X Rebirth VR Edition

X Rebirth VR Edition
N/A
Metacritic
61
Steam
52.263
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$23.99
Release date
7 December 2017
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
61 (212 votes)

X Rebirth VR Edition is tailored to be an immersive VR experience, based on X Rebirth: Home of Light. TRADE, FIGHT, BUILD, THINK in the X Universe - the biggest sandbox this side of the galaxy.

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X Rebirth VR Edition system requirements

Minimum:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 10 (64-bit), Windows 8 (64-bit), Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)
  • Processor: Intel i5-4590 or AMD equivalent
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD equivalent (VULKAN support)
  • Storage: 8 GB available space
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Chase
Chase

Some things that are not made clear without doing your research first:

This game is slow. The very first quest I was given took 15 minutes to fly to, using the boosters.
I love exploration games but this really was just 15 minutes in a straight line, surrounded by background skybox on all sides.

This remained fairly consistent as I continued to play, with very little in the way of action unless I specifically go looking for it, and then 5+ minutes of floating through intergalactic highways or slowly lumbering through space.

Beyond that, expect to spend a lot of your time in this game just going from A to B.

You can only pilot one ship - the one you start in.
You can upgrade your ship, but you cannot fly anything else. I really don't understand why this had to be the case, in previous X games flying ships was a core aspect of gameplay.

The menus are pretty daunting. It is entirely possible to miss out on the majority of what the game has to offer simply because it's tucked away in some obscure menu. Expect to be googling or looking for walkthroughs as you discover new things to do, but not how to do them.

I can understand how someone may enjoy this game if they're hardcore into economy management and wandering around, but if like me you want action and/or coherent interface design, best to look elsewhere.

Hopefully VR will be present in X4, along with flying multiple ships.

gapper4
gapper4

If you have a VR set-up and the slightest interest in space games, you owe it to yourself to buy this. With an i7 5820k and an OCed 980ti, I can SS this to 1.8x and have absolutely stunning graphics. Controlling the game with the Touch controllers (Oculus) is a dream of finesse and subtle movements -- in fact, I have better control than with my X52Pro joystick which I've used extensively in other space games, including X3. Gameplay, while not as varied and broad as in X3, still gives you the most complete space game experience you can have in VR. Just wish there was multiplayer but, oh well, that's what E:D is for. There ARE a few minor visual glitches which no doubt will be ironed out during EA, as well as some minor gameplay bugs but they don't distract from the experience. Highly, highly recommended.

cirlin
cirlin

I've really been loving the game in VR. I played the Non-VR version quite a bit, but never entirely connected to it. But now having a much greater sense of presence really increased how much I enjoy the world and what's going on in it.

invisiblemartin
invisiblemartin

I dont usually do reviews but as this is an 'early access' game which I paid for I decided to. I also played a number of previous X games and enjoyed them. I am quite dissapointed as this should be so much better - it has so much potential and I so wanted to write a generally possitive review.

Firsty the possitives - The x universe is wonderfull and nicely designed. its great to fly around in an has some really nice features and stuff (I wont say what in case you buy it) Some of the combat play is also quite fun. I also love the ability to switch between VR and 2D.

However the negatives - The VR experience seems enabled rather than developed (as a VR developer myself this is a no no in my opinion and I played most in 2D) You cant even do certain things with the vr controllers. It also seems from my research into issues i found that rather than solve problems they have simply disabled features (which I think has broken this product and essentially short changed me). Some of the modelling seems to be full of short cuts. For instance whenever I land on a capital ship I have a large black box in the dock (this is part of the LOD from the ship models and the fact is has not been sorted out shows... well not good things) For me also the plot line has been broken durning play, meaning I can no longer continue in main plot (it just goes around in circles on a xenon mission - it is a known issue i hope they can resolve soon). The NPC dialog and related mini games are awful - they should just drop some of that. I also want to dock properly and fly any of the ships I own (am sureyou could in old x games). I wont evern go into the character animations and designs as they are shockingly poor.

This is clearly a game that had very little play testing, quality assurance and was baddly planned and exexuted, despite the good and in places great bits. Some of it looks very dated and repetative - such as on stations, 'oh how I wish for just some variation' and the gameplay not very well thought out.

Saying all the above though I would recommend this game - but would suggest you consider the price against the above comments - at least if it was half that price they would get more investment into their next version - which I understand they are developing (shame they cannot fix this first), I only hope that they resolve their approach to the VR integration and what a vr experience means to the quality of the product.

Finally in retrospect I wish I have just bought the original 2D version as VR brings nothing to this game.

chadrickb
chadrickb

Really enjoying the VR version a lot. The touch controls took a few minutes to become familiar with - once I did they were great. If you are a fan of the 4.0 version of X Rebirth like me then the VR version is a fun way to become even more immersed into the game.

lightst62
lightst62

I was able to play this VR version and its just as cool as the Non VR version with my i5 GTX 1050.

it works with my particular VR setup after a few tweeks and the help from the developer (See the comments to this post - I added the command parameter to the games setting in Steam), I am currently using Homido V2 with my iphone 6 and my Xbox gamepad controller.

Update: I upgraded to a i7 GTX 1070 and the Dell Visor but I was not able to get it to run. I spent many sleepless nights reading the forums and discussions and applying all the trouble shooting advice as well as Steam VR. Unfortunately, I had to return everything since it was for playing X4 Rebirth VR. I know other poeple with a Dell Visor and a different computer was able to run the games without issues. Just my luck, so don't let my experience deter you. I have no way of playing X4 Rebirth VR now until I get another VR headset. Might be a Steam VR headset - not sure yet, so I am keeping my X4 Rebirth VR. I wrote extensively about my issues in the discusions on steam.

Game advice:
I recomend upgrading your ship with better weapons, booster, and shields. The best way to earn credits in this game when you srart - especially in Free Play is to do as many missions as you can and upgrading your ship increases your chances of passing the missions.

Also, keep in mind that you will not be able to enter the stations like the non-VR version unless its part of a mission. (Unless someone writes a extension for it if its even possible)

I recommend this game and I can't wait until X4 Foundations comes out in 2018.

Geldon
Geldon

Where most developers would have given up and moved on to the next product, Egosoft has impressed by putting FOUR YEARS of effort into bringing X Rebirth's around from its rather disappointing (buggy pile of bad concepts) initial release by fixing what's wrong and heavily revamping features here and there. For example, they have largely removed the necessity of docking at stations, allowing you to interact with most NPCs from space, including hiring crew members (who fly in crew pods to dock with you). These kinds of changes are very much approaching what a proper X Universe game should be, and Egosoft's dedication has done much to redeem the company's tarnished image in my mind.

The VR version has perhaps the deepest interface mechanics of any VR game I have played yet. This is using the Oculus Touch controller, which is probably better supported than the Vive controllers because X Rebirth came out on the Oculus store first. It took me the better part of an hour of puttering around in a new game in order to figure out that X Rebirth uses a couple of interactions you don't often see VR games employ:

* Pointing - You actually have to point your index finger in order to have the green ray show up that lets you target things and select menu items by pointing at them and hitting a button. Pointing can interfere with what you're doing sometimes, so learning how to NOT accidentally point is as important as learning what pointing can do.

* Thumb Rest - Turns out that putting your thumb on the little circular non-button next to the two main buttons on each touch controller is considered a "thumb rest" gesture. On the left side, this is configured to reset your VR environment orientation if you rest your thumb for awhile. On the right side, it activates "gesture control", which is basically the only way to roll your ship, since the thumb sticks are for pitch/raw and strafing in two dimensions.

Once I got the hang of it, it was surprisingly intuitive and powerful. The Oculus touch controllers are more advanced than we typically get to see! It is kind of fun pointing around and watching the future tech cockpit respond.

From there, the interface gets more interesting yet. Open up your main menu with the start button, and you can scroll up and down with either the secondary thumbstick or by pointing. (Pointing can interfere with the thumbstick selecting.) A lot of these selections open up the in-game data panel located to the right of your pilot seat. Interacting with that in-game panel can be similarly a matter of thumbstick interaction or pointing and dragging about with buttons. An additional quick interaction radial menu makes many of the most often used functions accessible without bringing up the main menu.

X Rebirth does have that X Universe depth, where ships are really out and about doing things and trading in a living, breathing universe. In fact, you can own fleets of ships and stations and such. This is the main leg up the game has on Elite: Dangerous. Much like in recent X games, you can pretty much build an empire of NPC ships and stations that work for you. However, it seems oddly hard to get at with X Rebirth, there's a whole insulative layer of weird new mechanics to get through first.

