X4: Foundations on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

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Thrilling space battles meet deep strategy. X4 invites you to explore, fight, trade, and build an empire in a dynamic, fully simulated space sandbox, where every decision shapes your journey.

X4: Foundations is a space sim, simulation and sandbox game developed and published by Egosoft.
Released on November 30th 2018 is available on Windows and Linux in 14 languages: English, German, French, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Portuguese - Brazil, Spanish - Spain, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish - Latin America, Polish and Czech.

It has received 23,847 reviews of which 18,951 were positive and 4,896 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.8 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 49.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.


The Steam community has classified X4: Foundations into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at X4: Foundations through various videos and screenshots.

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows
  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 (64-bit) or higher
  • Processor: Intel i5-4590 3.3GHz or AMD equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780/970 or AMD equivalent (Vulkan support required)
  • Storage: 35 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: Minimum: 8 GB RAM (base game) / 16 GB RAM (with all expansions installed)
Linux
  • OS: SteamOS (64-bit) or Ubuntu 18.04 (64-bit)
  • Processor: Intel i5-4590 3.3GHz or AMD equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GTX 780/970 or AMD equivalent (Vulkan support required)
  • Storage: 35 GB available space

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Aug. 2025
Tried X3 years ago. Hated the tedium. Walked away. Since then, I’ve tried just about every other space game. EVE is 99 percent boring, 1 percent panic. Too social, too expensive. Elite looks great but has no purpose. Star Citizen is still just a tech demo. Space Engineers is a brilliant builder that never becomes the strategy game it promises. A few years back, I bought X4. IMMEDIATELY refunded it. The UI, AI, and controls were a mess. Tried again recently. Glad I did. It’s finally a real stable game. And it’s good. You can play however you want. Builder, pirate, admiral, trader. You make a real impact on the universe. This is EVE without the RL politics, and a Star Citizen that actually works as a game. The UI and controls are still awkward. Weirdly, using a throttle and stick here makes things worse. The devs need to study how other games do things. But Egosoft pulled it off. Respect.
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March 2025
Start out in a teensy ship, struggling against other teensy ships that want to steal your lunch. Keep winning, buy bigger ships, buy friendly ships, buy good investments. Eventually control a multi-star system empire, helping or crushing empires at will. Then go fly that teensy starter ship through your grand economic machine, just for the hell of it. #goodfeels
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Dec. 2024
I'm an RTS gamer and I'm hoping my review talks about this game from a different angle for people interested in the game. TLDR: This game is amazing, it is part Mount and Blade, part (but VERY LIGHT) Starfield and basebuilding. It is jam packed with features and systems that might turn away a lot of casual or semi-hardcore gamers, but if you give it the time it needs, it is freaking amazing. The Fun stuff: - You start small, but then you CAN decide what you want from it. Get a bigger ship, command a fleet, create a base or multiple bases, create a Galactic Empire with fleets, stations etc. - It has dynamic missions so factions will always look to enlist your help which can improve your relations with them granting you access to their technology (ships, weapons, etc.) - The scale is insane. You can walk on foot in your ship and stations. Once you start to buy or earn bigger ships, you start to see how small you fighters are in comparison to destroyers and capital class ships. - You can have a fleet and almost all, if not, all ships can be controlled by you personally OR buy the crews you hire when you are in stations. - The economic systems in game is crazy...a good SMALL example is building ships. ALL ships require resources (Silicon, ore, etc.) which trade vessels (From different factions or yours) will deliver them to a station to be turned into chips, electronic parts, etc. WHICH IN THEN is delivered again to the WHARF (small ships) or SHIPYARD (Big ships) to finally build your ship. IF ANY OF THESE SYSTEMS ARE INTERRUPTED, it affects your ship building (or your allies and enemies), your other supplies like weapons manufacturing, food, medical supplies etc. - You can steal ships and be a pirate. The NOT SO FUN stuff: - It may feel janky. NO, not the bad janky, but the noticable janky. Because there's so much systems, something is bound to jank up. - Takes TIME. The game isn't hard to learn, but it's not for people who are impatient. There's so much menus, you need time to know where stuff is and what stuff does, other than that, you basically learn the game like any other game. - The larger your fleet or empire the more time you'll be spending in the "spead sheet" because at that point, you're just commanding ships. Early game you're basically piloting the ship itself, later when you own a bigger ship or fleet or stations, you're practically the boss. You'll be driven around (you can always fly yourself, but your crew will drive you anywhere you want) and all actions you used to do in early game can be done for you but the crews you begin to amass so you're just in the menu commanding everything, unless you just automate everything and drive yourself if you trust the AI that way. and that's it, hope this review helps you.
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Nov. 2024
If you are lucky enough to be the kind of person this game is made for, you're going to have a lot of "I can't believe a game like this exists and I'm so happy it does" moments.
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Sept. 2024
X4's main strength is it's scale. From your spacesuit out in space you can board your tiny fighter, land it on a frigate, take that frigate and land it on a carrier. You can take that carrier and dock it at your station. You can look out over the docking ports from your observation deck and enjoy all your hard work. The universe is almost fully simulated, every ship, every battle, every resource. You could help a factions wartime production by building your own stations and selling to them for cheaper. You could tank an economy by jettisoning the ship building material of a station. You can even start major wars . I love this game, but it's not for everyone. The ship AI is still pretty buggy, the UI is clunky and not very intuitive, and mods are needed to smooth out some of the rough spots. The game isn't unplayable without mods, but there are a ton of QoL improvements that I'd say are a must. It's not the most well optimized game in the world, but it's getting better. With that said, my most notable experience in the game was feeling a little slighted by a super annoying (to me) faction. Despite tense but mostly peaceful relations they'd kill a cargo ship of mine here and there. At one point I added corvette escorts to combat the Xenon and Kha'ak. The escorts retaliated, the fight spilled over into the neighboring system, and we were headed for all out war. I barricaded myself in a system I claimed and slowly built an armada while fighting skirmishes around their gates. Then the armada was unleashed. They've been scoured off the map. I didn't even want their systems, but they're mine now. Nothing will be built there, ever. It is not a place of honor. Every so often they attempt to resurrect themselves and rebuild a station that I stamp out like a weed. My transports and miners are safe again.
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Frequently Asked Questions

X4: Foundations is currently priced at 49.99€ on Steam.

X4: Foundations is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 49.99€ on Steam.

X4: Foundations received 18,951 positive votes out of a total of 23,847 achieving a rating of 7.81.
😊

X4: Foundations was developed and published by Egosoft.

X4: Foundations is playable and fully supported on Windows.

X4: Foundations is not playable on MacOS.

X4: Foundations is playable and fully supported on Linux.

X4: Foundations is a single-player game.

There are 15 DLCs available for X4: Foundations. Explore additional content available for X4: Foundations on Steam.

X4: Foundations is fully integrated with Steam Workshop. Visit Steam Workshop.

X4: Foundations does not support Steam Remote Play.

X4: Foundations is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.

You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for X4: Foundations.

Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates
Steam data 18 September 2025 16:30
SteamSpy data 15 September 2025 18:30
Steam price 18 September 2025 20:48
Steam reviews 18 September 2025 11:56

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about X4: Foundations, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

  • SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about X4: Foundations
  • SteamCharts - Analysis of X4: Foundations concurrent players on Steam
  • ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck X4: Foundations compatibility
X4: Foundations PEGI 7
Rating
7.8
18,951
4,896
Game modes
Features
Online players
2,874
Developer
Egosoft
Publisher
Egosoft
Release 30 Nov 2018
Platforms
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