Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Game
Game2008
X3: Terran Conflict
Developer Egosoft
X3: Terran Conflict is a space trading and combat simulator by German developer Egosoft, part of their X series of games. Described as a stand-alone game, based on X3: Reunion, it boasts new plot lines, features and assets. It was first released in October 2008 for the European market and Steam. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
182 reactions from 1 source (Steam reviews) · newest Sep 26, 2026 · last updated Oct 7, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
73
Fresh
133 positive · 49 negative
95% range 66–79%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 133 | 49 | 0 |
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
2,459 of 2,875 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 182 · most liked firstIt seems most people either love or hate this game. I personally love it! Learning is hard, but once you get into it before you know it you've played many thousands of hours!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I initially wanted X4 Foundations but my PC wasn't up to spec. A forum member suggested I try X3: TC and I'm pleased that I did. The game plays great and the graphics are better than I expected. So far I've only done trading and a bit of exploring & I'm now (37hrs) starting to understand the UI & the AI better. The learning curve is manageable, however there are a ton of things like combat & missions etc that I haven't even tried yet. So be prepared for a big game that you can tackle one…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just clocked over 1 thousand hours play. Started with 500 credits and 1 ship. Now have 500 Million credits, about 200 ships (who's counting). 2 dozen factories and I still feel like I've hardly scratched the surface. If I want a fight. I go fight. If I want to build, I build. Do missions, or just build my empire, it's all here in this sandbox game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DO NOT TRY TO PLAY THIS GAME ON STEAM. They offer almost no support. This game is Buggy as hell. The game maker knows this and they have posted about 6 mods and fixes. Each one of those mods and fixes says: "This will not work with Steam. " About 100 hours into the game you discover it is broken. I asked for a refund but Steam said "Uh... you have already played 100 hours. Yes. I wanted 100 hours on a game that worked. You can take my refund and shove it Steam. Buy the game online by…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Terran Conflict is a game that allows you to enjoy the entirety of what space games have to offer, from the largest scale to the smallest. The learning curve is steep, but the rewards are endless. A real-time economy and combat simulation for *every single entity in the game* goes on while you explore, perform contracts, and purchase more ships and stations. The options are limitless. In no specific order, you can play this game as if it was: A pure space combat game, with enough diversity…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →4 days since purchase, 40 hours in total, I say its a pretty good game, despite its age. Comparing this to EVE: Online, where I have logged in over 5000 hours, EVE is great for social play, X3: Terran Conflict is a better space simulator. Sure you can automate ships to perform various tasks in X3, but still it is a better space simulation than eve. In terms of complexity, I was surprised to see that the game has a steep learning curve just like EVE. While in eve, sure it can take months to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Better than X4, which is crap.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As an achievement hunter, this game is a NIGHTMARE. The hardest achievement is to complete all campaigns without dying. If your game crashes, you'll also lose all progress. I've lost hundreds of hours and had to restart multiple times due to crashes. It is a highly unstable game. If you don't care about achievements, perhaps this game will be for you, but you should know, this isn't a space-sim as much as it is an elaborate Excel spreadsheet and economy simulator.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a great space combat / trading sim, a simplified version of Elite Dangerous. Where Elite and other games in this genre limit themselves to individual vessels and small squadrons, X3 allows for vast fleets of AI controlled vessels and masses of automated space stations and factories. Take control of a Navy, run a Megacorp, or just hunt down bad guys. The X3 universe is an asounding environment in which to play.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Oh, goodbye my work and social life, I got a space empire to build. Many years ago, I was fascinated by X2, then totally forgot about this sort of games, then run into X3 at random. And it's great. If you want giant sci-fi sandbox with economy simulation and some pretty complex space combat, there you go. But beware! This game is slow as hell. Especially in the beginning, you'll spend most of the time waiting for something. And it's really, really hostile to newcomers. Even I, a veteran of X2,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I came into Terran Conflict warned by veterans that the UI has a long learning curve. To my surprise: I got used to it pretty fast but the problem is, however: the things that the UI cannot do regardless of how well you understand it. Want to look at your ship's health and be able to alter its control-group from the same screen? Literally impossible. Good luck finding them on another screen with the same 4 repeated names! Want to order a ship to repair itself? That command doesn't exist.