Mega space economy simulator X4: Foundations has released its first major expansion, bringing the alien Split faction back into the series, along with a heap of ships and new areas to explore.

Developers Egosoft have also updated the base game, promising a litany of fixes and improvements, and additions including new ships, weapons, and a fresh storyline, whether you buy the expansion or not.

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I don’t what is this? How many? Are we sure we’re in the right charts? This is definitely the Steam> Charts, where the mad-brained broken people just buy the same four games over and over and over? Because something is up. People have only bought the same three games over and over!

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X4: Foundations is how I imagine Brian Cox imagines space. It s big and impressive, because Brian Cox can grasp those two concepts just fine. But any actual fine detail is lost in sheer gawking wonder at just how big and amazing everything is. From minute one, the game offered me a lot of choices, but turned out as evasive as a buttered rat when it came time to convince me that any of those choices were worth caring about.

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I, Alice Bee, have returned from a week off and everything has changed. Matt is in the office now, and complained about having to get up at 8.15am. This complaint made me furious and I am telling everyone. My desk has been moved. There is no milk in the fridge. I am confused, and I can’t remember all the HTML codes to write this very post. It’s going to take ages. The new world is terrifying. But we always have the Steam Charts, even when John is away on his> holidays.

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X4: Foundations, the latest in Egosoft’s long-running series of enormous sandbox space sims, is out now. Claiming to be a return to form after the notoriously wonky and limiting X: Rebirth, X4 aims to be more of a systems-driven sandbox, rather than a story-driven space adventure. Players can walk around inside vessels and seamlessly onto stations, pilot almost any ship type, build up fleets and their own corporate empires, trade on a massive scale or just putter around in a fighter doing odd jobs. An info-dense overview trailer is in the ready room below, captain.

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Egosoft’s long-running space sandbox sim series will return with X4: Foundations on November 30th, the developers announced today. X4 is meant to be a return to the values of the core series–and a return to being good–after 2013’s disappointing X: Rebirth. It’ll once again turn players loose in a big sandbox galaxy to fly any ship, build space stations, establish a financial empire, grow a fleet, rob, shoot, and all that, while NPC characters and empires do the same with their own objectives. That’s the plan, and you can see a little of the reality in a new video below.

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