Lost in Space: The State of 4X Games Among the Stars

If you were to ask me to name my favorite fantasy-themed 4X game, I’d enthusiastically respond with Age of Wonders III.  If you were to ask about my favorite “civilization” game, I’d tell you that the highwater mark remains Alpha Centauri, a game still eminently playable today. My favorite grand-strategy-ish game would be, unequivocally, Total War: Warhammer II.

But if you asked me to name my favorite space-based 4X game? Well… I’d have a hard time giving you a clear answer.

In 2011 I stumbled back into the 4X genre, driven mostly by an interest in finding a good space-based 4X game in particular.  I had recently published my own space 4X board game, Hegemonic, and the fantastic board game Eclipse had just launched (eclipsing my own game by a wide margin I should add). Eclipse was lauded as the closest analog equivalent to (i.e. board game version of) Master of Orion. Hmmm… Master of Orion… I said to myself.

So naturally, I went on a binge of trying every space 4X I could get my hands on.  Do I need to name them all?

Off the top of my head (and no Nate, I’m not going to link all of these right here): Galactic Civilization 2, Sword of the Stars, Ascendancy (the iOS version), Lost Empire: Immortals (anyone else remember that one?), Armada 2526, Distant Worlds (it’s pre-universe versions). Around the corner in 2012 was Sins of a Solar Empire and Endless Space 1, the latter of which made a huge splash when it came out, bringing us in the more “modern” era of 4X games. Around this time Kickstarter took off and we ended up with Star Drive, Predestination, and a scattering of other projects along the way (Lords of the Black Sun, Horizon, etc.). I’ve even dabbled with online browser-based games like UltraCorps and Neptune’s Pride too.

The last few years, coinciding with eXplorminate coming into existence, have seen a number of landmark space 4X game titles launch: Galactic Civ 3 (2015), Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars (2016), Stellaris (2016), and Endless Space 2 (2017).  Alongside these were a handful of titles from smaller development studios: StarDrive 2 (2015), Polaris Sector (2016), Dawn of Andromeda (2017), Stars in Shadow (2017) , and most recently Interstellar Space: Genesis (2019).

Despite all of these releases (and even more I haven’t mentioned), I still struggle to recommend any of these games unequivocally in the way I’d suggest that “everyone” should give Age of Wonders 3 a try.  Is this a function of me being too critical or having too high expectations for the space genre? Why is it that I’m finding plenty of non-space 4X games to recommend so strongly, but I can’t do the same for space games despite the glut of titles at my disposal?

If I had to make a few recommendations, all of them would come saddled with a number of caveats and qualifiers. For the sake of discussion, let’s go through the top contenders:

Endless Space 2 – This is, on paper, one of the most robust and expansively designed space 4X games.  Asymmetric factions, quest systems, internal politics, galactic markets, and more pile on top of the usual mechanics.  Add to this the best aesthetic wrappings with amazing art/music and UI feel, and it should be the clear winner right?  Unfortunately for me, the game completely falls apart the moment you start scrutinizing it closely. The combat balance is weird and easy to exploit, the political layer is cumbersome and hard to parse into tangible action, the AI rarely puts up a real challenge, management is tantamount to “build everything everywhere”, and the faction quests and victory conditions, despite the great setup, don’t translate into an interesting endgame.  Everything is there on paper, it just didn’t come together in a way that actually provided a strategic challenge or deep gameplay. 

Galactic Civilization 3 – Another robust title supported by a range of post-release expansions.  My overarching grievance with the game is that it is just too fussy and fiddly.  Too much focus seems to be on optimizing planetary development layouts or incrementally winding your way up through the monstrous tech tree. And, at least for me, some modicum of control in combat is something I’m looking for in a 4X space game, and GalCiv 3 doesn’t tackle that at all.  I admit that I need to give this one another round of play with all the latest content, but I’m just not very excited by the prospect of playing it more.

Stellaris– Frequent readers likely know my views on Stellaris by this point.  But briefly, this is a game that is perpetually reinventing itself in a chaotic pitch to realize its potential.  The possibility of Stellaris is incredible, but for me, it never hits its stride and I have no interest in hanging onto this particular mechanical bull, waiting to get thrown off again.  The reliance on self-directed goals and emergent narrative to shape your experience clearly works for many people, but in my view that comes at the expense of strategic gameplay, which seems to be getting pulled farther and farther away from the game’s initial conceit. 

Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars – No amount of production value can save what I feel was a weakly designed core game system.  It took various bits of past Master of Orion and Civilization series games and glued them together in a way that didn’t show much understanding of how or why those mechanics worked (or didn’t work) so well in the first place.  All of the key defining characteristics of Master of Orion 2 (open space, turn-based combat, etc.) were scrapped in favor of bland and uninspired alternatives. I accept that this game is a decent entry point into the genre if you’ve never played a 4X game before, but it just doesn’t have the chops to keep me interested.

Distant Worlds: Universe – I’ve tried, so many times, to get into this game. After having played a lot of Stellaris, the mechanical side of Distant Worlds feels significantly less daunting.  But I cannot stand the UI design, not because it’s ugly (which is it and mods have improved somewhat), but because the text in this game gives me a headache in about 30 minutes.  It’s a tragedy really because I’d probably love it otherwise.

StarDrive 2 – The saga of this series and its abandonment by the developer is the saddest chapter in my space 4X story.  This game really had the potential and was stupefyingly close to being “the” modernized successor to Master of Orion 2 that fans have long wanted.  It had a well-designed economic, progression, and management system that nicely-created tough decision spaces without getting overly complex. The ship designer was awesome and the RTS combat did an excellent job of conveying the scale and chaos of epic space battles like few other games. Sadly, the game was left in a broken state following late development stage patching.  All this before the dev dropped the project altogether. This chapter still pisses me off (if you couldn’t tell).