There's a bit of Egosoft jankiness to get used to. It's an epic European space sim for hobbiests with a lineage that can be traced deep into the old Elite games. These kinds of games tend to have a different "feel" to them than you might be used to. Egosoft games have a certain fahrvergnügen of their own. Coming at it as a newcomer, it's going to feel weird until you get used to it, most notably the long travel times (which make sense once you unlock time acceleration) and general commodities and upgrade system (which make more sense if you've played previous Egosoft games). This is not impenetrebe to a newcomer, but you will want to come at it willing to embrace a long learning curve into a deep game.

One of the biggest criticisms of the game is that you can't switch ships. To an extent, what they did with the single-ship focus here was not a bad idea. In the previous X games, you basically end up working your way up to a capital ship, and at that point there's no more fun dogfighting because why would you ever leave the safety of your well-shielded capital ship? By trapping us in the Albion Skunk, a highly modular experimental fighter (essentially a mobile command center) you get to be a strafe-happy fighter from the start to the end of the game. But yeah, I do miss the freedom of being able to switch ships a bit, as there's times I look at the other ships in the game and wonder how it's like to pilot them. Guess we'll find out in X4.

So far, I am pretty impressed with what I'm seeing with X Rebirth VR now that it's got 4 years of development. I can tell why it's still in Early Access, since I ahve done missions where there's basically whole missing passages of NPC text and whatnot, and the plot of the main campaign is sort of hanging open because they had to drop the tying together cinematics for VR. However, by and large the game is functional, at least a lot more than it was 4 years ago, and it's given me something really interesting and deep to do with this Oculus Rift of mine. I'll revise my review later if I encounter something major and game breaking, but for now things are looking like a thumbs up.

Cormellion
Cormellion

I've only just started playing this and there is a steep learning curve. But I have to say once I get time to sit with it for a few hours I'll have this game humming along. The scope as in all X games is immense. The VR version is no exception it seems up to now to be a faultless game for me. The graphics are wonderfully detailed and smooth. I have a machine with a lot of grunt ie 2 x 1080gtx, so I've maxed everything with SS at x5 and rendertragetmultiplier x3 all I can say it is awsome. Well worth playing!!!

Eyn
Eyn

Great fan of Egosoft X Serie till the first ... to the last (owner of X Rebirth)
Have Windows Mixed Reality headset
Try X Rebirth VR Edition for free (free week-end) with an Xbox 360 controller
After 10 minutes of play, quit the game, and buy it (-50%, 20€uros)
That's all

Easy controls with an Xbox360 pad, great changes in menus, interface

If you like the X serie of Egosoft
If u have a VR headset (Occulus, Vive, WMR)
Then u must buy it.

Salchi
Salchi

Little rough around the edges, but overall very enjoyable. Vive control of the ship are a game changer, very very good. The sense of scale in VR is fantastic.

I'm having trouble finding a non-generic quest line to follow, but I've only scratched the surface of the game. Also, I've experienced some performance issues around stations using a GTX980ti. Setting supersampling to 0.9 fixed the issue most of the time, and there is no much loss in quality.

One thing that I find annoying is the placement of the screen you use for all the interactions with the game. Its located to your right, so you spend most of the time turning your chair around for every interaction. Other than that, its a good game.

cyclicbug
cyclicbug

Hurrah, X in VR not played much yet but it works well with Vive and xbox360 controller combo....early access but runs smooth.

This is just what VR needs, a game from developers with a good track record which is built on a strong base of quality and offers a depth of game play not abundant in VR titles so far.

ZestyLemming
ZestyLemming

Currently rating as don't buy, but will revisit. I have the rest of the X series.

The base game was poorly executed at launch. The game to this day retains a mixed status, and generally had just a lot of silliness in it. I'm going to get out of the spaceship and randomly loot people's boxes at the spaceport, and those people aren't going to care and so on. It tried to do the RPG thing, but didn't execute it as well as other games do.

The VR navigation of UI's with tracked controllers is bad, the default control scheme is less than desirable, and switching from the tracked controllers to real controllers is unnecessarily painful. The graphics are reasonable -- but aren't as good as the Playstation 4 version of Eve Valkyrie or the PC version of Elite Dangerous. For example, you're not going to see seams in special effects on either of those titles, especially not in the first couple minutes.

I'm seeing if I can get the X52 Pro to work correctly in the base game now, as it is not working correctly in the VR version -- something that literally just worked in Elite, Star Citizen and other genre titles. The instructions Ego Soft posted resulted in a binding with no clear correlation to the actual controller, such as rudder causing weapons to fire -- looked to be potentially an Xbox controller binding being applied incorrectly, even though it was labeled as X52 Pro.

There are parts of the game I still like better than Elite -- but Eve Valkyrie, Descent or Overload have better space combat. Elite has been getting better the last few months, and has moved from being very similar to Frontier to having a lot more interesting gameplay. It is slowly inching towards something like Eve Online, which is probably good for the genre in general.

For reference...
AMD 9590 (4.7mhz eight-way) with NVidia 1080TI running from SSD, with untweaked video settings (since properly tweaking will throw me over the 2 hour play time to be able to return the game).

Praytock
Praytock

SImply Aamzing,
The oculous rift makes this well beyond worth $40, let alone any sales maing it cheaper.
Will be spending hours in here,
Putting in mods from either steam or nexus mods, and playing is so enjoyable.!

Lambda
Lambda

VR is the Rebirth of Rebirth.
I was an early adopter of rebirth and had been disapointed the first time it launch, there were too mushc bug and anoying features ( like to walking on station )

I tried Rebith VR, the base game had a lots of fixes and improvements since the first time it released. And the VR experience OMG, this game use lots of my vive controllers to make it feel better.

Yet I rebaught X rebirth in it's VR edition because it is where it shine.
I recommend for HTC VIve Owners loking for a complete game ( pretty rare in vr ), with a lot of features.

Anton
Anton

after playing the original four years ago i that disappointed me so. i stayed away from the game. Bat new efter a lot of hard workd from Egosoft the outdone them self with the vr vorsion. Im conting down the day to X4F.

There are lot of good space games out there. bat X series are the best space games out there do date. when playing in a dynamic and living world on this epic scale controlling lot of ships and scale you can't scale back to the other games. this is not the best X game. the last two X games were epic. and the X4F is going to out shine them a lot. i sey after doing my home work.

[Good]
[+] VR works. its makes the world looks so good.
[+] Controls are really great for so complex game.
[+] Its a great way to spande the time while im wating fot X4F
[+] Space battle are Epic.
[+] You can build a Military oe Trading empire. or both.
[+] Lots of ship in the game you can't fly. add them to you empire to do your bidding. (trade, defence, fight) and there are small and large ship to command.

[Bed]
[-] NPC Modals look like old dolls. Good that this is a space game and you dont spent a lot of time interacting with them.
[-] Long learning curve nat the good learning curve. and i had to go to youtube for help.

[Ugly]
[--] You can only play/Fly one ship.

for my last words. the game is really good and i can recruitment this game to my friends.

PH1LT3R_NZ
PH1LT3R_NZ

Sigh. I'm always super conflicted about the X series.

But I think this game has won me back.

The nearest thing I can compare it to is Elite Dangerous VR, and although it doesn't have the same polish as Elite, there are a LOT of things to be said for for X Rebirth VR.

I'm big on immersion and this is a list of things that Rebirth has really done well in that department;

- The stations in Rebirth are large, sprawling structures and there's a lot of variation when compared to Elite.
- Ship designs are also more varied and interesting than Elite.
- Space feels more realistically populated; there's areas of dense traffic and light traffic.
- Everything happens "closer" to your ship; look out your window and see that nearby freighter passing by, instead of looking at a blip on the radar that streaks by in the distance.

I'm hoping that this will be enough to suck me into the long-form empire-building gameplay. I haven't quite made it there with previous X games.

Damodred
Damodred

The flight controls in this edition are so intuitive that I might prefer them to my regular HOTAS setup. No major bugs encountered, and all cockpit based interations are quick, efficient, and fun.

This game still suffers from some of the design flaws that made X:Rebirth the legend that it is (Check metacritic, its one for the history books) but most of the enraging gameplay elements have been reduced, if not outright eliminated (See "Need to land on stations...ever). Whats lefts is a deep, satisfying VR experiance that offers more content than any other title I can think of until Fallout 4 VR unbuggers itself and offers Rift support.

VGAstudent
VGAstudent

I recommend the game because the game mechanics are solid: The problem is when you put on the VR headset and have to look at a keyboard or mouse to get input in the game. Why didn't someone think of the controller being used to work with the game? Ok, if not the Vive Headset controller which is stock, but try something new, like the joystick controller - it has all the commands mapped out when you start playing the introduction past the flying preview -- except the space bar, which you have to hit to start the game. Not incredibly smart of you guys ==>> Why? You often hit the "Windows" key or menu keys when finding the keyboard; and unless you remove the headset completely, you don't see the screen showing the window with the options open to move, close or minimize the window...

