X4 will allow you to fly all ships personally. From small scouts over a wide range of ship classes up to the biggest carrier, everything can be piloted from the cockpit or an external view. Additionally some drones and utility vehicles in X4 can be remotely controlled by the player.

A big focus in the development of X4 has been to achieve a seamless and immersive experience when moving between ships. You can leave a ship, climb down a ladder, walk over the dock of a large space station into another ship you may have parked there and replace the pilot that was working for you just by clicking on his chair.

Building space stations and factories has always been a foundation of the X games. After gaining enough money through fighting or trading, most players want to establish their own economy and start influencing the universe on a larger scale. In X4, it is now possible to be completely free and creative. Stations can be constructed from a variety of modules, be it production modules, living sections, docks or many other types of parts. The powerful new map system allows you to drag and connect modules using a connection system to design your own unique creations.

Both the free 3.0 Update to X4: Foundations and its first expansion, X4: Split Vendetta, will be released on Steam and GOG on March 31st, 2020, giving space game enthusiasts the perfect opportunity to newly discover or revisit the biggest space sandbox this side of the galaxy!

With the biggest update since the release of X4: Foundations, EGOSOFT extends its current title with the new storyline "A lever to move the world", introducing diplomatic missions.
 
In addition to a new unlockable game start and three new, stand-alone tutorial scenarios to welcome new pilots to the X universe, X4: Foundations players will also benefit from numerous new gameplay elements with the 3.0 Update. X4: Foundations will also receive French voice recordings for the first time.

The complete change log for the 3.0 Update includes more than 400 individual entries covering new features, weapons, sectors, improved gameplay elements, an upgraded user interface experience and many fixes.

Main Features:

• New storyline, introducing diplomatic missions: "A lever to move the worlds"
• New systems to discover, experience and conquer
• Added French voice recordings
• 3 new stand-alone tutorial scenarios including a flight school
• New ships: Paranid Ares heavy fighter, Xenon T scout, Teladi Cormorant transporter
• New unlockable game start
• Virtual seminars and quicker skill progression for crew training
• Individual and group crew transfer
• Configurable alert system
• Ability to dock using a spacesuit
• Policing options for player-owned space
• Several new weapons
• Improved graphics engine
• Improved sound effects
• Improvements to menus including Map, Encyclopedia, Logical Station overview and Logbook
• More control over drones and turrets
• Alternative steering methods including head tracking systems and X3 retro mode
• Oxygen display when player is in spacesuit
• Search facility for Logbook

X4: Split Vendetta is the next chapter in the X4: Foundations story. This is the first big expansion for X4: Foundations, which was released in November 2018 on PC. The expansion greatly increases the size of the universe and introduces two new Split family clans along with their economy, new ships, weapons and station modules.

Along with Update 3.0 to X4: Foundations, the X4: Split Vendetta expansion brings exciting new missions and adventures to the game. New game-starts allow an even more varied experience in the biggest sandbox this side of the galaxy! TRADE with the Split families or FIGHT against them; BUILD your own station designs based on the new modules, and THINK carefully on your path through the new diplomatic missions.

X4: Split Vendetta will be released on March 31st, 2020 ($14.99 / £12.49 / €14.99). X4: Split Vendetta is the first of two expansions that will be automatically available to owners of the X4: Foundations Collector's Edition.

Main Features:

• New story missions and adventures with two new Split family clans
• Massive expansion of the universe
• Exciting new Split weapon technology
• Many new ships
• Lots of new station modules

Ships also offer a variety of upgrades. Engines, weapons and other equipment can be added in a graphical editor and actually seen on the ship.

X4 will be the first X game to allow our races and factions to freely build and expand their empires; the same flexibility the player enjoys in creatively designing space stations from modular building blocks is also available to them. Races expand their empire based on supply and demand, which leads to an extremely dynamic universe where every action the player makes can influence the course of the entire universe.

Once you have more ships and many NPCs working for you as pilots, crew or station managers, the map will be your preferred method of managing it all. Ships can be ordered with simple clicks and through drag-and-drop operations to set their future path and commands.

Graphically plan your trade routes, coordinate attacks with your entire fleet, manage the hierarchy or send ships on remote exploration missions.

One of the key selling points of X games has always been the real, simulated economy. Wares produced by hundreds of stations and transported by thousands of ships are actually traded by NPCs and prices develop based on this simulated economy. This is the foundation of our living and breathing universe. Now with X4, we have taken another, massive step. For the first time in any X game, all parts of the NPC economy are manufactured from resources. Ships, weapons, upgrades, ammo and even stations. You name it. Everything comes out of the simulated economy.

The seamless change from ship to ship and from NPCs controlling your empire for you continues on a higher level. Once you own a larger fleet, you will be very interested in researching a technology from your HQ: Teleportation. Once you've unlocked teleportation, you can jump from ship to ship a lot quicker and experience all the critical situations your NPCs encounter first hand. Every order you have given to a ship before turns into a mission objective when you pilot the ship yourself. The moment you leave again, your pilot takes the helm and continues with their previous orders.

In X4, you can start your journey from a number of different gamestarts and as a number of different characters, each with their own role, set of relations and different ships and technologies to start with. No matter how you start, you are always free to develop in any other direction. Focus on exploration, make money with illegal trading and theft, command large battle fleets or become the greatest entrepreneur ever. It's all up to you to decide.

Key Features

• Spaceflight sandbox: Acquire ships and upgrade their systems or create fleets of hundreds. From small scouts to massive capital ships.  Fly them all from cockpit or bridge and remote command with a powerful map.
• Research: Research new technologies like teleportation, blueprints for station and ship construction and much more
• Build: Full creativity with station construction.  Station and factory modules can be freely connected to form ever-growing economic or military installations.
• Explore: A massive universe awaits sheer endless opportunities for exploration. Find resources for mining and crafting, to acquire rare technologies. Explore ancient installations.
• Sandbox Gamestarts: Start into X4 from a variety of angles. Represent different factions, ships, and technologies. Every start offers a new view at the universe, but all allow you to unlock everything.
• Dynamic universe: Factions build and expand stations dynamically and react to the economy and military threats. Every game can take a new and unexpected turn for the entire universe.
• Complex Economy: Trade with a single ship or rise to become an empire manager competing with entire civilizations.  A fully simulated and dynamic economy reacts to changes on every level.

X4: Foundations is currently available for PC (Steam and egosoft.com).