How is it? especially compared with X Rebirth?

[Imperium]

So last time I was excited for an X game, it was X Rebirth, it was just, so so so bad, copy pasted space stations, copy pasted npcs, bugs, lag issues, like it was barely even playable, and you only able to fly one ship.. it was named for some reason "Skunk", and just like the game it stunk. I made the mistake of preordaining it. I am honestly surprised the studio survived and released another game.... So how is it? I saw it on sale, and I really like space games... but I also got burned with previous one... can I fly what I want, where I want or am I also stuck with all the crap Rebirth was?

[jerrypocalypse]

Far closer to X3 than Rebirth (thus the sequential name)

[Vod]

Still has some junk left over from rebirth, but at least it is a little better. Just got the game myself a few days ago, but it is more like x3.

[Chico Rodriguez]

Way better. Great game.

[StormhawkV]

In terms of player ships it's better than Rebirth but not much. There are only two or three ships worth flying yourself. Same is true for ship weapons. My guess is they spent way too much time on the stations and the walking around part.

[Asmosis]

If you liked X3, you'll like X4. There's a variety of changes, streamlining, improvements going from X3 to X4 so it'll depend exactly on which aspects you loved/hated from X3 as to how much you'll enjoy X4.

There's also some very fantastic mods if you're not worried about 'modified' gametag/achievements.

Comparing it to rebirth is apples and oranges, you'll have a better time with a direct X3/4 comparison.

[Artur]

Less immersive then Rebirth.
Doesn't have so much "space feeling".
Ships and stations smaller. Overall universe feels small, even though there is more sectors, but they all tiny.
Less interactive. You basically doing most of the stuff on strategic map.
Visually Rebirth better. Ships there was more detail and really impressive. Here they mostly...okay
Battles less epic.

But, you can fly all ships.
Station configuration is up to you.
AI can build stations. Ships doesn't just "spawn" in same locations. They should travel in conventional way (besides Khaak, but there is mod to remove them)
Piracy had more variety in Rebirth, but here you can board ships in unclaimed sectors and you won't get rep hit.
There is more mods that can make this game fun then it was in Rebirth

[Chris]

Originally posted by Artur:

Less immersive then Rebirth.
Doesn't have so much "space feeling".
Ships and stations smaller. Overall universe feels small, even though there is more sectors, but they all tiny.
Less interactive. You basically doing most of the stuff on strategic map.
Visually Rebirth better. Ships there was more detail and really impressive. Here they mostly...okay
Battles less epic.

But, you can fly all ships.
Station configuration is up to you.
AI can build stations. Ships doesn't just "spawn" in same locations. They should travel in conventional way (besides Khaak, but there is mod to remove them)
Piracy had more variety in Rebirth, but here you can board ships in unclaimed sectors and you won't get rep hit.
There is more mods that can make this game fun then it was in Rebirth

That's the first time i've heard praise on x rebirth compared to foundations.

[Artur]

Originally posted by Chris:

That's the first time i've heard praise on x rebirth compared to foundations. :gordon:

I'm still playing both.
Rebirth changed a lot compared to what it was at start.
Though, it's still buggy mess with wierd game design solutions.
But those ships are just amazing.
Especially Telady. X4 ships is just out of competition compared to XR.
And there is mods that I missing in X4. For example Ship bridge mod. X4 have nothing like it.
If not spawning out of nowhere ships and the AI that can't build anything, XR would be way much better then x4

[ormac]

Achievements are still achievable with mods (as was the case with X-Rebirth) except the two venture related ones In a Galaxy Far, Far Away, and Back Home. (Ventures are still not available)

There's no mod using station interiors to make a large ship bridge as X4 have Single Room Bridges and some other Rooms for L and XL Ships.

[Daddy Shark]

Yeah I think Rebirth did a lot of things right post-3.0. At the start it was a buggy nonfunctional mess with some really dumb decisions like having to tailgate garbage scows to gain speed on the highways and all that.

These days it has a lot of positives that X4 should immediately implement. Rebirth in my opinion - in it's current state - is the best game Egosoft has ever made. The trade computer in the Skunk was awesome I miss it so much.

The different zones all had their own atmosphere and you really felt like Devries was a whole other place compared to Omicron or Albion. The stations should have the awesome look and feel and scale of Rebirth combined with X4's superior modular building system. The ships in Rebirth are hands-down better in every regard. You have everything from powered ironman suits barely big enough for the pilot up to the massive warships like the Arawn.

Jumpdrives were in the game and made sense. You had to spool them up, they were a surface element you could destroy to stop a jump if you had to, they take fuel to jump and they can only zap to designated beacons both set by the AI and later on the player. They could only be used on capital ships which totally makes sense and would also give carriers a reason to be. Right now they're just second fiddle to an Aux ship in the area.

