WATCHMEN

Well I don't know all the details of X-Rebirth, but like the other titles in the series it's a space sim sandbox. The gameplay takes place from the cockpit of your ship. You fully control the ship you fly while managing any other ships you own. There are npc factions that control ships and factories that all have tasks they are trying to perform constantly that they may or may not succeed at. Each npc interaction chains into others to create a living, breathing universe.

For example each factory uses certain goods as resources to produce other goods. The prices it buys resources and sells products at are based on local supply and demand. If there aren't a lot of resources available it will purchase them at a higher price and sell their products for a higher profit. That local supply and demand could be caused by any number of factors. If pirates are hitting a sector with a heavy trade route they'll likely blow up a large number of freighters carrying goods to and from factories. Or maybe a new NPC factory has been built in the area creating more competition for a certain good.

The economy will directly or indirectly affect other parts of the game. If a factory that produces missiles suddenly finds it's resources have become scarce it can actually make the local military weaker, since they get their weapons from factories that produce them. Different factions will go to war with each other over resources or territory, which will in turn impact trade routes, local economies, travel, etc. There are several enemy factions that are constantly causing trouble in the universe, from small pirate raids, border skirmishes, to full scale alien invasions. These interactions are happening throughout the entire game world, all the time, independent of the player.

So the basic gist of it is that the universe behaves in a realistic way, and the sheer size of it means there's a ton of random things happening all over. So as the player you set any number of goals (it's a sandbox). You could be a simple trader ferrying goods for profit, you could be a privateer who flies around taking out pirates and other threats for money, or you could be a pirate yourself and blow up freighters and steal their goods while trying to skirt the law. You could try to have a larger impact on the game world by building a fleet of freighters to trade all over the universe or amassing a huge fleet of combat ships and waging war on another factions. All the while you have to deal with random stuff that comes up. You can exploit the things happening around you, provided you're paying enough attention to notice them. For example you could sell weapons to warring factions or build a factory that produces a good that the region is sorely lacking for huge profits, or defending a region against alien invasion.

My favorite moments in X-3 were finally being able to afford capital ships and getting into big fleet battles. It was very Battlestar Galactica-esque to warp in and launch a squadron to dogfight with enemy fighters while you lumber off in the big ship to slug it out with the other big ships. Or you could fly one of the fighters and launch from the carrier catapult to dogfight it out while the capital ships are fighting in the background.

So yeah, that's a lot of text I know, but I'm very excited =)