The things I like in my game for 150+ turns so far are:

***** the map modes (a rotating globe for planets, hex map for the solar system and what looks like a stained glass window for the galaxy colored by who owns galactic territory with brown for visited but unclaimed stars, and grey for areas not visited)
*** combat with mechs vs predatory wildlife. I suspect that combat vs other empires will be more fun once I actualy find one
*** being able to move anywhere on planet with non combat units in 2 turns by going upto orbit then down anywhere on planet next turn. Combat Mechs can board a freightor to go up and down and can move and attack the turn they disembark
** research is random but ok, I might have prefered an actual tech tree even if was randomized


The things I do not like or perhaps worried how they will affect gameplay are:
***** resources depleting til they run out is not fun. While you can research more resources that either generate Ore (for production) or Energy (for maintenace) eventualy the random research will sop giving you new resoursces to exploit
**** I do not like using freightors to move Ore and Energy about as they never seem to keep my cities evenly supplied. A city can pull Ore or Energy from the other side of the planet from an extractor but does not automaticaly share with cities on the same planet. Perhaps cities could be linked by roads and ports for seas and share a common Ore/Energy resource pool for each planet. A city with a spaceport or space elevator could share with the solar system hex map.
*** Energy resources are mainly coal and petroleum etc instead of building solar farms and wind turbines for energy
*** credits in the begining are hard to manage and keep from runing out. Perhaps the capital should produce more credits at start regardless of what you take on your Ark. It would be nice if the market produced more credits than its maintenace (2 credits - 2 credits = 0)

Overall I see the game has potencial for fun building your star empire from a single city on one planet to coloring the galactic map all your color.

Bought it and refunded after 30 min of gameplay. Some parts of the game are unreadable due to tiny fonts and the game is very rough presentation wise, it looks like a generic mobile game. I haven't explored the gameplay mechanics to say something useful about it but the game surely doesn't invite me to do so to be honest.

Other first impressions:

Very fluid controls regarding globe rotation.

UI is not consistent, some elements are not well highlighted or accesible while other parts are fine.

The game is very dry as in board game-esque. Straightforward hex based tile development.

Resources can be extracted by building improvements over its tile by your mech. Your mech has limited building packs, once depleted it must be replenished before building more improvements, these can be build outside of your domain.

Serious lack of immersion.

Specialists are created before you start a game and these can be used on tiles close to your base.

Mechs are basically your military and engineering ground units.

The tech tree and culture options consist mostly of bonus based stats at first glance.

I'm very skeptical if the end product will be anywhere near good when it's finished. Avoid it for now and come back in a year or so to check upon the state of the game.

It looks promising even tho, it's an early access game and there is not much in it yet so I will talk a bit about the content that is already implemented game.


-We have 6 Race’s in game, all of them have their own story, origin and bonuses. For example, Morix gets additional ore, and Assembly race reduces ideology costs etc.
-Different planets, space maps and solar systems that are generating randomly where we can populate planets and build space stations.
-Along with the planets in space map we also have anomalies which can be used to acquire more ores, culture etc.
-Progressive research system separated into 3 categories, Engineering/Economy/Culture.
-Unit Assembly where we can adjust modules for different units.
-We can assign leader to our cities for bonuses.

There is a bit more, but I will leave it for the future

OK do I recommend this game?
Hmmmmmm... [REDACTED]
Let’s just wait some time for next updates and we will see, I will also change my review later after some updates but hope this game will come out from early access :D

Played for a while. Had some crashes and slow downs. This game needs some serious polish and is not ready for prime time. Worth maybe sub $10 dollars.

Great game. I enjoy it a lot. The game has a learning curve. It took me awhile to be comfortable enough with the environment to really start having fun, but it keeps on rolling for me. The complexity and vastness took a bit to get used to, but now I keep wanting to play one more turn and end up playing longer than I expect.. The mark of a good game, in my opinion!

Devs are very active and helpful as well. That really helps with a new game. It's worth giving a try.

I am very excited about the changes I have seen in the past few months with this title. So much has been added since this game first became available on Steam, and it is quite enjoyable. I feel like anyone who is a fan of the 4X genre will get a lot out of Xenia's Ark! The game is quite deep.

Any fan of 4X, grand strategy, and / or turned based strategy games should consider this game. It is vast. It is challenging. And most of all it is very fun to play. The developers are supporting the game well and this title may become a classic to rival total hours played with Panzer General and Civilization. Blends land based and space based development and combat better than any game I know. This is totally a, one more turn game that can keep you up all night so beware. This game is a hidden jewel and if you purchase it you will be very glad you did. Five out of five stars. Looking forward to what comes next. Game editor, expansion packs! The works.

Changing my review. They have made some great changes so far. And this is truly a terrific game in the waiting. Unfortunately, it is still beta as it has continuing stability issues. Some of your games will end prematurely with a "waiting for X player" message and crash. Once this game is final release, I will again re-review.

Only played a handful of hours so far but fell in love with the art style and music.
Space is vast and colorful with loads of anomalies and wreckage to give growing cities a boost as you explore.

Planets are ripe with different resources you will need to exploit in order to construct defenses.
Build turrets and bad ass mechs with custom load outs to defend small cities.
Ensure they expand and exterminate those pesky space bugs.

Some what enjoyable, with unique game play, but still very buggy at the moment. I trust that they will fix the bugs because they have invested 7 years on this game so far. With bugs fixed this would be very enjoyable to play.