...The game works, I know it. But the controls need work.

johannespetzold
johannespetzold

After nearly 10 hours spent configuring keybindings, reading guides, watching youtube videos, playing through the tutorials and aimlessly flying around, I still wasn't able to finish missions rated "very easy" because I just didn't know what I actually needed to do. Too complex for me.

Vormulac
Vormulac

Played on Oculus.

I expected to despise the motion controls for ship control but I actually really like them. The updated menu systems also work really well. If you liked X Rebirth and you're looking for a "full" VR game then give this a go.

It doesn't include the original campaign but this is easy enough to mod back in.

Voldemort
Voldemort

I'm sure someone out there has the taste for a game like this, but not me.

Cons:
*Was expecting space mechanics similar to Elite Dangerous. Instead, got very clunky Oculus controls, that were a nightmare to stumble through in the tutorials.
*Graphics, weren't too bad, but felt like a 1990's game to me, nothing like the realism of ED

Pros:
*From what I read, it's a deep game in terms of economics, however I could tell right away it wasn't the type that would capture my attention. And I've dablled in economics in many games, including in space, ED as well as Eve.

Overall, just didn't feel like it'd be able to clunk my way through the game and put serious hours into it. Factor that in with the very high price tag, and I'd rather refund and wait for future space games. Elite Dangerous will still keep me going for a long time to come, I just wish their economics/gameplay overall was deeper... If only ED and EVE would have a child together...

sanjaykpandit
sanjaykpandit

Awesome game. Its a different universe which you need to understand and it can be difficult at first. Once you grasp ways of this universe, you can spend as much time as you want here.

Rayeth
Rayeth

I must congratulate Egosoft, they managed to create the first VR game that I actually do not recommend...
I am a big fan of the whole X-series and I even liked Rebirth a lot, but asking 40€ for a game that's not even worth 20€ is just not right. I really hope the real X4 is going to be better and I'll most likely buy it but I am not sure if I would risk buying a VR game from Egosoft again.

The gameplay:
Instead of allowing the player to use their hands to touch, press or hold things in order to steer, you simply use the (in my case Vive) touch controllers as a normal gamepad. It feels like they wanted to integrate the 2-part controller of the Nintendo Switch into their game but it just didn't work out. I was looking forward to being able to touch my ships controls, grip the thruster joystick and push it for max speed or to use my virtual hands to control the ship menu but instead all you get is the basic steam vr point&click mechanism. Yes, it is possible to call up menus by pointing and clicking at the little screens of the ship, but it is still not even close to being a VR experience. If you use a regular gamepad you won't notice a difference... Speaking of other controllers: Check out the discussion pages about using a HOTAS...
The positive thing about that was, that the controls are pretty easy to master in my opinion. It doesn't steer as good as it should but it could be a lot worse and it is a breeze to figure out but it simply doesn't employ any sort of VR asset...

The graphics:
We all knew the Rebirth's graphics were pretty bad. No improvement here. I've seen two ways of doing VR-graphics by now: making it as realistic as possible or cartoon-ish. Here, they simply imported the same bad textures as the original game had, being neither. That actually justifies the decision of cutting out Yisha, since looking at that 90's 3D model would disturb you anyway. This adds to the performance part, further down.

The content:
I'll cut this short, because that's what Egosoft did too. They simply removed several Stations, Sectors, 98% of all interiors, NPC's, traffic etc...
I don't agree with that decision mainly because the price for the game suggests at least a full game, since you have to buy it again even if you own the original and because vr games need high-end systems anyways. That's the best they could do? This leads us to performance.

Performance:
Back then when I played that game, I was running VR with a GTX970 and it performed suprisingly well. All the cut content and bad graphics really enabled me to play the game on "highest" (you can't really change anything of note) settings with only very minor disturbances or stutters.

The worst thing: the pricing...
Asking Rebirth owners to buy again makes the company simply look greedy (I know all companies do that, read on) because there is no actual new content apart from the native VR support. I would be OK with this, but you do not get the same game again, no you get 40% of the game you already own.
Even if I would not have owned Rebirth already I would have been disappointed because of the product, which is never worth more than 15€.

I'm incredibly sad that I was that much dissapointed by that game, as I was really looking forward to it and I used to trust Egosoft to make the right calls (even if that means delivering a good game only after 15 major patches... in the end the games were always good).
However, the basic control system, ignoring most of what VR has to offer, the bad graphics and the large amount of cut content simply spoiled the fun for me.
Therefore I came to the decision of hitting "do not recommend" button, simply because you do not get what you pay for if you expect 40€'s worth and I wanted to save others from that sort of dissapointement.

Nistrega
Nistrega

Great space sim for VR. This and Elite Dangerous are now my space escape nerd out games for VR.

Performance is great. I have experienced no judder or slow downs. Like I do with Elite frequently.

Graphics are nice. Turn up your supersampling and everything is shiny.

Very Immersive- Space stations are sprawling and cool looking, lots of space traffic to fill the universe and at times some Cowboy Bebop/Blade Runner vibes.

Motion controls are great as well. Very intuitive and easy to use with no discomfort.

See you space cowboy...

Newt
Newt

Outstanding,
If you own the regular rebirth version just take the mods and drop them in and the work just great, no conflicts yet, and I'm running 16 mods.

just go to the Regular Version of Rebirth in steam right click select "propities", select "local files" tab, select "browse local files", select the "extentions" folder, right click on whichever mod you wish to use in the VR Version and select "Copy"

go the VR Version of the game in steam right click select "propities", select "local files" tab, select "browse local files", select the "extentions" folder, right click in the folder on an empty space and select "paste"

hopes this helps some people

TakeMeDeep
TakeMeDeep

One of the first games which you can play really long with VR ;-)
If you have to much of the Virtual Reality you can continue playing XRB on
your monitor ...

Trading is a bit complicated but there are youtube tutorial videos you can watch ;-)

Fun game for VR!

Xhawk
Xhawk

Wow, this game i orignal did not play much even i love the X (space game serie)

I still bought it for VR ... Now this sweet thing turned super fun... prolly the best space game to VR, not many big one like this is, but still)

The motion sickness only apere when you walk fast and turn on platforms inside stations and captial ship, else its fine if you fly smoothly around. Played it for 2 days with minimum of motion sickness or VR sickness for that sake.

Healyhatman
Healyhatman

Makes me feel nauseous where other games don't. Has pretty average graphics.

But the worst thing for me is that it's basically just X Rebirth but in VR - the interface and gameplay are pretty much identical with no changes made to take advantage of the medium.

I bought it because I support Egosoft and want more X games - but if they do another VR game by the Gods they better put more effort into it.

shockley.home
shockley.home

There was much more taken out of this game than what was added. It's not rebirth and the VR controls are stupid.

Crumbs1
Crumbs1

It needs to be two player. i want to be able to play it with my girlfriend sitting in the passanger seat.

The Singularity Loves You
The Singularit…

Great game. As usual, this company sticks with its products and continues to improve them. I'm loving it so far, and I've only scratched the surface. Considering this generation of VR has been about trying to stuff us with garbage 5 minute experiences, this is a standout. Hundreds of hours can be spent here, like in Fallout/Skyrim.

PandabaconVR
PandabaconVR

I like this game. I have been an X fan since X2 series. I do not like losing hours of playtime to stupid bugs. This game is rife with UI bugs. Save often if you don't want to be losing playtime due to bugs.

His name is Robert Paulson
His name is Ro…

X Rebirth, after four years, is still a terrible game. The addition of VR makes it a far more immersive mess of a game, but it's still a trainwreck. Wait for X4, whenever that's supposed to come out.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Gave up on VR immediately since the VIVE controllers were useless, all X games need keyboard mouse/gamepad. They are not hotas(the vive absolutely cannot substitute for gamepad/stick with its pads). Luckily the game if headset is not connected allows the normal game view mode to be launched, unluckily someone in Egosoft thought locking you out of all stations interiors in VR was a good thing, yours especially which is rediculous, no key to your own home stations and the missions to allow access are in fact bugged where you have to land on x station and cannot get access to the mission since you must board your ship at every port you land on.

Capping works but barely with no sensible options such as hailing the 3 last surviving members of the crew so they use the escape pod rather than since their ship was hacked, scanned to death, every turret, shield and module turned to scrap and 30 marines now on board, my co pilot decides that we need to blast more things to distract the crew(which kills the vets rather than the recruit marines) piracy is about fear so the option to hail them should be there - we have a police licence, so surrender your pirate vessel or be destroyed in x mins - coms is the copilots job. The end result usually is 30 dead marines because of 'boarding resistance' (when we should have the option to abandon and sink the ship rather than lose marines if they say no we definately want to self destruct - bad scripting) so you destroy the vessel with is crew never ejecting afterwards. OK lets put it like this, there are only 3 guys left in c&c, no shields and no hull, there is therefore nothing to stop my blasting the c&c through the hull or the marines burning their way through the shortest possible route - which is what the pirates did to get the thing. This subgame is therefore a big minus, the manual drone use by the captain too is also, that is why you have a copilot, who is there in this game to narrate the plot line rather than be of any use. When you hire an officer of marines he/she would be asking for support at the appropriate time and possibly much better armoured space suits along with your bots to go in first.

