Something for the weekend: The X Franchise on Steam is free for a few days and on sale

If you're not familiar with the series, X Rebirth is an ok game, just a terrible X game.

If you're not familiar with the series, X Rebirth is an ok game, just a terrible X game.

^^^ this.

By far my fav is still X3:reunion . The hours I put into the original LGP port...

Have anther 100 or so on the seam/egosoft port.

X3:Albion Prelude is good too

%#@&*! I noticed they were on sale, but didn't spot the free weekend. I've missed a whole evening now. :><:

Anyhoo... I've always suspected these might be the kind of thing I'd like, but never got round to trying any out. So thanks for the heads-up, Liam.

That's my weekend sorted, then.

Not at all interested in "try me for the weekend" games. Just f off.

Not at all interested in "try me for the weekend" games. Just f off.

Why is this? Isn't it the optimal way to find out if you'll like a game, for free?

Not at all interested in "try me for the weekend" games. Just f off.

Why is this? Isn't it the optimal way to find out if you'll like a game, for free?

I really don't get it rather either. I think it's a good way to find out if you like a certain game.


Also I'm not a fan of free2play, paywalls, freemium etc. - but that's a completely different case.


By the way, I love the X series. Especially the first one, "X: Beyond the Frontier" and the third one "X3: Reunion". The first one is the least complex one but also great fun, unfortunately not ported to Linux. If you get into X3 it's really great.


I personally don't like "X: Rebirth".


Last edited by cRaZy-bisCuiT on 8 December 2017 at 10:33 am UTC

X Rebirth is not an OK game, it is an ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC AND AMAZING GAME. Really. I highly recommend it, I have even written a Steam Review explaining why I adore it. The 4.30 update was out today (can you imagine a game that has updates 4 years after it has launched?), and the game performance is even better than it already was.

It is just different from X3 and the others. This is not a game where you are supposed to be changing ships to pilot them, just as The Witcher 3 is not a game where you will be changing characters. And just like The Witcher 3, where at one time you control Ciri, in the X: Rebirth campaign you also temporarily "change" (actually as a camouflage) your ship. But it is not supposed to be a choice as in X3 where you ejected from your current ship and "entered" another from your fleet. In X: Rebirth you still control a lot of other ships as a fleet, but you assign captains to actually fly them (and you can do that in a nesting fashion, to make a hierarchy), then you give orders to the captain. Actually this way it is much more realist, any of you know an owner of a fleet of airplanes, trucks or something else that keeps changing and piloting his/her own vehicles? I know he "could" and in the game you "can't", but in real life you "can" drink coffee and many games don't allow you to drink coffee and that does not make them bad, it's just not their scope.

Please take the time to consider X: Rebirth as a game worthy of your money. It is. The steam store page has a "Download Demo" button if you want to see it, or you can see the showcase at Egosoft site.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated to Egosoft, I am not even german, I am just a brazilian fan that is binge playing X: Rebirth (214 hours as of today, though there are 50+ hours offline) and do not like the incredible badmouthing this game has. This game is so good and compelling that I kind of lost interest in all of my other games... Including the Witcher 3.

Note: but the Complete Collection -- X: Rebirth + The Teladi Outpost and Home of Light, they are worth it and add a lot to the strategy.

X:Rebirth's problem was really that it did not meet the expectations it raised in fans of the franchise. Prior to X:Rebirth, there was no "in-person" aspect to the game outside of cutscenes. Previous games were space-flight simulators with emphasis on trading and fighting, with quite a learning curve and difficult controls.

What fans of the franchise wanted was everything they already had, with better controls and the ability to walk around ships/stations etc. Trouble is, walking around is like adding a complete new game - it requires real thought as to what you are doing and why. Neither the player base, nor Egosoft really seemed to have gone through that thought process, so we ended up with cookie-cutter Space stations, with unmoving ( and rather odd-looking ) people scattered about, and nothing much to do ( other than be verbally abused by everyone you talk to ). We also lost access to multiple ships, because they would need internal modelling, and the universe shrunk dramatically; Egosoft are a small team, and they tried to do too much.

All that said, after many updates ( and Egosoft DO keep updating and adding to their games ), X:Rebirth is probably worth a sale purchase if you like space-sims. The next X game is expected ( 2018 if you believe them ) to fix the most obvious problems by being more like an updated X3.

If that patch has fixed the issues I ran into last time I tried this game, I might buy X:rebirth again. (I refunded it last time.)

Back then it for some reason deactivated force full composition pipeline so that I got horrible tearing and the controls were impossible to rebind to my specifications.


Last edited by AlveKatt on 8 December 2017 at 10:59 am UTC

I personally don't like "X: Rebirth".

If you have a VR Headset try X Rebirth VR. To me this is one of the greatest VR experiences available (the actual game itself is is not that interesting to me).

X3TC is the best game of all the X games, in my opinion.

If you play it, play it with X3TC-Extended mod, it's simply awesome, if you like the genre.
Trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYQ-C6x13aM

Outside of X, the Early Access game Helium Rain, form Deimos Games, is great too.

X-rebirth still has the issue that it turns off force full composition pipeline. Get horrible tearing.

I have X Rebirth on GOG, but waiting for a upgrade package to get the DLC.

The issue with the game is, 1 cockpit control ship for entire game, 1 narrative support (boring and annoying fast), and they brought in this stupid space highway system.