Station assaults are way better in Rebirth due to the anti-capital plasma cannons built into the defense rings. It gives you another layer of strategy when fighting a station other than "bombard from distance. Yawn"

The Nuke. Everyone LOVES being able to remote command a nuke and kamikazi fly it into a target manually. Everyone. In every game from Unreal Tournament to Rebirth it's a fan favorite. Bring it back.

The progression of the Skunk over time into the Pride of Albion was amazing. I loved how the ship got more powerful as the game went on. It would be cool to have a designated player "Home ship" that you can upgrade and install special stuff on like the Erlking. . or like the PHQ in ship form. Right now you kind of zip from ship to ship and if one asgard eats it oh well I'll just use the next one as my ship. A feeling of actual ownership and "oh no MY ship is about to die!!" panic would be neat.

The same with the general story of the game. How you progressed from nobody to PMC's most wanted then the savior of the Canterrans then the "OH WOW" moment when Betty says "you have entered. . .Omicron Lyrea" then on to the big showdown with the Xenon. That was all excellent and made it feel like a real game with a real story going on overtop of the normal sandbox. In X4 you just kind of get plopped into space and your goal is "go do stuff and get rich, I guess?".

If one cared to wade through my posts at the time of Rebirth's launch, you'd see I didn't like the game very much and campaigned hard for some of the changes that are now in the final version. But it has indeed come around and deserves a second look from any X fan. Don't mind the "oh but you can only fly one ship!" thing. Your ship is like your character in Skyrim or Fallout. You start off a total wuss that has to run from a couple PMC security ships but by the end of the game you can single handedly destroy an entire zone in about 20 minutes without needed to call in your doomfleets.

[Caedes91]

An improvement in a all aspects to me, but ship designs except for Split and Terrans are 4 steps back from Rebirth.

[S. Gordon]

TLDR start here

Both games are beyond comparison. It would be like comparing Star Wars to The Expanse. The only two things they share is the name and the fact that you can find Split and Teladi also in Rebirth.

Originally posted by Grumpy:

If you are looking for realism dont buy it. If you are looking for X3 with a ton of nonsense than buy it.

What Grumpy and a few others here said is absolutely correct. But here is my take on the matter comparing X4 to X-R:

X4 is basically a SPACE FANTASY game, with the lore of the 5 races, Humans, Teladi, Boron, Split, Paranids, and their respective 'lifestyles', stations, ships etc... This game should be played like skyrim. With quests, things to do etc, and not be taken too seriously.

X-Rebirth is a SPACE TYCOON game. It has a realistic take on economics, the modular look of ships and the way stations are designed (stations have moving parts that make visual sense in X-R), the trading, the building, the scope, the sheer size of ships, the management, the boarding, the station building... It's a realistic game focusing on Think, Fight, Build, Prosper, Conquer, Exterminate. It's a bit like Prosperous Universe, but with a graphical wrapper around it. Too bad it didn't come with a stockmarket feature like AP did. In short, it's like the Expanse television series, but then in 'game' format. Play this like you would play any Tycoon game, like Prosperous Universe or like Port Royale. You can play it as a manager (almost like an RTS with the menus) or you can play it as a pilot in first person perspective. The choice is yours.

TLDR stops here

Have I caught your attention? Here's the long story....

X rebirth with around 200 handpicked mods is... breathtaking, it's gritty, it's like Blade Runner in space. Everything is corporate and beautifully corrupt, the atmosphere is as well. It also has a VR edition, which gives you what Elite Dangerous promised but ultimately withdrew. An offline universe that is moddable and you can be there in VR. It's harder to get better than that. There are dedicated people still adding content... even now after all these years.

A lot of bad reviews from players of X-Rebirth has two reasons.

- First, the state of the game when it launched was abysmal. There was no other way of putting it. Egosoft got a lot of flak for that and their game was pulled through the shredder. No Man's Sky also experienced that... It was called No Man's LIE at some point, for promises that were not delivered but cashed on.

- Second reason is simply player expectations not being met... they expected something in the lines of the previous X games, and those expectations did not come through because it is not an X-3.5 game, it's different, tried to do things different. Reinvented the wheel. Egosoft renamed it 'REBIRTH' for a reason, a name that was appropriate and many who were stuck in their X-regular rut just didn't catch that. Hence bad reviews, XR is a shait game etc etc... bla-di-bla-di bla. They should blame themselves, not Rebirth which is a very fine and by now polished product.

Because of bad reviews on Reddit and on Steam, X-Rebirth never recovered from the initial launch debacle that No Man's Sky experienced. NMS never dropped below 59 Euros, even at the start of the game when things were looking very bad for Hello Games.