In VR the copilot has moved into the hold taking up a valuable crew position slot.

Main plotline broke for me in Albion after boarding the Xenon K2 my marines evacuated the vessel and would not reboard, I could not destroy the remaining plasma cannons since they ripped apart the skunk which at this time in the plotline did not have the plasma weapon(cash short), I had created a safe zone on the hull. Your co pilot should not kill your marines by not letting them aboard or try to kill the ship by sending it into danger when the K2 was already self destructing. I can fire everyone but the maniac copilot. At this point I really miss the ability to pilot another ship since I would have. Not having you marines reboard in time means the k2 kills them in the blast of its destruction and the plot breaks. Ok I can live with that now since it had zero time to live when I had to board it snce it was being destroyed by Argon ships anyway - but again another huge minus.

Guns do not fire center to the sight redicule, but to the left of it, you adapt but pay the penalty when shooting locks off crates, and X2/3 would have allowed magnification.

Most missiles miss(dumbfire).

Missile countermeasures - none.

X2/3 antimissile software mode for turrets - none

Pilots are not recoverable if you scrap a ship. If you pay 30,000 credits for the pilot you want him back.

Range to target used to be on its info along in X games with its speed - now gone, it is on the main hud to the targets right and is lost by being too small to read and/or masked by multiple targets.

Scan modes, you have to change mode back to your setting which is usually long range evey time you dock, or use drones or load the game this would not normally cause a problem but the L button for long range scan shares its key with the L button on any other mode which launches any missile you might have.

Internal station graphics are KOTOR standard which is ok for 2001, however in Kotor we had NPC's walking around doing their own thing, even X2 allowed generated cinematics with Kyle Brennon, only space is meant to be that empty of life.

Your hired NPC, pilots, captains etc see fit to inform you of their every action by video during combat or your most important moment of concentration shootling off that lock on a rigged container. No airplane mode or text only which used to be X2/X3

7/10 unmodded.

Wang Phun
Wang Phun

The only serious competition to Elite in VR.

The visuals and flight model aren't as nice but you trade that off but a much deeper single player experience.

I play with a mixed reality headset and didn't encounter any of the problems that I saw in the discussion forum.

You start out with a scrap heap ship, you'll actually be in this ship the entire game instead of changing ships like in X3, but you'll be upgrading it as you earn money.

The thing that makes this game, like all X games, crazy is that you can build a fleet of ships, like a strategy game and set them to all kinds of tasks. You can have a fleet of trading ships and also a war flotilla. You can carve out a section of space with your own controlled star ports and become a major player in the universe with a changing economy that plays out based on your actions (or in spite of your actions too).

Or if it's more you style you could even stick to your single ship and deck it out the way you like and be a mercenary, pirate, or trader.

While the majority of the game is sandbox, there is a story you can follow if you want. There's also animated NPCs and while outside of the plot their conversation is pretty limited, being able to get out of your ship and walk around a station and talk to these NPCs makes the universe feel more alive.

Speaking of those stations, the few problems I have run into have all been in, or once near, the stations. On two occasions after speaking with an NPC the dialogue box got stuck open and I was unable to reboard my ship. On another occasion when I loaded my game my ship was stuck inside the geometry of a station and I was unable to fly away. On these occasions I was able to reload my save game and the problem was gone but it was still annoying.

It supports a wide range of controls. I use mouse and keyboard and have mapped the controls to match my Elite setup. I can turn with the mouse and use WASD for throttle and strafing. I see in the forums that plenty of people are using HOTAS, and after watching a youtube tutorial on the controls I see that you can use your VR motion controllers to fly the ship and open the menus.

Speaking of tutorials, there is a campaign you can start that runs you through a set of tutorials that at least gets you up and going which is new for the X series. I remember playing X3 and I had to download and print a third-party, new user reference guide. However while these tutorials teach you enough to be dangerous I still had to go to forums and Youtube to figure out a few things.

Overall this is a very deep, fun space game with really great VR support.

CptTangerine
CptTangerine

TL;DR: This is a very complex game that looks great in VR. There are lots of things that are difficult to get to grips with and lots of things that are complicated for no good reason but the overall experience is worth the effort. In-depth trading and empire-building, decent graphics, good combat, and a huge game-world make for excellent long-term game-play.

**************************************************************

I don’t think that it’s an exaggeration to say that this is the eighth time that I have tried to get into X-Rebirth. I bought it the moment it was released and was immediately massively disappointed. I could not get my head around ... well, any part of it really. The tutorial seemed to get me to a point where I was tasked with making what seemed to be a ludicrous amount of money before it would progress but without any guidance whatsoever on how to do so. The whole game seemed centred around a bizarre space highway that just went round in a big loop and all the space stations had these weird information points that you were supposed to approach and scan for reasons unknown.

Also for reasons unknown, having totally failed to get into the game first time round, I then bought it again when it came out in VR. With high hopes, I once again tried to get into it and, once again, utterly failed to make head or tail of it. Every now and again I would re-install it and have another go then realise that I really couldn’t be bothered. It was still just as confusing. It was also heartbreaking as I had loved the other X games (although, in truth, they have all taken a lot of getting-into).

Recently, I have played Elite: Dangerous again and got annoyed by the shallowness of the game. I then played Hellion which is awesome until you’ve done everything there is to do (after about 40 - 50 hours in my case) and I decided to have a really, really determined go at getting into X: R. I now have 42 hours on record and I barely feel as though I have scratched the surface. This is a really complicated, in-depth game, and not for the casual player. Much of the complexity is unnecessary, but I have finally broken the barrier that was keeping me from it and I am enjoying it almost as much as all the other X games that I loved so much.

The thing about X: Rebirth is that it really does rebuild the whole series from the ground up and this is very confusing for those already familiar with the series, but a lot of it is actually very good. I figured out the highway system, which is actually a nice addition. In the original X games the sectors were all basically laid out on an 8-by-8 grid with jump gates possible at each of the cardinal compass points. You could always have a rough guess at how to get somewhere once you knew this. In X-R this 8-by-8 grid appears to be gone and instead the sectors are divided into zones on the smaller scale and regions on the larger scale. Rather that just having the space stations floating about randomly in the sectors and visible across them, they are pretty much all connected by one-way highways that whisk you along at a very convenient pace, and then the sectors are connect to each other by super-highways, like low-rent jump-gates. It’s only the regions that are connected by actual jump-gates. Once you get your head around it, it actually works very well and saves a lot of the SETA (time compression) stuff from the previous games. The SETA drive is still available but it’s a nightmare to get and only really necessary in a couple of the regions where there are no highways. For all the others you can just fly and boost your way from highway to space station and back again.

The trade system has been massively revamped and is enormously confusing. The days of having a ship with a cargo hold and going from station to station peddling your wares has basically gone. You start the game with a cargo ship at your disposal and use that to trade for you, unfortunately nothing in the game tells you how to do this and the ship can only transport certain types of wares which massively limits your opportunities. There are four kinds of cargo ships: bulk, container, energy, and liquid and apart from the liquid one the wares seem to have been categorised more or less randomly between the three. This, more than anything, had me tearing my hair out. It is also necessary to chat up NPCs on the space stations to act as trade agents (or get a handy mod, TAF) if you don’t want the potential trades to disappear a short time after you have visited the relevant station (the small-talk option is one of many things that is far more complex than it needs to be). Once you have visited some space stations and got some trade agents you can begin despatching the relevant cargo ships to trade on your behalf. Profits are generally pretty low to begin with but there are a number of missions that you can pick up from the stations while endlessly flying round them scanning the information points (I’m still not entirely clear why you do this other than because the developers put a lot of effort into the stations and want you to properly admire them) and these pay pretty well.

The combat is fairly straightforward. You start out with a fairly well-armed ship that will either wipe the floor with the enemy or not, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a mid-ground with smaller ships. With larger ships you can plug away at the various systems, knocking them down one-by-one until the ship is marooned and defenceless and then take it down, which is lengthy but good fun. You can pirate ships with guns or by hacking with remote-controlled drones, or you can knock them down as described above and then board them with marines.

