The highly anticipated Cradle of Humanity DLC for X4 Foundations has been released, and as with many Egosoft updates, it does not disappoint. For most fans of the X Series there’s a pretty common pattern with X launches. When a new game comes out it tends to suck. Terrible dialogue, game-breaking bugs, and gameplay mechanic changes often drive early players up the wall. But where Egosoft excels is making the game better post launch. X4 Foundations is no exception, since the original game launch we’ve seen thousands of bug fixes and improvement (as can be found on their expansive updates thread).

So what’s included in X4 Foundations Cradle of Humanity?

First off, for fans of the series, sorry, there’s still only one Boron in the game, and his quests will still drive you up the wall.

Second, The Terrans are back, with two factions in a low key war over the future of terraforming, new ship designs that really come across as a fresh look compared to many of the current in game models. And most importantly, their stations are flat out amazingly beautiful, even the docks are uniquely crafted to give you that true “returning to home” feel. Unlike most sectors you’ll find yourself given some stern warnings about proceeding too far if you’re from a non-Terran area, so be prepared to put in some work to get in to their good graces.

The Terrans are back with two factions, with some extremely different goals that will drench you in X Series lore.

Thirdly, some new game starts, and all the storyline quests have been cleaned up and polished, along with some visual improvements (like volumetric fog (which we believe is expansion only).

And finally, TERRAFORMING, you’ll get to terraform your own planets to grow your empire. Don’t get too excited though, there are no plans to let you land or explore these planets (Probably a good thing given the first person experiences so far).

Getting in to the weeds a little, it’s hard to write about the Cradle of Humanity expansion when Egosoft has done such an amazing job of continually updating the core game. While many feature (Such as Terran sectors and ships) will be expansion dependent, a lot of the mission clean up, questline clean up and bug fixes are being patched in to to the base game as well. It’s great to see Egosoft continuing to put in the same level of after-game care they have in the past, even when fan feedback has been almost rabid in it’s negativity.

If you tried X4 Foundations at launch and were left feeling disappointed, the updates, improvements, and expansions have turned this in to a truly epic game, we recommend giving it a go!