2025 Christmas XLOG: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

[Gregory]

As 2025 comes to a close, we're celebrating a very special milestone: seven years of X4: Foundations! In a brand-new XLOG video, Egosoft founder and Managing Director Bernd Lehahn sits down to look back at another full year of updates and new content - including our recent Ship Packs - while also sharing a first glimpse of what's coming next.

To mark this anniversary, the X4 base game is now 90% off during the Steam Winter Sale. If you've been waiting to bring friends into the X universe, now is the perfect moment. There are, of course, also discounts on expansions as well as previous titles in the series. Check out our developer page on Steam to find all current deals!

Youtube Thumbnail Xmas 2023 Art + Xlog Layover.jpg

>> YouTube

This XLOG also features several development insights, including:

A First Tease of Combat and Ship Changes
As part of the upcoming 9.00 update, we are beginning to revisit and refresh ship models created many years ago. With our art pipeline having evolved significantly since the early days of X4 development, it is time for older small and medium ships to receive some well-deserved attention. This transition to our current standards not only supports future facelifts and new ship features, but also allows us to rethink weapon compatibility and make more impactful balancing decisions.

At the same time, the team is working on a comprehensive rebalance of X4's large arsenal of weapons, turrets, and shields. Together with improvements to weapon mechanics, combat AI behaviours, and the user interface - including a new way of issuing high-priority combat orders - these changes aim to make space battles more dynamic, tactical, and enjoyable.

Graphics Engine Improvements
Bernd takes a moment to dive deeper into DLSS Frame Generation, a feature we introduced earlier this year, explaining how it works and why it is particularly beneficial for a game like X4.

What's next?
Development of our next major free update for X4: Foundations (9.00) is progressing steadily, and we're aiming to kick off the Public Beta phase in early 2026. As usual, we will dive deeper into all the improvements and changes that will come with this next major update once the Public Beta phase starts.

Thank you for an amazing seventh year of X4!
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and see you in space!

[mr.WHO]

As part of the upcoming 9.00 update, we are beginning to revisit and refresh ship models created many years ago. With our art pipeline having evolved significantly since the early days of X4 development, it is time for older small and medium ships to receive some well-deserved attention. This transition to our current standards not only supports future facelifts and new ship features, but also allows us to rethink weapon compatibility and make more impactful balancing decisions.

As always, these looks great and I'm eager to see your improvements to S/M ships.

However, is there a chance to wrap up updating a handful XL ships left as well - namely Condor, Stork and Nomad?

I know they don't look as bad as the other old ones, but the new E variants are simply so good, that it feels bad to left out those 3.

[alt3rn1ty]

Merry Xmas Egosoft and all.

Looking forward to the rebalancing of weapons and redesign of older ships.
Physically smaller weapons making them compatible with newer ships is going to be good, and new M turrets for M ships, rebalancing of 250 weapons .. yum!.

Not your problem but I am moving to Linux completely, keeping the same machine .. so fingers crossed the beta goes well on that OS.

I think I will be starting a new game from scratch again for the beta, new weapon loadouts will be easier going from the ground up than adapting my ongoing fleets, and see what I can break .

Also .. Its good to see the beta coming out after the holidays, last year I dont know about anyone else but I had way too much to do during the Xmas holiday.

[S!rAssassin]

In map we have list of stations with sublist contains all station's modules. Will like to see analog list for L and XL ships.

[csaba]

Just watched the video. I've been thinking about how vanilla S/M ships have fallen off balance wise a few weeks ago so I'm really happy they are getting looked at. This is going to be a beta I'm really looking forward to.

Still not too thrilled about the Ship pack DLC model. Haven't bought them yet.

A Paradox EU4 style DLC pass for X4 wouldn't hurt at this point either. For those of us who are willing to jump in for a few months but unwilling to buy all the DLC released in between.

Merry Christmas

[Privata]

I am very excited about improvements being made to the classic ships, as mainly Argon focused player this makes me very happy

I also noticed the gate FX looks different in the footage, very interesting.

[adeine]

A First Tease of Combat and Ship Changes
As part of the upcoming 9.00 update, we are beginning to revisit and refresh ship models created many years ago. With our art pipeline having evolved significantly since the early days of X4 development, it is time for older small and medium ships to receive some well-deserved attention. This transition to our current standards not only supports future facelifts and new ship features, but also allows us to rethink weapon compatibility and make more impactful balancing decisions.