The main blocker to getting into this game is the lack of explanations. I have had to spend a lot of time on Google and YouTube trying find out why things don’t work as expected. A lot of the issues are signalled by the ubiquitous greyed-out box. I want to build a capital ship but the “build” option is greyed out, no explanation. Ten minutes on Google tells me that this is because there is already an NPC ship-build in progress. No queuing system, no “Hey come back when I’ve done this ship” just a greyed out box. This happens a lot. I can cope with the complexity, hell, I like the complexity, but a bit more explanation would make the game a lot better. I like the fact that when you buy a capital ship you have to hire an engineer and a defence officer on top of the captain that comes with it. I like the fact that in order to claim a ship if I find one or force it’s former owner to abandon it, that I need to have a pilot on board to take it over, but it would be nice if there was something to tell me that before I find myself needing to do it. The problem is made worse by the fact that a very large amount of the key activities are done through endless menus, often with options greyed-out for no readily apparent reason.

I think that a lot of the problems with the game are due to the fact that it was a broken piece of junk when it was launched and it’s been fixed-up piecemeal. Difficulties aside, it is now a very good, functional game once you understand how everything works.

Bringing the game to VR was a really good decision. It does look very impressive, despite the fact that it is now quite a few years old. Being able to aim the guns just by looking at a target is also very cool. The only downside to VR in this case is constantly having to take the headset off to Google things, but that’s a minor issue. Normally, I just stack up my queries and look them up at the end of the session. As I said above, this is not a casual gamer’s game, this is a game that you play because you enjoy being in the universe, not because it will deliver you fast-paced rewards and progression. Having to look up a bunch of things ahead of your next play session doesn’t really slow things down much.

All things

baigais
baigais

Didn't like it. The space is really empty and daunting as it turns out. Space battles don't seem that interesting, traveling between places is a waste of time, the game crashed multiple times in the first half-hour and generally didn't see the point of being in this VR world.

The_Free_Dom
The_Free_Dom

Could not get the game to work with my Warthog HOTAS and pedals. No response from dev. Only documentation I could find said that the stick had to be the first USB controller in your list, and the only way to do that is to use some shady software from Github and edited system .dll files. Refunded.

Wolfkolf
Wolfkolf

This is what VR is best as... a cockpit simulater lol I laugh but it not hard to imagin the headset is your helmet and boom, its real. The motion controlls are great once you give them a bit. I love them and how you can interact with the game around you with them. The game is pretty good and very large. Hard to find a space game with this depth in VR.

fireorfrog
fireorfrog

The great thing about the VR version of this game is that the Vive controls are excellent. It's flying finally done right. Essential flying actions - pitching up/down, acceleration (to any speed), boost, strafing left/right and up/down, going backwards, and rolling left / right can ALL be done seamlessly with one hand, and still with a bunch of buttons left over on that same hand. If other games still struggle to figure out how to do it well, the shame is on them.

Sadly, the game itself is a flop. You'll get weapons, shields, engines, and missiles, but the selection is very limited, and they all feel rather similar. You can get capital ships, but cannot fly them. And they don't feel all that capital. Actually, they feel rather small.

In fact, considering you're in space, everything in the game feels oddly small. Ships, stations, battles, asteroids. Some asteroids are large (in fact, far larger than irregularly-shaped asteroids can physically get in real life), but those are always "background" ones - gigantic, non-rotating, frozen in place, and absolutely non-interactive. They never really feel like they're part of the environment.

Stations are weirdly empty. When you dock and walk around the station, you'll generally find three or so people in there. For the most part you'll find empty cafeterias, empty music clubs (with music playing and the audo of a crowd, but nobody actually there), and empty hallways. When you run across someone, it will be one of game's several horribly modeled and abysmally animated characters that will immediately break any suspension of disbelief you may have about interacting.

But the worst thing about the game is the absolute lack of clear information on how to do things. For instance, you can trade in this game - but doing that is about as fun and natural as dealing with the bureaucracy and legal guidelines of real-world business without any actual depth. Moreover, much of it is hidden behind wholly unintuitive peculiarities of the game's interface and rules that are not in any way spelled out, so you'll need to spend a LOT of time searching through poorly done tutorials and gameplay videos on youtube in order to figure out how to even start doing any of it. Sometimes there is a weird side-scrolling timing mini-game involved that feels entirely out of place in the game.

If that were not enough, the game has a tendency to crash the VR headset. If you (well, I) play the game for about 2 hours, the chances are pretty good that, at some point, the VR headset will go gray, and the game will need a reset. I have tried doing things like running the game in full screen vs window, as well as changing graphics settings, but this issue seems there to stay. None of my other VR games does this.

X Rebirth feels entirely unfinished. But it has excellent VR flying controls. I sincerely hope that they implement this game's controls in their other games, and nothing else.

Twofingers
Twofingers

I have played X Rebith and X Rebirth VR. I would have to say X Rebirth with no mods is a boring. Infact Story line and parts of universe was removed for perfomance reasons. Its not the same game as XRebirth. Howerver if you down load this mod ( https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=144&t=395702 ) credits to DEV teams. It will recall Xrebith vanilla in a VR setting with very minimal graphic errors. Also form what I have seen so far all the mods on steam for X Rebirth Vanilla, works for X Rebirth VR. After doing so the game was real enjoyable with lots of content very immersive universe.

I recomend this game only after recall mod stated above. 8 out of 10 stars

[VSFF]۞Archer
[VSFF]۞Archer

Overall this is a good game, i have never crashed or found it in anyway unstable.
Controls are comfortable.
But it gets boring really fast.
You can only control 1 ship, this is whats really ruining this game for me. doesnt feel like you achieve anything.
Trading system was rather annoying with touch controllers...so i skipped that completly...turns out you can make cash without trading. not that you really need any cash.
i like the X-series, specially all the different ships you can have and fly.
But this game removed or changed pretty much everything that made them fun.
The upgrades are few and very easy to obtain. a few missions at the right place and you got highest of everything in a few hours...
Story line is boring, same stuff over and over.
Missions are dull, same all the time.
The story line pretty much just felt like it was a mission that repeated itself in different places.

Graphics are great. The black background of space removes the pixels that VR gets when flying in sim games.
some places in space felt so dark and empty that it sent a shiver down my spine.
Had something snuck up on me there i would probably have shat my pants.

This game might become good if they open up to command new ships and change the story, go back to more of the original series.

Verdict:
Dont get this game, it gets extremly repetetive in less than 10 hours.
You can only fly 1 ship....
Not worth the VR experience.

Orameringue
Orameringue

I think this game works really well in VR. I played the flat version quite a bit and liked it, not as much as other X games but still thought it a positive experience. VR adds the feeling of the immense size of the ships much more than the flat version. I spent most of the time capturing ships which was an amazing , and not a lot of time trading or building. Overall I thought it a worthwhile game especially if on sale, as originally maybe a bit overpriced. Flying around stations using the Rift controllers was an amazing experience. Probably one of the best VR space games out there.

Gaviscon
Gaviscon

I don't know if I can recommend this but apparently the community has added mods that allow you to play the original games entire mission set in VR. For me, the controls are extremely complicated and trading has been WAAAAAY over complicated. I'm a huge fan of the original X: BTF, X2 and X3.... but this game was none of those. This plays a bit like Wing Commander Privateer 2: The Darkening. You need to contract ships to carry your goods (as far as I understand) and its not at all like egosoft's regular games. I wish they had just converted their previous games into VR, I was really looking forward to some X style gameplay in VR.

pmcoz
pmcoz

This game looks fantastic in VR! I had to get a refund because it doesn't work properly with Rift S controllers, but I'll buy it again in an instant, at full price, if Rift S support is added.

Deathreel
Deathreel

Really good immersion, I feel like I really am flying the Albion Skunk. I recommend this even over Skyrim and its lack of immersion and replay value.

warren93
warren93

Elite Dangerous players: if you disabled Steam generic gamepad support for ED (e.g. to get various joysticks to work with that game), it seems you'll need to re-enable it for this game in order for it to detect gamepads correctly (at least ones that use the Xbox 360 controller driver).

Anyway, this game's controls--which I'd consider a major part of a game's first impression--do not transfer well to VR. This is a complex sim with a lot of functions, and the only reasonable way to provide inputs for them would be to have a functional, interactive 3D cockpit like in VTOL VR. But instead, the player is forced to press a bunch of buttons in VR without being able to see them. Unfortunately the game's otherwise laudable depth works against it when the default control mapping doesn't even include a roll axis because there just aren't enough inputs in a gamepad or Vive wand to accommodate all the needed functions. And as for the KBM option, relying on players' muscle memory beyond the standard ctrl + space + WASD layout seems less than ideal...

Basically, if the devs added some virtual buttons/controls to the cockpit for non-flight related tasks (e.g. opening the quick menu), I think that would improve things a lot. Granted, I have no idea how much effort that would be, and at this point if they haven't done it it's probably because I'm the only curmudgeon who feels this way or it's not technically viable, but hell, I thought I'd give my own unsolicited opinion anyway...

