Around two months ago I reviewed X4: Foundations. It’s fair to say, I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the games quality. I was actually more pushing towards the fact that, like every Egosoft title, X4: Foundations has a huge amount of potential and developers with a track record of meeting that potential – even if it’s after launch.
Here’s what I had to say about the game at the time:
Related X4: Foundations: Online Ventures Opens up Space to Visitors for the First Time in the Franchise
I genuinely want to get absorbed into X4: Foundations, as I did X3: Reunion. This is certainly going in the right direction, if I were scoring the game based on its launch state, it’d be around 4/10 maximum. Now, it’s edged itself up with a ways to go. Fortunately, Egosoft has always been very receptive to their audience and incredibly hard working on patching their titles to the best state they can be.
Last month, at the start of January, we wrote about patch 1.5 and the introduction of Online ventures, as well as a host of fixes for the game. Now, almost two months later, the second major update has been released, bringing the game to version 2.0. This is the update I’ve truly been waiting for too, bringing in a number of core features.
There are three noteworthy features to be found in this update, as well as quite literally hundreds of smaller fixes. However, it’s the major updates that really take my interest and want to cover.The first, and most important to myself, is something that should really help to improve player investment in the game. Players can now build and operate their own shipyards, wharfs and docks.
This allows leaving an even deeper impact on the game’s economy. Build ships for yourself or deliver them to the war factions. Participate in the faction wars on the highest possible level or just make a lot of profitsss.
Why the extra two s’ in profits? I don’t know. Maybe it’s to show just how much money you’ll be making? Also, maybe I’m just picking on a mistake to pad out this piece. On that note, something that is likely more important and in keeping with profits is the rebalancing of the economy and fighting. Egosoft specifically had this to say regarding the rebalancing:
With Update 2.00 we changed a lot of parameters of the game economy and fight balancing. The goals include making crew gaining experience a bit easier, but also making a lot of changes to the turret and capital ship fight balancing.
Finally, Egosoft has integrated Steam workshop with X4: Foundations, which should greatly enable players to access mods. The X series has long been a paradise for game-changing mods, from those that give extra content to those that simply improve what is already there. Either way, this is a significant update that will make it much easier for people to try out mods and experience what the community has to offer.
As for the rest of the update, there’s so much to cover. From allowing travel mode while in the map to fixing recycle times in stations, Egosoft has been incredibly hard at work. You can read the full patch notes with the myriad of fixes here. Now could also be the perfect time to jump back into X4 and for those concerned about its previous state, things are certainly looking better.
