have redundant connections. And disconnected modules can't be reconnected to the station. Consequently, it's impossible to make isolated changes. (Examples: replace a container storage module with liquid storage OR rotate a module 180 degrees for aesthetics.) Every module connected downstream of the one you change ultimately has to be deconstructed and built all over again. This could mean rebuilding the entire station to change 1 module! See 1. This is the opposite of modularity.


- loads and saves take FOREVER
- runs badly on linux
- Xenon keep starting useless stations in conquered sectors


Clearly I've put a lot of time into the game. I've enjoyed it. But I had to dig for the fun. If that's something you're willing to do, then consider buying it, maybe after trying a deeply discounted X3:TC bundle first. (Note: X games generally need all DLC to be whole.) Otherwise avoid.

I have about 800 hours in this game (I own two copies, Steam and GOG), so it must be good. However, the game has a memory leak, and has had one for years. A few hours of playing, and all of a sudden, it becomes a nightmare to save and exit the game. Until Egosoft fix this, a negative review will stand.

I don't doubt this game has fun gameplay once you learn a lot more, but the journey to get there is so slow and devoid of joy that I can't see it being an enjoyable experience. I lost several days to this game. I stayed for the big space themes & empire building, left out of respect for my life. Even stellaris feels more productive.

After 40 hours, this game taught me virtually nothing other than the basic tutorials (small ship combat, movement, etc). In my experience, the gameplay is just a drag. The NPC interactions feel obscure at times, as if I'd just walked into a mid-game conversation before I even knew why I was speaking to them.

My goal was to start a trading corp. Coming from elite dangerous, I hoped there'd be some sort of tool or interface to find good trade routes or information to help trade effectively. Nothing! Just a map screen which tells you buy and sell prices, except they change so often your trade is dead by the time your ship even reaches a station. I moved to mining which was a little more stable, but the market eventually dried up. I STILL have no idea if there's an easier way, the menus are laughably hard to navigate.

By this point I was ~30 hours in and bored. I had sacrificed days, REAL days, and it felt like I'd hardly made progress. Any goals I once had felt hopelessly out of reach. After some more time trying, I decided to cut my losses and move on before I lost more hours to something I can't enjoy.