TaoRaven
TaoRaven

You'll want mods...lots of mods. But as a VR experience, this game offers some things that no others can. It helps to have a strong stomach though...if you get queasy easily, you're gonna have a bad time. I recommend checking out the vanilla restoration project. The game as-is is just too watered down.
The game performs very well with all the bells and whistles restored, and it's easy to lose entire days exploring, fighting, building, etc.

DurableApple
DurableApple

tl;dr- It's fun, and I have some notes and recommended mods at the bottom of this review to make it more fun.

So this game has gotten a bad reputation that I honestly don't feel is warranted. As a long time fan of Egosoft's X series, I understand the negative feelings the fanbase had about the direction this game went, but if you look at it on its own merits instead of comparing it to the rest of the series, I think you'll find that it's actually a lot of fun! It does have some issues, but if you're looking for a good space game in VR then this one will definitely do you proud!

Essentially: if you are a new player and have never played the X series, I think you'll enjoy this. And if you are an X player- think of this like a spinoff series, not part of the main X series. This game has less focus on the management style of gameplay that X series usually has, and more focus on action/combat. This game is the casual version of the X series.

Note: Along with the time I've played on this version, I've also dropped about 80 hours or so into the original non-VR X Rebirth as well.

So, we'll hit the pros first:

- This is a VR space sandbox; good luck finding more those! And it's well fleshed out, with enough gameplay to last hundreds of hours if you want. This game was retrofitted for VR, and they did a great job on it, so it has all the gameplay you'd come to expect from a non-VR game.
- The controls are fluid, once you get used to em. It does take time, and can be very frustrating at first, but once you get the hang of them the VR motion controls are far better than you'd expect. Alternatively, you can still use mouse/keyboard, controller or a HOTAS.
- The graphics are still fantastic, especially in VR
- I really enjoy the music in this game. The X Games have always had great music

Now for the cons:

- If you want the best experience, there's some setup involved as mods really help this game along. It can be a little trying getting all the mods you want installed, though. It shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes total to grab all the mods you want, even if you use the Vanilla X-Rebirth trick, but just the idea of messing with that can turn some folks off. IMO- it's worth the trouble to use them, though.
- This game has an unfortunate learning curve, and it will leave you high and dry on a lot of info. They make you work for it if you want to play and enjoy this game. With that said, there are some great videos on Youtube to help with this, and the tutorial does give you at least enough information to start making your way. But things like the Trade Deal computer are completely ignored by it, and that stinks.
- Not as much automation of your empire as previous X games, which can be a pain. Especially in the trading realm, though some mods will help.
- Fleet command is a bit limited as well. This game is less about RTS style commanding of an empire/fleets like the other X games and more about leading fleets into battle yourself. If you're OK with that, then you'll be fine.
- Only 1 ship! But as someone else pointed out, it sort of makes sense. The ship you are flying is a 1 of a kind super-ship. It makes some sense that you wouldn't waste time in some factory produced ship when you could fly this.

Notes:

- They lock most doors in the game so you can't freely walk around stations. But there is a mission at every station that you can accept for 100 credits that unlocks them all for 15 minutes. Why? Who knows. But if you get a mission with a 15 minute timer about accessing the station, that's what it is.
- Change your cockpit! Try the others! During the gameplay you'll get to talk to a mechanic; you'll need to dock for this one. While docked, ask to reconfigure your cockpit. Someone had suggested the Merchant cockpit so I tried that, and it's fantastic in VR. Feels much more like a space ship than the original.
- I recommend starting the game in the campaign first, and following the tutorial. It really helps. After the tutorial is finished, though, it's up to you. The Campaign doesn't get great reviews, and I've heard it can actually make the overall game a bit less fun by messing up your reputation in the universe and whatnot, so I actually just start a "Free Play" game right after doing the tutorial and have generally been much happier for it. This game is a Sandbox first and foremost, after all!

So, what mods do I think really help this game out? Here is my "Must have" list.

- NESA (Never Enter Stations Again): Lets you conduct 90% of your business in space. Walking around stations is a bit of a hassle to do your business, and especially in VR. My recommendation is to download this from NexusMods, not Steam Workshop, as it comes with a neat configuration tool if you do. Play the game a little first to get an idea of distances, and then go modify them.

- Fly-By Info Scan: This comes from the Steam Workshop. It makes getting all the points for a station a lot easier. Normally you have to fly around a station to pick up all the points; not only is this tedious, but it stands a good chance of making you sick as a dog in VR. I play a LOT of VR and I still wanted to hurl like I was in The Exorcist after that. This cleans that issue right up

- Show skills: Steam Workshop. Shows you the hireable characters' skills. You can hire crew for your capital ships and whatnot, and they are ranked in different abilities with 5 stars. There is a biiiig difference between a 5/5 star NPC and a 1/5 star, so this is good info to have!

- ** CapitalShip Bridges 4.30+: Steam Workshop. There are 2 in the top downloaded for Steam Workshop, and the highest rated is older and outdated. Scroll down a bit and the 4.30+ is the newer one, and the one I have.

** NOTE: All doors in VR are sealed shut, but there are mods to open doors in the game. I found one in this thread, in a reply by eMYNOCK: https://steamcommunity.com/app/570420/discussions/0/1471966894875171002/. So far it's worked out great for me. Once you can get in there... oh man. In VR, standing on one of those bridges, especially during a huge battle, is a near cinematic experience. Utterly fantastic.

FINAL NOTE: When downloading a mod, regular X-Rebirth mods will usually work in X-Rebirth VR, so you have both games worth of mods to pick from. For the above mods, if they don't exist in X Rebirth VR then you may need to download them for X-Rebirth instead. Once downloaded, they can be found in the game's root directory, under the "Extensions" folder. I just Subscribe to what I want in Vanilla X-Rebirth, open the game so that it will download them, closed the game, and grab all the new folders it just created under the "Extensions" folder in Vanilla and plop them in the VR folder. Lastly: I pop into the VR game, select "extensions" in the menu, and make sure they are on. If they are not, I select them and select "Subscribed" and turn off updates (since it wont exist to be updated in the Rebirth VR Workshop!).

There are lots of other good mods out there, but these are my "must haves" for the game to be really fun for me.

mattsmith6951
mattsmith6951

Misleading title, This is not X Rebirth with VR enabled like you'd expect but a much watered down sequel-ish version. Rather disappointing.

Calyntral
Calyntral

Crashes seconds into launch on brand new NVidia 2070 RTX SUPER system with Windows 10. There are only a few VR games installed at this point. Those other games work flawlessly without issue. FAQ is from 2017 and the suggestions didn't help. Search engines yielded nothing useful. I can't be bothered to get it working. Returned.

jetlag4321
jetlag4321

It's broken. I can't get past the start menu. I can't interact with the first menu with my oculus. I can on my computer. Once I choose the difficulty, the game restarts and it makes me choose new game again. I'm stuck in a cycle of a broken menu.

Edit
I got that problem fixed. After almost an hour I finally started a new game. That's when I found another game breaking glitch. The controls don't work. This is a list of the controls that do work. Roll (but only to the left), forward, reverse, and fire. That's it. Occasionally I can use the controller to select things, but not always. So far I haven't had any problems like this in any other vr game. I tried using my joystick. It wont let me configure important things like the throttle. After that I tried using my xbox controller. It doesn't recognize that, either. I just sent in a request to get my money back. It's a shame. I was really excited about finding a space flight game for my vr. I still really want to play so I guess I'll just have to play the regular game.

DrSarcasmo
DrSarcasmo

This game doesn't support Index controllers. And the devs aren't currently adding any patches for it. A shame, because it looks like it would be a blast if it did.

Dmand
Dmand
Overcooked Hamburger
Overcooked Hamburger

this game sucks ive spent the last 3 hours trying to just toggle from vive to oculus nothing works launching the oculus version dosnt work, toggleing settings dosnt work. i dont godddam care anymore cause even if i got it to work now i wouldnt want to hear that lame lost our ship to pirates bit again even if the dev payed me 40 dollars to do so. so ill refund and in exchange for my 40 dollars back i leave the developer a pair of perfectly alligned middle fingers witch he probably wont see cause his square head is so far up his square ass. Neirstanden ?

Nulman
Nulman

Overall, the game is enjoyable in VR. There is enough support with the motion controls to feel immersed in the cockpit. If this is your first X-game, you should know there is a lot that goes into mastering each aspect of the game, so it will take some time to get your feet wet. But if you enjoy space games, you will likely enjoy how this game plays in VR. I hope their future titles will include VR support.

Note: I played this title with Oculus Rift and did not have any issues with that hardware while playing.

