What's A 4X Game, And Why Do They Rule?
Ойындар
War, agriculture, and government! Sounds like fun to me!
4X is a kind of strategy game wherein the player has extensive control over their empire: War, research, agriculture, and government, oh my! Back in the early 1990’s these kinds of games were really starting to catch on. You’ve probably heard of the long running franchise, Civilization, which has sold well over 33 million copies to date. This unique brand of strategy game has a “one more turn” vibe to it, leading many players to be glued to their screens well into the early hours of the morning.
In 1993 Computer Gaming World magazine received a copy of Master of Orion to preview, and the task was given to their on-staff strategy game guru, Alan Emrich. Alan would describe the flow of games like Civilization and Master of Orion as such: Players eXplore the map, eXploit the resources, eXpand their empire, and eXterminate their enemies. If my pointed capitalization and bolding of the letters didn’t give it away, this gameplay loop is where the term 4X comes from. In his preview Alan gave Master of Orion a rating of “XXXX,” and soon after publishers began using 4X to label their games of this nature.
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Пікірлер: 80
Wow this only got 13k views wish this blows up the editing is really good
Thanks a lot for this video. I've seen the Dune: Spice Wars trailer and didn't know why people made such a big deal of the 4X at the end. Having never played one of those games before, I really appreciate there is someone who made this awesome vid to explain xD
One of the best videos Kotaku has ever produced.
Excellent work Kotaku, this video is superb! The fact that it has so few views, likes, and comments is definitive proof that the quality of one's work on this platform is often completely disconnected from how successful it is. Can't wait to see more like this from you guys!
@rattlesnk18
2 жыл бұрын
Its proof that u cant shove your own shit down someones throat and expect everyone to swallow it
@nvrndingsmmr
2 жыл бұрын
@@PattyOflan88 I've noticed that any time Kotaku does literally anything, there's an army of neckbeard gamer bros ready to post extremely negative or pedantic comments mere moments after the thing gets posted, so I can understand your confusion. Depending on the platform, you can see equal or even greater hate and negativity leveled at Polygon but I think their audience has done such a good job alienating and excluding neckbeard gamer bros that it's no longer as much of a problem. If this were a Polygon video, the kind of positivity found in my comment wouldn't be confusing, it would just be normal. Lol. Anyway, I've always liked Kotaku. Always thought all the hate and negativity they get for no reason is silly.
@TheRikkarikna
2 жыл бұрын
@@rattlesnk18 calm down lol
@jamiekenleyuk
2 жыл бұрын
Came for civ replacment, stayed for the editing.
@JawadBhuiyan
Жыл бұрын
@@nvrndingsmmr Some of the negativity is definitely justified. No entity is perfect. But yeah, most of it is just gAmERs MaD even if the content is great quality like this.
Kotaku making a well-informed, proactive video... Now I know for sure I'm in an alternate dimension!
@kingsam7611
Жыл бұрын
4sgLq1p5sV6
INCREDIBLE VIDEO! Thank You!!💯As a noob to the genre(never played a 4x), this vid did something to me.. like something I've been seeking had been answered. I feel like I need to play a 4x so I can learn some new IRL strats🤫🤣🤣
While I'm not a fan of Kotaku, I love this pure journalism that narrates the passion and origin of a genre that makes us the authors of our nations' destinies. Good on you guys.
I really wanna make a 4x game sooo bad, but I cant code for shit! I've been forced to make 'strategy games,' as board games, which sounds neat, but when put into action, they fail miserably!
@barbaron123
2 жыл бұрын
A reverse can be true. A video game ported to board game that is complex will perform worse. Board games need to have some sort of co operation for helping/screwing other players. Someting relying on other player choices, so the players can be engaged in each other turns. But a video game where AI can help each other and unite against someting. Is someting rare and worth pursuing. After all a hero need a villan and a player need a worthy oponent even if made of smaller ones.
@YourIQDoesntMeanShitToMe
Жыл бұрын
Omg same! Except I can code... But I'm actually too lazy to do it.
