Only 6.5 hours into this, and I still have no idea wtf I'm going to do.

Game is massive. Lots to do, and plenty of ships to fly and order around. Not stuck to one ship called the Albion Skunk is such a refresher.

Though I do hope to see more ship variety as well as ship module design. All races are pretty much are identical in design, module wise, with just a slightly different color scheme. For example, all constructor type XL ships, regardless of race are identical to one another with just slightly different stats and paint jobs. Though there are still race specific ship designs. Modules are identical to one another.

Interface is something to get used to, as those who are veteran to the series are used to the interface of X3 or even X2. However, I’ve grown to like it as I’ve been playing through it.

Performance wise, I can see some improvements, as there can be some massive fps dips into the 30s (i7 with 1080). But this is by far not something I judge the game on as I’m sure there will be performance patches to come.

I do wish this continued on with a central campaign as the previous X games (X2: The Threat, X3 and all the DLCs, and even X-Rebirth had a campaign that furthered the story in some way. The X Series has never been one for outstanding campaign gameplay, but it would introduce the newer gameplay mechanics in a more traditional way with some voice acting (despite how bad it can be sometimes). The tutorial based “Text” pop ups, in X4 are NOT ideal in anyway. Especially if you miss the pop up because something shiny came into view and have no idea what you need to do because you missed the pop-up to do something to proceed with the tutorial. Took me about 3 hours to even notice that missions were available to pick up on the map interface vs going to a station and everyone refusing to help me or not know anything… Perhaps something may come in future dlc for an actual campaign as right now, you are simply thrown into the sandbox with no direction to go towards at all, this may give new players to the series a sense of being lost and not playing for very long.

This game has so much more room to grow. Playing all the previous X-Games I will say, this is a pretty good installment to the series considering X-Rebirth was a disaster, despite its newer graphic engine. I'll be playing this for years to come and with Workshop support being added in the near future, I can see this game never getting old anytime soon.