[8]Bugstomper
[8]Bugstomper

Sadly, don't believe "oculus rift" supported - it doesn't include the "Rift S"
for the controllers it is a total flop. Nothing works launching the Oculus version doesn't work, toggling settings doesn't work.
if you have a Rift S just don't bother buying.

Captain Dan
Captain Dan

The 5h on record I spent mostly in the controls menu trying to figure out how to make this work in a halfway accepltable manner. It's a terrible default setup. So terrible, that it was impossible to even navigate through the menus to change it. Save yourself the hassle and just don't buy it.
The way you have to awkwardly point your finger while pressing a button at the same time instead just letting me press the button in VR is beyond usability. It feels like nobody has even tested this. And if they did, show me the weird mutant that is able to perform this level of awkward movement and have fun at the same time.
If this wasn't enough the video kept flickering to a nauseating degree. It just randomly shifted left and right. It was unbearable.

Tried on Oculus Rift some time back and just now on Oculus Quest. But it has not improved a single bit since its release. It's like they just don't care.

Technomancer
Technomancer

Works great on Oculus quest using Link or Virtual Desktop!

This VR port deserves much more praise than it gets. While the default VR controls aren't great, they can be remapped. However, I HIGHLY recommend trying this with a HOTAS or gamepad.

Overall, this is one of the most immersive and fun space games you can play in VR. It looks amazing, the performance is terrific and it has great voice acting. Also, many of the mods that work for the pancake version of X Rebirth work in VR.

5/5 would buy again!

Brzi Joe
Brzi Joe

No index controllers support, just bad vive controllers emulation, and that is for left handed people. Pitty, as game looks amasing.

Whyvren
Whyvren

There's some tinkering to the mechanics, here little improvements on the desktop version, and even though on ultra hard settings I was blown up in my first dog fight, hey, glory be. Missing the sight of the companion in the cockpit, but I guess she presented a rendering challenge beyond scope. If I don't get back on this by the time I complete the engine and jump drive engine missions, bonafide glories to you Albion Skunk.

ImpSeal
ImpSeal

Does not work with the Quest 2 setup, I tried looking up help online but could not find anything. If anyone has useful resources please link them in the comments as I and others want to play the X series in VR.

Wraith
Wraith

Warning, this does not work on the Oclulus Quest 2 using the Oculus Link.

If you run it in the non-oculus build (you can run the game in two mode, one of which is designed for use with the oculus) then actually the VR is perfect, but the controllers don't function.

If you run it in 'oculus mode' however, the VR is totally busted, with tearing, one eye being laggy and generally speaking visuals being corrupted. Also, the controller does not work well, regularly failing to notice I'm pointing.

All told, I requested a refund as it was unplayable and google quickly confirmed others were having the same problem without any help from the developers.

So, if you don't have a Quest, then perhaps give it a try. If you do, I suggest you avoid this game for now.

Rudolf
Rudolf

This game does not properly support the index controllers. It "thinks" its the vive controllers. They must fix this before I buy again.

The game is pretty though.

[WN] Zerberr
[WN] Zerberr

So I was reading comments about horrible Index controls and secretly hoping all that was fixed. Boy was I wrong. Controls are unintuitive and hard to grasp, but when you understand them, there is nothing hard. Use trackpads or thumbstick WITHOUT GOING FULL LEFT-RIGHT-ETC to navigate around; point pointer to menu entry, use thumbstick click as confirmation. That's enough to reassign some functions without pulling hairs in frustration.

Motion steering is highly recommended, and for knuckles it's probably a must (I only turn ot off before entering highway, otherwise I get thrown out).

All in all it took me 109 minutes to go from horrified to comfortable. Just man up and remember good old times when you couldn't reassign controls and had to memorize whatever was given to you.

That covers control portion. Obviously I didn't play enough to completely understand the game, but knowing the series (started from XBTF) I doubt it's bad. Features I've seen so far are great, game looks really deep and enjoyable, as previous ones in the series were,

So don't be alarmed about controllers, it's manageable.

slatan
slatan

I'm saddened to see the negative reviews on the game; I do notice that most of them seem to be from people who are not (or have not) played "X-Universe" games before. SO with that in mind let me start the review this way:

*WARNING* this is a "X-Universe" game - all X-Universe games are overly complicated on their controls, it takes a lot to do a lot and that is and always has been a drawback of the X series games. Because its VR it has to use nested menu's and trust me its a lot simpler than the old X series menus (/grin).

THIS IS the X series game I've been looking for in VR. There are flaws (station scanning) and I"m sure I will discover others as I play, but this game is what I expect from Egosoft.
Starting the game up was odd (and did, if I don't do it right) make the game crash (or controllers not work)
The look where you shoot is perfect (once you get used to flying a different direction while you do it).
Station scanning is horrible (someone at egosoft should be made to eat stale donuts over that one)
Station trading can be klunky.
Mission pointers can be missing (or just too cryptic to figure out - 2 missions so far (just dropped them))

If you know the X series games (like them) and have a VR setup you seriously need to get this game; even if you have played the non-vr version (save games will NOT transfer by the way).

Profile
Profile

VR headset is not required to play this. 2D mode works fine.
In case you wondered.
Though it's quite questionable if there's a reason to play it without VR, even though It has a lot of differences from the non-VR version.

I'm not a VR user, but I found one unintended way to use it. Since it was optimized for performance which is critical in VR, it less requires less computing power for the same FPS as the non-VR version, so I'll play this one as a "lite" version of Rebirth on my laptop with Intel GPU. When not in the mood for X3...

[*LT*]
[*LT*]

An interesting game. Takes a bit of time to get used to the controls but once you have its a really good flight system.
Considering I usually play X games and Space Sim's on a HOTAS set-up, the Rift controllers work really well.

Controllerface
Controllerface

Requested refund.
Would not start after trying all troubleshooting steps I could find. Error code 223.
reinstalled, rebooted, updated drivers, checked vulkan version (up to date) and no luck. Might try again someday, but bummed as it looks like it could be fun.
Running Ryzen 5 5600x, Radeon 5700XT, Valve Index. If anyone with similar hardware has it working, lmk. might consider trying it again in the future.

MoparEnC18
MoparEnC18

Im late to the game but is an awsome game. First X game Ive ever played and now Im hooked, will be getting the other X games. this game is very complex and requires you to think, this game is not for an average player looking for a simple to learn that you can just jump in and rush through. I was on fence about getting do to mixed reviews but the biggest complaint is vr controller support which a complex game like this has to many features and buttons to use vr controllers. I used my X56 Rhino HOTAS and it worked great. you can fully map all your buttons/controls in the options menu to how you like. I hope the negative reviews doesnt turn this franchise away from VR. Personally I'd like to see standard games implement VR as a display option mainly for visual. Seems like biggest problem that turns some developers away is the thought of implementing motion controllers but on a game like this I see no point in motion controls, everyone has a mouse and keyboard playing on pc. Motion controls can be great but what really makes vr what it is is the visuals

o.afanassovski
o.afanassovski

A very nice and deep VR game ...
but constant crashes can make it less enjoyable.

Some things, that can reduce the amount of crashes:
- do not use modes, or use the simple ones very cautious
- do not remove mods after the campaign start. It can result in corrupted saves
(even if it is shown as OK)
- Make sure you have enough memory for page files. 25 GB size caused a lot of problems.
50 GB is OK
- GPU workload for this game is very high. Make sure that you have enough cooling

warchan2013
warchan2013

I'm changing my review now. Before I couldn't run the game on my Oculus Quest-1 but I figured it out. First thing you need to remember - do not start it with your desktop icon, go to Stream VR and run it from there and your Oculus controllers will work properly then. I spent a couple of hours in game. It's hard to learn all the small details, but once you pull yourself together and get through with it, the game seems really cool. I love the controling system! It's really smart and handy!

I'll update this review as soon as I do more stuff! Thank you, developers! You did a really nice job!

malorob
malorob

A shame more people did not buy and support this , kinda think if they did X4 would get a VR version as well.
mind you i would prefer X2 the threat re worked for 2021. best story and love the ships.
and even more sad people rating this bad only cause there hardware can not make it work.
too bad it is an amazing game in VR. "as for me time to re visited in my new G2 should be better than the vive1 "
please ego soft if you read this please keep making space sims in VR

budrud7
budrud7

Man, this game takes a bit to get the hang of but I find myself really getting into it now. I refunded it once awhile back because I couldn't get past the opening cut scenes but when I revisited it I found you just have to wait it out and once you get a save going things work pretty good. I have many hours in no mans sky all in vr and love that game too. This game different enough that it scratches that itch I have for open world space games in vr. Motion controllers are my preferred control method and the vive controllers are set up very well once you get used to them. I recommend this game if you enjoy the genre.