The X franchise needs to invest in OPEN space and just let the players go where ever the f**k they want to without this fixed transit lane crap! its cheap, unrealistic, and annoying. Computers have been 64bit for some time, you can make space infinite basically now! space as a level loading highway forcing game style imo is rather annoying unless its trying to do the FTL thing.

Not at all interested in "try me for the weekend" games. Just f off.

:-? Seriously I don't get it either. Like a totally working demo for a whole weekend and you say f off.
Seriously I don't get it. Seriously...

Not at all interested in "try me for the weekend" games. Just f off.

:-? Seriously I don't get it either. Like a totally working demo for a whole weekend and you say f off.
Seriously I don't get it. Seriously...

First of all, an opinion is an opinion. Some people will only buy DRM free, some people will do this, some people will do that.

For your benefit, I shall detail some of my reasoning for the comment:

1. I'm already in the middle of playing a selection of games. I don't especially want to drop what I'm doing in order to try a full demo of a game during a specific limited start and stop time frame. And then have that game taken away from me, at the end of the time frame, unless I pay. "It's a trap!" - Admiral Ackbar.

2. Sales people do these types of 'tricks' to push for more sales (compelling you to try something, now, else the free period expires and you have missed the opportunity of the freebie). Basically, this trick is hooking you into a game, and encouraging you to part with money, when there might be a better discount on another occasion or *when* you are ready to get into it.

3. There is the "Steam Refund" for when you buy a game (to your own time scale) and give it a try out before losing the money for it. Okay, it's not a long time to try out the game and then claim your refund, but it'd serve the purpose to me.

4. I watch game-play videos and have a very good idea what I'm getting into, before I buy a game. I don't need to be thrust into the start-stop sales trick situation to get a feel for the game.

I'm happier with the "try the game demo for 1 week, starting when you want to start" Steam Passes, that some publishers hand out (and then you can gift to Steam friends).

Not at all interested in "try me for the weekend" games. Just f off.

:-? Seriously I don't get it either. Like a totally working demo for a whole weekend and you say f off.
Seriously I don't get it. Seriously...

First of all, an opinion is an opinion. Some people will only buy DRM free, some people will do this, some people will do that.

For your benefit, I shall detail some of my reasoning for the comment:

1. I'm already in the middle of playing a selection of games. I don't especially want to drop what I'm doing in order to try a full demo of a game during a specific limited start and stop time frame. And then have that game taken away from me, at the end of the time frame, unless I pay. "It's a trap!" - Admiral Ackbar.

2. Sales people do these types of 'tricks' to push for more sales (compelling you to try something, now, else the free period expires and you have missed the opportunity of the freebie). Basically, this trick is hooking you into a game, and encouraging you to part with money, when there might be a better discount on another occasion or *when* you are ready to get into it.

3. There is the "Steam Refund" for when you buy a game (to your own time scale) and give it a try out before losing the money for it. Okay, it's not a long time to try out the game and then claim your refund, but it'd serve the purpose to me.

4. I watch game-play videos and have a very good idea what I'm getting into, before I buy a game. I don't need to be thrust into the start-stop sales trick situation to get a feel for the game.

I'm happier with the "try the game demo for 1 week, starting when you want to start" Steam Passes, that some publishers hand out (and then you can gift to Steam friends).

Get over yourself dude, Know is forcing you to try anything. Of corse is a sales tactic. People try the game, get into said game then buy it, if not they don't , no ones lost anything.

Steam refund is irrelevant in this situation as you have not paid anything in first place to play said game.

Wanting a week is basically you wanting to play and complete it before the time runs out so as no need to buy.

Don't be so arrogant as to assume that because you don't like free for a time games that every one does not either. so the F*** remark is somewhat uncalled for.

I got X3: Reunion quite a while back, and the damn thing is unplayable with my 360 controller. The ship just constantly rolls unless I'm actively telling it not to, and drifts to one side. I tried my old Playstation controller, and it stopped rolling but half the buttons didn't work.

From what I could see on the forums, it was a known problem but the devs had already moved on to work on the next game and never gave it any attention. Haven't looked bothered with it since. Looking just now, it seems that it's still outstanding and they don't care, so I'm not planning to trust them on other games either.

Some people aren't on superfast internet connections, so a free weekend of a game that might take half the weekend to just download is pointless.

Well? Cheers up for another game available throughout STEAM as complete proprietary platform. And not enough: People got access for just two days and are okay with it. Perhaps afterwards ... buy ... ah, sorry ... renting the games. Feel free to do that, but for me: No thanks! Those games need time and two days are not enough to get a complete introduction. :)

Well? Cheers up for another game available throughout STEAM as complete proprietary platform.

Reunion and X3TC are DRM-free.* (In fact, running them outside of Steam was the only way I could get them to work.)

I keep saying this: Steam's DRM isn't mandatory unless the developer wants Workshop support (although obviously a lot of publishers use it anyway). Just off the top of my head, I know Kerbal Space Program and FTL don't have it either. It might be worthwhile to compile a full list.

*Edit: You know, the more I think about this... I'm going to have to double-check. They definitely don't start Steam if it isn't running already, which Steam-DRM games certainly do. But... well, if you haven't already followed my train of thought I'm not going to spell it out, because Deep Silver might have done something incredibly stupid here, and I don't want to make it any worse for them.

However, my second paragraph stands. Steam-DRM isn't mandatory.


Last edited by Dunc on 9 December 2017 at 12:07 am UTC

i own X3 reunion....
i have no fkn clue what to do in that game