Armada 2526– This is, in considering the options discussed above, a game I’m more inclined to recommend and talk up. I’m not sure if this is because it’s an exceptional game in its own right, or rather because it screws up the least of the other options, in my view.  It has a great sense of scale and a solid balance of depth and complexity. There are innovative and clever ideas around growth and development, trading, stealth and detection, and research.  Unfortunately, the game fumbles the ball when it comes to ship design (there is none) and combat (the RTS combat system is the definition of clunky).  While I’m willing to work around these shortcomings to get at the stuff I like, I don’t expect most other people to do the same, and so I’m loathe to recommend it.

Interstellar Space: Genesis – Recently launched, I do have high hopes for this game. As I was reflecting on eXplorminate’s recent review, I realized that ISG is the space 4X game that has launched with the least complaints (from me) about the core mechanics and game design. By and large, it’s all well-designed and thought out.  Everything it does, it does at least as good as the average game, and in a number of areas, it ushers in some nice design innovations and features.  More importantly, the game delivers nice strategic challenges (especially on harder difficulties) all without the AI “cheating.” The downside, of course, is that aesthetically the game looks like a fossil dug up from 1997 CE, which I can easily dismiss but might be a barrier for others. ISG also, by intent, focuses on the core 4X gameplay arc and doesn’t really forge into any new territory.  It’s a solid game for what it aims to achieve – but at the same time doesn’t really provide a new overall experience. If you’re bored or uninterested in traditional 4X gameplay, ISG might not spark your fancy, regardless of how solid the game is otherwise.

Perhaps my consternation over the above titles is magnified because I can’t help but feel that “if” the developers just did “X”, their game’s major hurdles would be overcome. If Endless Space 2 stopped adding more factions and features and focused more on refining, balancing, and bringing clarity to what’s there, it would be great!  If the developer of StarDrive 2 had pushed out one more freaking patch to fix critical bugs, the game would be golden.  If we could go back in time and fix Armada 2526’s miserable combat interface.  If Stellaris has continued developing on the trajectory of version 1.9 instead of redoing it all…

If, if, if…. So many ifs. 

I realize that development is a tricky business and that things are more easily said than done. But still, with how many space 4X games that have sprung into existence, you’d think at least one of them would tick all of my boxes without being saddled by one major caveat or another. 

Ironically, the one space 4X game I haven’t mentioned, and which to this date likely remains my personal favorite from a design and gameplay point of view, is Starbase Orion.  Of course, the cruel irony of this title is that it isn’t even available on PC, as it was released only as an iOS game. You can read about its clever design and why I love it in our review. 

But why Starbase Orion specifically?  In my view, it really did modernize the core MoO2 design and brought in a number of its own design innovations.  In this regard, it’s in a similar position as Interstellar Space: Genesis.  However, I think Starbase Orion is a little more streamlined, which makes the depth more accessible.  It also supports multiplayer and I’ve had some terrific 1v1 sessions. The pacing is great and it has a coherent graphic style. My fingers are crossed that Starbase Orion 2, which appears to still be under development, fulfills an earlier promise to be cross-platform so that more people can enjoy its delectable design.

So where are space 4X games headed?  Are there any promising signs in the distance? As usual, there are a host of other 4X space games floating off in the distance (Pax Nova, Astra Exodus, Alliance of the Sacred Suns, Dominus Galaxia, etc.). But these are mostly from smaller developers, so it’s anyone’s guess how they will turn out. As for the bigger publishers, I feel that most are content to keep riding the DLC tides for the time being.  As such, there there is nothing “big” out beyond the horizon (that we know about) for space 4X games.

What do I wish for?

I’d love to see a space 4X game that tried to shake up the “formula” by structuring the whole premise of the game around something other than the typical “conqueror the stars” motif.  Why is no one trying to reimplement Emperor of the Fading Suns? (Pax Nova is wildly off-course with respect to EFS by the way)  Why haven’t we seen interesting genre-blending 4X games as we see in the ecosystem of roguelikes and tactical RPG games?  Why not more AI Wars-type games (yes I know AI War 2 is in development) that boldly push asymmetric gameplay? I’d love to see a King of Dragon Pass or Sorcerer Kings: Rivals in space and paired with a solid core of 4X gameplay.

All of these examples bring me back to my central criticism of the 4X games, and especially space 4X games: not enough design energy is put into the structure and pacing relative to victory conditions and the rich gameplay arcs that should emanate from a compelling victory system.  Name a recent space 4X game that has anything like Age of Wonders 3’s seal system, or Total War: Warhammer II’s vortex campaign, or Endless Legend’s game-winning faction quests (Endless Space 2 dropped the ball on that one), or EFS’s scepter hunt? It’s mind-boggling to me and such a missed opportunity.

As a caveat on the above, the key to my criticism about victory conditions is understanding that it’s not about having different or more victory conditions or triggers just for the sake of having some different endgame condition to meet.  That’s not it at all.  Rather, the purpose of having an interesting victory condition is because the entire game can be designed and oriented around that clever, novel, innovative idea. Victory conditions are fundamentally a matter of structure and it informs the how and the why of building and piloting an empire.  Without compelling victory systems, I feel we’re destined to remain to redesign the same experience over and over again in slightly different clothes.

Oliver Kiley

Oliver is a perpetual dabbler of all-things gaming. This includes: game playing, game theory-crafting, game designing, game blogging, game criticizing, and of course game gaming. His interests span from strategy to FPS games, from tabletop miniature and boardgames to PC and mobile games. Oliver was first bitten by the 4X bug with Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, although other 4X favorites include Armada 2526, Starbase Orion (on iOS), and Age of Wonders III.