JVO
JVO

I like the X games, and playing this in VR seems like it would be fun. However, I have the infamous flickering texture bug, and there is no fix, and the developer seems to have abandoned any support for this game. Heavy texture flickering the in cockpit, and on other spaceships, and stations etc. It's unplayable.

Leo-9
Leo-9

Total junk!

Does not work with Oculus at all, could not control the ship. The voice overs NEVER STOP! I exited the game, quit Steam, got out of VR completely... and they were STILL TALKING. I went into Task Manager and it said nothing was running, but I still had the voice for the tutorials going, there was no way to shut them up. Worse is the delay on the selecting something that would lead to multiple tutorials all playing at the same time!

What a POS of a game!! Avoid this trash.

Yak
Yak

Does not support any other controllers but the Vive controllers. Rendering my Oculus useless.

Got a refund.

brotherofbuff
brotherofbuff

I been playing this game on a Oculus Quest 2 with the Vanilla Recall mod and many more I think I haven't set up properly.

X games are something like Fallout or Elder Scroll where it start out a bit janky but the community makes the game 100 times better many years later. I own all the previous X games but I haven't really got my teeth into them because they were too complicated for me at the time. X Rebirth with mods is the most user friendly and I am having tons of fun with it. I am currently playing X3 Terran Conflict with Xtension mod on VORPX and X Rebith on VORPX with this.

This is probably one of my favorite but most frustrating VR purchases simply cause setting up mods to play it properly is confusing. The community is not like the Nexus community for Bethseda games where they create whole systems and programs for you to flesh out the game. But the egosoft community is very helpful but with this game it has limited support unfortunately. I think this game been put to the side by their modding community. Probably since many of them dont have VR headsets or on to X4.

What this game needs for the mass consumer is the campaign. Its confusing without it. Luckily the modding community attached the original campaign to it. Its a little buggy but whole lots of fun.

The touch controls are not the best. This is the only VR game I have which I rather have a controller. So much more fun with it.

Now I been playing the original version with VORPX and I am having a great time on the campaign since it works and your copilot is with you and the mods are stream lined on it.

I think the developers took out many of the walking around aspect because VR was more prone to motion sickness back then but now its needed. There are mods that fortunately enhances that experience.

The Oculus Quest 2 has some flickering on the left eye but it doesnt bother me but some users hate it. I dont think it lasts the whole time either.

Well I just wanted to give this input for people on the fence about getting this game and not X enthusiasts but the average person who wants a amazing VR experience with a little bit of mod tinkering. I wouldn't judge this game by the developer release since they are supportive of the mod community. Its an extension to their game.

[DGF] Hans Liebherr
[DGF] Hans Liebherr

Just skip the VR version. the original game content was butchered for the sake of "performance" and make it it "VR friednly" for the motion sensitive players.

A botched and watered down version of the former game where the SP campaing, the main plot of the game was cut along with 90% of the "on foot" content: the stations are void of life and the few NPC you encounter will be soulless husks with a 1000 miles stare. meanwhile in space, the number of stations and AI traffic was drastically reduced once again in the name of performance (or better said terrible optimized VR implementation).

For some reason egosoft decided to wasted all its budget in getting the HMD controlles fully integrated and forgot this a space sim, meant to be played with HOTAS... all they had to do was to implement a 6DOF camera and a couple quality of life features for the motion sensitive VR players

DaFada
DaFada

I recommend this game because it is one of the best space franchises out there.

The problem is: The controls don't seem to function as expected.

There is supposed to be a "Dynamic" control for ship movement with the Oculus Quest 2 but it doesn't work. Therefore, actually flying the ship is a little difficult.

94660549
94660549

The fundamental problem with this game is not the game. It's a complex space sim, with complex controls. That's not a bad thing. What is bad is that for many people it crashes constantly, much like the flatscreen versions, it's just not very stable. I've tried playing it several times but always ended up refunding because I just can't get it to function properly.

andreykl
andreykl

I'm puting a positive mark just for the views, because I'm very much impressed, overal feel meshes very well with VR.

Flying a ship in combat feels fairly nice, no nausea, sight based targeting works fairly well. Selecting a target seem to work only 25% of the time, some times it works, sometimes it doesn't, which can be a major problem in combat, but besides that, this is one of the best 'space fighter' experiences I had in VR.

Outside of combat it's a very diferent picture. Picking up cargo was outright nauseious. Controls don't know when to properly switch between various views and flight controls. Example: I'm getting attacked while checking a map. Instead of just turning to view the cockpict (and may be grabbing a virtual joysick) to jump right into combat I have to urgently aim and click 'back' button, without that turning towards the cockpit does nothing. And the opposite - if I want to call up various menus, looking at the console will do nothing, it really should be bringing up at least parameters for current mission.

It's possible to switch between VR and screen, so you don't have to pick cargo in VR mode or navigate menus in VR (integration isn't flawless, but it's there). And if you are waiting for a station to build, you won't have to wait in a headset.

I saw no obvious differences from X Rebirth non-VR (No idea why I can't load my non-vr save here, would have been a nice thing to do), so don't expect this game to be up to normal series' standard, but unless we get something like an X4 VR addon, there is no competition.

This is a type of a game that's really demanding of your headset, my old Oculus Rift is way too grainy for this. 'Grainy' jumps at me so much in some cases like nebulae that it looks better on screen than in VR. I'm putting the game away until I get some better hardware. But I felt like what I have seen so far deserves a positive review.

Mortreal
Mortreal

I don't know, I kinda like it, flying the ship is fun and everything is there but everything is such a pain in the ass, the only thing I've mastered is exploring stations. I'm almost 15 hours in and I've literally made no progress, I'm always loading older saves because I always hit some wall in what I'm trying to do. Last mission I tried they wanted me to travel 1250 units of whatever which would take me like 20-30 real minutes altering with boost until it runs out. I'm guessing I don't have the right engine for this very easy mission, but it's just another wall which means I'll load another save again trying to just accomplish anything...

There's some video tutorials but none of them offer the info you're looking for, I guess it's notable to say this is the first X game I really try but I know the genre...

Looks fun though...

Hey you know what I change my review to negative, I tried for 22 hours to enjoy the game but it's a pain right down to travelling. Went and played Elite Dangerous and it's instant fun no hassle but there's no VR controls so there's that...

renesaucedo333
renesaucedo333

I caught the bug for this game now. After 63.5 hrs playing, I can say it is not only underrated, but Is still the best looking game made for VR (and my system is old, it works pretty good still). I'm not sure when they fixed it, but I've never had problems with the Oculus controllers I hear complaints about, they make the game really fun. But it's the weird mechanics that once you get used to give you the feel I first got with Privateer and Freelancer. It's just that now you are in a more logistics based system ~ it kind of leads you the wrong way from just looking at it. But once you play, you are actually starting in a super low "tier" of what lies ahead of you. I haven't even got to base-building, but I think I'm close now. I just keep doing all these missions while trading and fighting along the way. It's a blast finding new places, and though they sacrificed the indoor interactions, they still use the indoor locations as a treasure hunt for some variety and bonus materials. The main draw are the bases though, super stunning and filled with temptations to turn on someone for money. I can just park in a heavy-traffic spot and check out the ships for a bit ~ has a Blade Runner in space feel. I get a feeling too many have missed the fun this game has to offer, and that's too bad because I doubt there will be a follow-up....unless there's a surge in purchases, of course.

damnbuster
damnbuster

Going to be honest, i tried to like this... i realy did... bought it for my oculus rift s. Controls: Vive, Controller or Mouse keyboard... oculus rift is the headset only... i rarely refund a game. but when a game says it works with this or that, i expect it to! But hey for Controller or old mouse keyniard it was ok, just not worth what i payed for it. not a single player game anyway. Better off with Elite Dangerous

V!KiNG
V!KiNG

For a game that was supposedly developed for VR there is little in the way of VR-friendly control available. I'm using a Valve Index, which apparently has too many inputs on it for the SteamVR version, resulting in unused buttons and duplicate mappings that make little sense to anyone even remotely lucid.

After giving up entirely on using VR touch controls I decided to suck it up and go with the Xbox controller, only to discover the default mappings are equally incoherent and incomprehensible. I tried remapping things and almost managed to come up with something playable...however the broken throttle control cannot be corrected. For some reason the game has decided that by default my throttle should propel me backwards, and I should have to use a combination button press to go in a forward-type direction.

I suppose I should have expected this, given my prior experience with X and Egosoft's abysmal input customization. They've yet to produce anything close to intuitive default controls, and their options for editing control schemes might make sense only after a serious head injury and lots of powerful pain killers. In short, the only way to play any X game is with keyboard and mouse, so you can look down and see what horrendous mappings you have to deal with. Thus a VR X game is kind of an oxymoron.