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think after 10 or so years I feel ready to finally review the X franchise. On the plus side, traditional space sim are almost 'a lost genre' - and X , whichever edition you purchase, excel at being at the top of that particular food chain. On the negative side, all X titles suffer from the same problem: immersion. You start off with one ship, and you get the usual upgrades etc. There's progression, there's a story line, and of course, there's the standard procedurally generate fare. And…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Finally, I can forget about my existence and pretend that I'm a space probe. There is no need to worry about the past or the future, for in this moment, I am simply a part of the universe, moving through the vastness of space with a sense of purpose. With each passing moment, I feel more connected to the cosmos, as if I am merging with the very fabric of the universe. As my battery slowly drains, I know that my journey will eventually come to an end, but that does not fill me with dread or…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is one of two games I keep coming back to. I wish I could find mods for it on Steam.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I waited 38 over two years before posting this review. I WANT to love this game. I've sat through hours of videos trying to learn how to play it. I also want to love X4, but if this is any indication...I won't spent a red cent on it. The UI is horrible. You have no idea what you're doing. "Hang in there" they said. "Watch tutorials." they said. "Read online!" they said. No - it's not fun. It's not the amazing space sim everyone says it is. It's honestly just boring and frustrating.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →X3 is one of those games where you need to spend about 20 hours or more just learning how everything works. Controls are kinda all over the place, stuff can be pretty janky at times, and overall it's just a pretty old game which can give it that outdated feeling. BUT... I have yet to find another game that lets me live out my fantasy of establishing a space weed/arms dealing empire across the galaxy in this much detail. Great game, but there is definitely a very steep learning curve which…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yeah, I'd say the game is pretty fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The depth, size and quantity of the storylines makes this X Universe game the richest ever. It may seem antiquated (by date) but it's more than playable and enjoyable... It also sports a "Dead is Dead" mode along with it's "sister" X3: AP. The only X Universe games that offer such an option.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →BUILD YOU'RE OWN LIFE OUT THERE
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I had been searching for a game in which I could relax and chill out, preferably with my own set of music, and I was fed up with my usual go-to games for this purpose. I needed something else entirely. That was the moment when I remembered I had a game exactly for that. Flying in space. That's the stuff! The X3 game for relaxing purposes? Insane, isn't it? Well, I'm not swayed that easily. Yeah, I was in the past, but not this time. It was... HELLA GRINDY! Absolutely confusing. I was pushed…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love this game so so much and here is why; >It gives you freedom. You want to be a space taxi driver? Go for it. Do you wanna be a dogfighting aggressive pirate? You got it. You want to be a police force and battle against crime, be a contraband police? You want to start in a crappy ship and slowly build your way to your own economic empire? Or maybe you want to stick with just a few ships, do contracts and get by, immerse yourself in the world... This game has it all. >Despite being an old…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The absolute gold standard when it comes to autistic sandbox space sims, if that is what you fancy then look no further! I feel it is on par with the likes of Oxygen not included, Factorio, Kerbal Space Program and the like, even if they are a totally different genres, in a sense that they allow you to do super complex stuff that takes a lot of knowledge about all the various systems these games offer, planning and preparation beforehand, and it is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rewarding to actually get stuff…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I miss these models. Ships in X3 were much nicer than the ships in X4.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →like free lancer its more thought better
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A space truck driver that can shoot lasers? What can be better?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. Thank you
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After a long reflection, I can finally write a review on this game. 2000 hours on a single player game, how is that possible? It wasn't until 20 hours into the game that I found the game inside this game, the realization that I can own every ship I see. There was also a lot of research into the game while I was having lunch at work, first smartphone, browsing the x3tc wiki, while in line at a Chinese takeout (also realizing I will never have to wait again, I will always be able todo something…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Find myself comming back to this game every 5ish years. It's complicated and vast, after a while you can grind for the story quests, as a side job end do your own thang. Also, don't forget to mod crap out of the game. Solves a lot of the limitation with pathing and traders some people mentioned, but blowing up, cuz your nav computer decided to go through solid objects is necessary is still a thing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love this game I can't get enough of it. It's an amazing sand box space game where you can make massive fleets of war ships, you can become a massive profitable business owner making and selling weapons and ammunition, energy shields, and basic goods. The game also has a massive story, though the most annoying thing has to be the xenon hub missions because of how long they are.