I've playes a few 4x games, mostly Civ 5 back in middle school and more recently, Endless Legend. I suck at them, I usually end up spamming through turns waiting for important stuff to build because I don't have enough resources to buy them out, settling new cities just pisses off the AI and I get war declared on me and overrun while I only have the stock garrison units, or I get sieged by hostile locals before I can even negotiate with them.
Anyone remember *_Galactic Empires_* or *_Galactic Conquest_* from the mid-1980's? On Commodore-128, IBM or Apple Mac, back in my college-dorm days. (We nicknamed them "Space Risk".) All-night games, up to 6 players passing keyboard around taking turns entering orders for the "year". Hidden fleet movement on a simple star map! (Planets were just letters or numbers.) Better than chess. Then came *_Esterian Conquest_* on the BBS's in the late 80's and 90's. Loved EstCon, pure fleet operations and strategy, none of the dross of tourism or trade nor the detailed equipping of ships.
I really love stellaris and endless legend. 4X games ❤️!
holy shit, thought this was from a 1million sub youtuber, great video quality, you earn a like
That board game “imperialism” at 2:40 caught my eye. Anyone know where I can find info on it?
@bexultanassanov1930
2 жыл бұрын
Google?
Watched the video 10 times. It’s really well done thank you guys. Btw, what’s the background music please? (At 2:10)
Deserve more views
An actual super high quality video made by Kotaku? Is this an out of season april fools joke??!?!?
thank you!
😮
Interesting lil video
I see why Tim Rogers quit
4:00
So, which X does winning a game by a cultural victory represent? Yes, I exterminate my enemy with rock and roll!
Trek Bicycle Corporation!
Invade, destroy, repeat
These are the Best games and why gaming became such a force it is today to have stuff we have today. These are the only type of games im playing, open-world story-driven action RPGs. I leave the online multiplayer short linear platformer games like Call of Duty fortnite Xbox type games to the Young ones with smaller attention spans. Assassin's Creed Odyssey/ Valhalla the outer worlds Control Tomb Raiders(CP2077 if it ever gets good) Witcher 3 Ghost of Tsushima God of War Spider-Man Infamous Second Son Uncharteds Ect ect are the Reason I buy into Gaming.. No Subscriptions Needed. The Only reason for Headphones is Directional Sound. But the New Guardians of the Galaxy game That WAS FREAKING AWESOME AN SHOULD BE 2021 GOTY
clash of clans was one 4x game I got really into. Also, I think rpgs are 4x-ish in a way. I might incorporate it a little great work
minus the extermination? HA
Putin 4xing ukraine
Here for 1st
Colonialism oh!
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
I was looking for this comment actually! Spice8Rack just did a video on this stuff and talked about how 4X implies a certain type of history and thus alt-history for humanity that involves at least some of those 4Xs. But non colonial civilizations were not focused on expansion in the sense of claiming land, nor were they focused on exploitation of resources or extermination of other civilizations necessarily.
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
@@PattyOflan88 lay off the T supplements for a bit bud. As if indigenous people aren’t still alive 🤪
RTS games like, e.g., StarCraft are all about exploring, expanding, exploiting, exterminating. Why call a genre 4X when the difference to other genres isn't about the 4 Xes at all, but (maybe among other things) about scale?
beware there are triggered people in the comment section below
Wow, so many people triggered there
No kotaku
I'm sure you guys want to enjoy Kotaku content without spending time watching ads THANK GOD FOR THE AD BLOCKER
Why are you trying to sabotage Metroid Dread sales by posting links to the pirated version of it in your article about it? It's because you hate strong female characters isn't it?