At the same time, the team is working on a comprehensive rebalance of X4's large arsenal of weapons, turrets, and shields. Together with improvements to weapon mechanics, combat AI behaviours, and the user interface - including a new way of issuing high-priority combat orders - these changes aim to make space battles more dynamic, tactical, and enjoyable.

This sounds like a very promising focus for development to take. A lot of people will be very happy about this, myself included

Please take all the time you need to get this right and make ships/weapons feel like real choices with distinct roles.

[chew-ie]

I'm overjoyed to hear that we get finally a weapon re-balancing!

[LameFox]

While the weapons are being rebalanced, it would be nice to see (at least) Terrans and Split get turrets that reflect their racial weapon variety instead of using the same stale set that everyone else gets.

[Perkel]

Yeah weapons are by far the worst part of X4 for me. In General equipment part of X4 just sucks ass. There is nothing fun about the system.

WEAPONS:
1. They feel totally pew pew, FX is just poor.
2. Sounds is just poor on them.
3. They have weird reload mechanic that just doesn't feel good. I'm not against say ballistic weapons having reload but it needs some feedback like you hear in ship mags changing and actual ammo you need to restock. Reload without actual ammo is just stupid.
4. Laser weapons having also reload woot ?
5. Each faction should have their own weapons. To many factions share designs.

Another thing that X4 suffers from is lack of physicalized weapons, shields and components. In X3 if component got destroyed you could swap it yourself from storage. In X4 there is weird SORRY ONLY ON STATION limit. Why is that Star Citizen can do it and it is highlight feature of their game where X3 had it for decades at this point and somehow X4 doesn't ?

Moreover becauuse of this stupid design playing as pirate which was my favorite thing in X3 just sucks because you need to be allied to some faction other wise you can't fix your damn stolen ships !! Or you need to effectively run empire to have docks to outfit them which at that point makes no sense to pirate anymore.

Equipment wise I think that factions and stations should be selling standardized gear but there should be small shops, traders etc. specializing in better hardware. Also Militaries of factions should run military versions of shields which could be aquired by player by having impact on war or something or getting it rare from some trader.
On other hand there are many things we can't really change in game like radar range, stealth etc. Those things should be in form of components we can swap etc.

[mr.WHO]

Another thing that X4 suffers from is lack of physicalized weapons, shields and components. In X3 if component got destroyed you could swap it yourself from storage. In X4 there is weird SORRY ONLY ON STATION limit. Why is that Star Citizen can do it and it is highlight feature of their game where X3 had it for decades at this point and somehow X4 doesn't ?

X4 has more sence In that manner.
Have you ever saw a battleship swap a turret, or cruiser swap vls battery In open sea?
You have auxilary ships for on the field refits.

[chew-ie]

1. They feel totally pew pew, FX is just poor.
2. Sounds is just poor on them.

Yeah, I wish we'd get some weapon sounds like VRO mod gauss turrets / rapid kinetic turrets... those have just the right *oomph*

[adeine]

Another thing that X4 suffers from is lack of physicalized weapons, shields and components. In X3 if component got destroyed you could swap it yourself from storage. In X4 there is weird SORRY ONLY ON STATION limit. Why is that Star Citizen can do it and it is highlight feature of their game where X3 had it for decades at this point and somehow X4 doesn't ?

X4 also does not have any meaningful upgrades for ships that aren't weapons/shields. The software menu and other equipment feel very vestigial compared to X3/X2.

[LameFox]

Another thing I think this game really needs on the weapon front: to equalize their performance in high and low attention. Of course, that's never going to be fully solved, but I feel like some things have gone a really long time having wildly different results depending on whether the player is present. For example, Xenon capitals being a lot more lethal if you watch them fight. This really kills immersion to me. Ideally a player should not ever have to consider whether something will work notably better or worse based on simply being nearby.

[mr.WHO]

Yeah, I wish we'd get some weapon sounds like VRO mod gauss turrets / rapid kinetic turrets... those have just the right *oomph*

VRO is a peak, but in regards of vanilla it's not that bad now...if you remember the 1.0 weapons/FX/sounds.

Personally I still wish we would have FX/sound difference between S and M weapons - e.g. with Bolt Repeters, it's like comparing a minigun mounted on Humvee with A-10 gun

[Ragnos28]

While the weapons are being rebalanced, it would be nice to see (at least) Terrans and Split get turrets that reflect their racial weapon variety instead of using the same stale set that everyone else gets.