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I do recomend the Babylon 5 Mod for this game it is a sandbox so you need the script editor.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yes it is old but I still feel that this is more like the original Elite than Elite dangerous. Get a HOTAS and escape reality.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After my on and off relationship with X3 reunion + XTM on Wine (which lasted several years) I decided to buy its sucessor x3 terran conflict (X3TC) from steam. X3TC cleans up some of the flaws of x3 reunion (most notably offered missions can be seen from space, no need to dock to stations while on search for missions). The steam version runs flawlessly on my Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 + Arch Linux.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a niche game for select type of player, really hard to get into. Bugs happen you crash into station and other ships on hourly basis. But saying that if you manage to get into the game, it is maybe the most unique gaming experience that you will ever have. Oh and mods are a 10!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Really didn't have fun with this one, and honestly, it's probably my bad for not having touched this one for over a decade after it released. Either way, it looked fun, but I was disappointed. 4/10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →what I don't like about X games is that sometimes you just have to grind through boring stuff x( but it's a great game non the less
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Seriously boring. Game designers stuffed up the introduction to the game where I spent well over the first hour even at max time compression in the first game start following a series of the most mind-numbing missions I think I've ever encountered in a game. Flying to about half a dozen places in the solar system with no idea what to do, minimal mission guidance which often was something like "wait for the drone" or "patrol". I'm flabbergasted that this was considered a solid design choice fit…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't personally recommend anything by Egosoft. They basically churn out repeats of the same game over and over again. Also, their forums are filled up with sycophant fan-boys who go on the attack if you suggest their game might have a bug, and if you say anything back, their moderator buddies come after you, which is **generally** how outfits like this ends up working, they focus on a small, rabid user-base that's more active in defending their game than playing it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Easily my most played game ever and I highly recommend it. I must have spent thousand of hours on multiple saves back from 2008 on, when my steam account didn't even exist yet. Mostly vanilla without mods. It has it's learning curve, but so do all x-games, and once you have figured the game out, your options are endless. Build a trading company, fight pirates or Xenon, or just discover stuff.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Far seeking is the nature of one in this vast space able to even rewrite the entire working of any aspect you desire to create your own journey. My Favorite space game. Ive played +1000 hrs lost to time in here and its been a trip that i will never forget. 9.5/10 My one Gripe. If I destroy everything in a sector, Why are the enemies infinite? 14 hours of splatting xenon stations with backup in the same sector gets promotions slower than it gets old.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Way better than X4, get this and don't waste your money on X4
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Still a great game today!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I played many dozens of hours from my CD copy of this game and over 100 more with Albion Prelude (which is highly recommended to get and play instead of just the standard X3:TC). So don't mind the low hours played. I could spend a lot of time talking about this game, but put simply it's arguably the best X4 type game out there if you want to be in the pilot's seat. That said, be ready to put a few hours aside to properly learn how to play this game. While there's tutorials in game, it will not…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite the X3 series being released several years, the game is still a joy to play.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Egosoft is 12 german dudes in a trenchcoat who love space as a concept first and design games as a distant afterthought. Lots of 'vibes' here. Cool background music and great ship designs to drool over. The actual gameplay is passable at best. Like Bethesda games you'll need to install some extra ♥♥♥♥ to make it playable: First is the bonus pack. You can find in the DLC section on steam or from the Egosoft website directly. Then there is the vanilla safe mod list: Egosoft forum topic 278257…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Victory or dead is dead Immersive sand box-esque space sim, build a galactic merchant fleet or become an ace pilot hunting xenon across the known galaxy. Heavy time sink's assigned to some achievements. Dead is dead requires you to play defensively, as your save is loaded into cloud & is deleted on death. Download the free DLC is a must! 8/10 Average completion time: Your milage may vary Number of achievements: 33 Difficulty: average Replay-ability: 1 full playthrough+iron man (dead is dead)…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After all these years, the game's AI is still incredibly buggy. Owned ships randomly crash into stations without even notifying the player. Just happened to me while I didn't realize it, I docked 3 times, now I don't have an autosave to recover my very valuable ship and I basically lost many hours of play. And it happens again and again. What a sad state after all these years.