@blueninjanoname7338
9 ай бұрын
Lmao 😂😂😂
you make it sound like strategy games are some experience of soul introspection and great epicness, I am with you that the idea is cool but no strategy game I ve seen actually achieves that. That's because at the core of strategy games is.. a strategy game and that inherently brings stability, repetitiveness, expected outcome and that's in order to have a good balanced strategy game that players can strategize over, which works really well if that's your thing. But that's a sad fact that is contradictory to epicness, or to a game that has a deep meaning behind it. the closest you can get to it is "this war of mine" and "frostpunk" and they suffer from being strategy games, you want to make them about ethical decisions but they also have to be repayable to be a good strategy game, so at the end of the day you get numb to the ethical questions and you play them as any other strategy game after a few sessions. And these hardly fit the subcategory of strategy games mentioned in the video which usually have no relation to ethical decisions in them or at least the delivery of the ethical questions is left only up to the players imagination. For example, shall I be a military driven party or an economy driven one? Do I sacrifice these units or not, these are for the majority of players simply a matter of value and personal taste of what strategy they like to follow at the moment. By the way I ve never ever heard anyone call a sub category of strategy games by the name 4x, sounds hella pretentious.
@johnmccarron7066
2 жыл бұрын
4X has been considered a subcategory of strategy games for three decades now. I remember seeing the 4X qualification on game ads throughout the 90s.
@Xinhuan02
2 жыл бұрын
Perhaps your exposure to 4X games isn't enough. The term 4X has been used a lot over the last 30 years as a sub-genre since 1993 by game reviewers.
@Ash_18037
2 жыл бұрын
It's amusing how many people are utterly ignorant of the genre of 4x games. Must be an under 30s thing. The fact you've never heard of the term 4x does go a long way to explaining your comment though. You talk about strategy games being inherently about bringing balance and order, but once you educate yourself on the history of 4x games you'll see that some of the most popular 4x games are often deliberately unbalanced by design. Some even try to explore deeper themes/ideas (Alpha Centauri for example).
@BankruptGreek
2 жыл бұрын
@@Ash_18037 "some of the most popular", starcraft 1,2 and all age of empires games which are the most popular as far as I know are all striving for balance any other game probably isn't that big in comparison. The thing about "4x" , since I read up on it (because of the replies) I ve encountered the term many times, maybe my brain has filtered this unknown word all this time until I actually learned it.
@feo130
Жыл бұрын
@@BankruptGreek Just stay in your lane and shut the fuck up. Your comments are typical "I hate everything" Internet dweller bullshit. StarCraft and Age of Empires are RTS games, by the way. Completely unrelated to 4X.
Got your video taken down, didn't you? Haha!
Hope Nintendo sues this company into extinction
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
Lets calm down sweaty, no need to rush to kiss the boot of multinational corps.
@saturnascension
2 жыл бұрын
@@feelingveryattackedrn5750 Sweetie* I can tell you took your time walking to English class in middle school today,definitely rushed through every reading assignment.
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
@@saturnascension nah, I meant sweaty, and you’re even sweatier than OP
@saturnascension
2 жыл бұрын
@@feelingveryattackedrn5750 No you didn't,cry.
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
@@saturnascension and yet you’re getting worked up under someone else’s comment 🤪 pop off sweaty
Or you just call them strategy games lol
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
Not all strategy games are 4X games.
@Ash_18037
2 жыл бұрын
Or you can just call them games lol
@ved3046
2 ай бұрын
Or you can just call them computer software.
Yuk i never like those games
How about you guys are held accountable for promoting people to pirate Metroid Dread. You even put the links to emulators on your site. Disgusting and I'm happy UBi Soft gave you the finger. Reset Era nerds 🤓.
@Hollobaby1231
2 жыл бұрын
💯
Quite honestly I'm tired of Kotaku's shit
Calling RTS and Strategy Games “4X” might just be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re just describing the mechanics of video games…most games that have ever existed, contain aspects of Exploration, Exploitation, Expansion, and Extermination. I don’t get the purpose of this video.
@feelingveryattackedrn5750
2 жыл бұрын
All games participate in shared ideas in the abstract. The purpose of this video is to show the history of the term 4X specifically in gaming, and what exactly sets 4X games apart within the strategy genre.