X Rebirth details revealed: land on capital ships, boss around NPCs and fly sneaky drones

A wealth of X Rebirth info has been revealed on Egosoft's official forums .

. The next title in the X series was announced in Augustwith a trailer and splattering of screen shots, but no hard facts.

Now we know how Egosoft are planning on evolving the franchise.

Your ship in X Rebirth will be manned by a crew of NPCs. You'll get to boss them around or be extra nice to them, depending on their behavior and your mood. You'll also get your own co-pilot. The tone of the post implies she will be a lady too. Ooo.

You'll also get to fly sneaky drones by using a first-person virtual reality gadget, sending it through vents and corridors to find special, secret things. We don't know exactly what you'll be looking for yet, but we assume it'll be suitably sci-fi.

Perhaps most exciting is the part where Berndtalks capital ship specifics. They're so massive that you'll be able to land your on them and wander about to meet NPCs. As you would expect, there's an expanded level of detail across the whole game, including the way custom space stations and ships are built.

You won't just be clicking a button to build stuff; welder ships, transporters, and complex resource management await. You'll get to personalise your creation with individual modules, and then protect said modules with gun turrets and shield generators.

X Rebirth just got interesting . Egosoft have previously desribed their design philosophy as "Complex = good. Complicated = bad" and, from these first details it seems that their sticking to the philosophy. It'll be possible to designate some of the trickier tactical decisions to other members of your crew if things get a bit too stressful.

It's also shaping up to be an incredible-looking game with drones you can use to sneak around ships like robotic sci-fi spies; what's there not to like?