Point Singularity Projector resurgence? Starburst Shockwave Cannon?
And for the split, Phased Array Laser Cannon?

Who am I kidding, present day Egosoft would never...

[jlehtone]

I'm overjoyed to hear that we get finally a weapon re-balancing!

Yes, it is awesome that something is done.

However, whether the changes will be into direction that we envision -- or to complete opposite -- remains to be determined later.

[LameFox]

While the weapons are being rebalanced, it would be nice to see (at least) Terrans and Split get turrets that reflect their racial weapon variety instead of using the same stale set that everyone else gets.

Point Singularity Projector resurgence? Starburst Shockwave Cannon?
And for the split, Phased Array Laser Cannon?

Who am I kidding, present day Egosoft would never...

I'm not really bothered whether they specifically bring back old ones. I'm just tired of the state of affairs where if I want a turret for fighters it's a beam turret, if I want a turret for capitals it's a plasma turret. Small stat variations don't make it more fun to use the same weapon everywhere, and sometimes you don't even get small stat variations, like the Terran M bolt and pulse that don't even bother to copy the actual Terran bolt and pulse weapons.

They had the right idea with Boron, which actually for once have different weapons, but it should have been that way probably from the start, and at least from the DLC races.

[Ragnos28]

While the weapons are being rebalanced, it would be nice to see (at least) Terrans and Split get turrets that reflect their racial weapon variety instead of using the same stale set that everyone else gets.

Point Singularity Projector resurgence? Starburst Shockwave Cannon?
And for the split, Phased Array Laser Cannon?

Who am I kidding, present day Egosoft would never...

I'm not really bothered whether they specifically bring back old ones. I'm just tired of the state of affairs where if I want a turret for fighters it's a beam turret, if I want a turret for capitals it's a plasma turret. Small stat variations don't make it more fun to use the same weapon everywhere, and sometimes you don't even get small stat variations, like the Terran M bolt and pulse that don't even bother to copy the actual Terran bolt and pulse weapons.

They had the right idea with Boron, which actually for once have different weapons, but it should have been that way probably from the start, and at least from the DLC races.

On that subject, I hope the terrans get their own torpedo launchers, as they are perfectly capable of manufacturing the torpedoes themselfs, but could not figure out the lanchers for some reason, and I'm forced to add CW tech in my "pure" terran fleet.

And I have resign myself in the knowledge that I will never experience in X4 the glory of sending an Odysseus with Phased Shockwave Generators in the middle of a xenon invasion force.

[chew-ie]

While the weapons are being rebalanced, it would be nice to see (at least) Terrans and Split get turrets that reflect their racial weapon variety instead of using the same stale set that everyone else gets.

Point Singularity Projector resurgence? Starburst Shockwave Cannon?
And for the split, Phased Array Laser Cannon?

Who am I kidding, present day Egosoft would never...

I'm not really bothered whether they specifically bring back old ones. I'm just tired of the state of affairs where if I want a turret for fighters it's a beam turret, if I want a turret for capitals it's a plasma turret. Small stat variations don't make it more fun to use the same weapon everywhere, and sometimes you don't even get small stat variations, like the Terran M bolt and pulse that don't even bother to copy the actual Terran bolt and pulse weapons.

They had the right idea with Boron, which actually for once have different weapons, but it should have been that way probably from the start, and at least from the DLC races.

IMHO the main problem Egosoft introduced for themselves here is the removal of the ship reactors and their possible energy output for weapons and shields. Instead of evolving that idea they just cut it. (we could have energy management / energy-profiles-by-ship-role by now! )

So choosing the proper weapon loadout was also important because your ship maximum energy could not sustain more / powerful weapons. This introduced real drawbacks and made it fun to balance it out. Want a fast fighter? Better use ammo based weapons because they have low reactor values. Why are the terrans superior? Because they have the superior reactors. Why are Borons so tough? Because they have specialized shield recharge. Teladi have huge shield capacities and huge ships, but lousy reactors. So once the capacitors are dry the recharge takes ages. So they had to rely on ammo based weapons (energy pulse, gauss cannons, missiles) - which they could because they have huge cargo holds!

A lot of the boringness of the X4 weapon design stems from those cut reactors. Every ship can fire endless volleys of plasma fire. There is no need to bring huge battleships / destroyers. Just bring many S ships and they can outgun everything - because there is no energy problem for them. Picking the proper ship with the proper energy output and the proper weapons for the job was what made X³:TC so great.