I have a lot of respect for Hello Games, they delivered on their promise and more and are still expanding on their game. They don't do 'paid DLC'. Their business model succeeded, where Egosoft had to throttle back and give the 'grumpy fans' their beloved and expected X4 all while X-Rebirth could have been a successful 'fork' for them to expand on. A different X-game series which unfortunately for some was not to be.

In short X-Rebirth never got its second chance.

Only stubborn niche-mules like myself and those who 'know' their space games don't follow the mainstream crowd that keep on spitting negative reviews out on Rebirth that are yesteryear's news, and prefer it over X4, because we like the gameplay X-Rebirth offers. That is one of the reasons I still play I-War 2 as well, and why I would rate X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance to be far better than Star Wars Squadrons for example... Star Wars Squadrons excels in the 'looks' department, while the others have deeper gameplay, content etc... but are far far older.

X Rebirth gets a 'mixed' review from Steam, while it should be getting the 'very positive' or at the very least the 'positive' score it deserves. A reboot would be possible that way.

X-Rebirth now, sufficiently modded is a very good game that IMO surpasses X4 in many ways. Gameplay, logically and logistically wise. I run around 200 handpicked mods, and don't fly the Skunk but a 'redressed' version of the Skunk. A modified Triath fighter. You can fly other ships, with mods, but of course its not perfect, because X Rebirth gave you ONE (very special) ship, just like in their very first game, but with a lot (but still not enough) of ways to upgrade it. I-War 2 has a TON of ways to upgrade your ship, and the upgrades also interface nicely and play a factor in the way you play your game, a stealthy approach needs different ship upgrades (like cold chemical thrusters and a smaller (cooler) reactor than a gung-ho Rambo approach. There are no 'cloak devices' or other stealth nonsense' in I-War games. You stay off the enemy scope by keeping your ship cold.

Un-modded Rebirth it is very good as well, with the modular starships making sense in an 'Expanse' kind of way. Boarding of ships is done as it should, stations and zones are not 'samey' and have their own personality, they are 'floating' cities. X4's sectors is contrast are 'empty', the stations in sector are far apart, sectors are 'samey'. Yisha, your copilot in X-Rebirth was a pain it the ass, but at least she has far more personality and feels more like a 'companion' than the robot NPC's that are featured in X4 who all seem to be related to '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ betty'; the Skunk's computer assistant; whose voice and vocabulary who are as exciting to talk to and diverse as 'I am Groot' for those who watched the first (and excellent) Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Now, is X4 a bad game? Absolutely not. It's beautiful. But it excels in the visual fantasy ship diversity department, and lacks in the voice acting department. To be honest all the X games lack that, but I guess that is more due to the fact that Egosoft is a 'technical game developer', which focuses on that. Hiring people who can come up with a story like 'The Witcher' or 'Cyberpunk 2077' and its subquests and find voice actors that can make that sound true to life is a budget that Egosoft doesn't have. But even Rebel Galaxy has better talking bots than any of the X series...

People play different games for different reasons. Some people like fast gameplay and micromanagement to them equals grind and tedious gameplay. Others like to play long Tycoon games, love the deep brainiac gameplay and that is the choice you should make when either choosing X4 or Rebirth. Just don't compare both.

Unlike X4, X-Rebirth doesn't NEED a Star Wars conversion. It needed a polish, which it got from the modding community and Egosoft also gave us a VR edition, which suits me just fine.

[Tomahawk-NYC]

so much better. getting used to some parts of the interface can take time, but its still a lot of magic. While X-3 Terran Conflict was amazing, X-4 does have some serious improvements and is pretty darn good.

[Doom]

Originally posted by S. Gordon:

X4 is basically a SPACE FANTASY game, with the lore of the 5 races, Humans, Teladi, Boron, Split, Paranids, and their respective 'lifestyles', stations, ships etc... This game should be played like skyrim. With quests, things to do etc, and not be taken too seriously.

X-Rebirth is a SPACE TYCOON game. It has a realistic take on economics, the modular look of ships and the way stations are designed (stations have moving parts that make visual sense in X-R), the trading, the building, the scope, the sheer size of ships, the management, the boarding, the station building...

Comments like this make me wonder whether people played the same game. X4 as space skyrim? The last thing in my current X4 save was xenon genocide and shipyard management. Zero quests and no piloting. Meaning "Think, Fight, Build, Prosper, Conquer, Exterminate.". The Tycoon game part.

Astrid likely beats the Skunk. And regarding scale... if you build a carrier in X4, and go to the landing pads and issue full launch order for the fleet, hard to beat that.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by S. Gordon:

X Rebirth gets a 'mixed' review from Steam, while it should be getting the 'very positive' or at the very least the 'positive' score it deserves. A reboot would be possible that way.

X Rebirth got a mixed review because it had terrible issues on/post launch, and past that it lacked one of the fundamental features that made the series popular in the first place, so mixed is appropriate.