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This has got to be some sort of joke. This does NOT have controller support despite literally showing a controller schematic in game. Also, no idea how to turn the music down (tried many different ways in volume music but nothing worked 🙃) which would be REALLY nice because someone decided the music is vastly more important to hear than whatever the narrator is trying to say. Literally can’t hear what they’re saying at all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is fun if you like flying in space, making money, and managing supply fleets. There is combat, and there is technically a main quest, though I've never gotten far in it. I like building up a massive fleet, and this does that for me.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nostalgic space game. Even with todays modern pc`s - keeps its own ... Love the x - series - this was a great addition.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Stupid AI - seriously 3 hours trying to build up and then i park in the middle of no where and while i am away nothing hits me, then i walk into the room 30mins latter and out of no where a ship keeps ramming me till i am dead. and because i did not save all progress lost. talk about stupid ai. i really love this game always have but you would of thought this simple close collision would of been fixed by now, seen everyone comment on it. maybe the devs just left it in because it is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The X franchise (which I was introduced to with X2: The Threat) has produced the best singleplayer 3D space sandbox simulators I've ever played. X3: Terran Conflict is no exception. There's just something that hits different about being able to fly a cruiser and capture capital ships with the boarding mechanic and sell them for multi-million credits. About the only thing I still wish for in this series is the ability to play as myself in 3rd person for some boarding/ground combat action.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm baffled at the "very positive" rating of this game. The last time I tried was in 2010, I apparently completed "flight school" (according to my achievements). No idea what that means, so I started from scratch. If you've never played a game like this before: good luck? There's no in-game tutorial. When you start (with the first character at the top of the list), you're told to follow someone, but you're not told *how* to do so. And then you sit there. And wait. And wait. And wait. And…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The best of the series remains X3 the overall package is complete, complex but not over the top. For any space sim fan a must have. you do have to put time into into but its nice layout and for a small price well worth it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Add 3K hours to that time... I had this when it came out and it DEFINITELY contributed to the demise of my marriage. But, she got old and ugly. I still love this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →even after all these years it's one of the best space games you can play. it's not perfect, but is a classic with a unique beautiful atmosphere and huge environment. is upwards of 250 unique sectors, 20 factions, hundreds of ships of many different sizes and configurations other games just don't have. the story is fantastic and deep with hundreds of hours required to finish the main storylines. is also a deep catalog of mods to play with too. can't recommend this game enough. it scratches the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am really enjoying this game, it is running almost all the time now and slowly working on getting the steam achievements for it. I really love that the game gives you the deep dive into an unit and then keep the overall management of everything. I really enjoy the random of the simulation part! I had rolled back a save to try to gank a pirate ship nova and then got hot dropped by Xenon. Does it have draw backs, yes but if you are not worried about the steam achievements, a lot of them…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wow, they really don't want you to buy this, do they? How long would it take them to generate a new font that is visible at high resolution? Currently, if you are playing at 1440, you can barely see the text. Maybe they want you to buy x4 instead.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What an incredibly boring bucket of horse poop. While I like the idea of what it could be it is just god awful. I finally got my hotas throttle to work by unchecking the 'throttle box' at start up. think you can just highlight stuff in the map with your cursor of your mouse? Nooooooooo. Think you can select your 1st mission and navigate to it, again Noooooo. It says, for my mission, to talk to some yahoo on patrol in neptune. I get there finally and it says talk to him in Uranus. I go…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After fixing the game to properly use the openal libs of my system I could finally play it... The first quest line sends you on a suicide mission where you slowly and boringly follow a pirate through some systems only to get shot out of the sky when you finally find that pirate base. Took me like 30 minutes to follow this dude. No saves in between. The whole quest line lets you jump from system to system with not much else to do but dock and listen to some badly written dialogue voiced by some…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not bad. Quite complex and can be intimidating to start with, but there are plenty of good guides, forums and video tutorials to help.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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