X Rebirth trailer confirms the long-awaited space sim sequel is ready to come into being

The last transmission from X Rebirth was back in 2011.

was back in 2011. Originally due out that year, we decoded juicy detailsabout your spaceship, your drones, and the boss-around-able NPCs manning your craft. Then the space simulation vanished back into the star-womb to continue its gestation. Nearly two years later, it's ready to be reborn, with a confident trailer and a release dateof November 15 for Europe, and November 19 for North America.

The trailer shows that they've managed to cram everything we love about hard sci-fi into a convenient game-shaped package: space highways, intergalactic trade routes, and a cockpit that lets you fire explosion-causing lasers in a variety of pretty colors

What took so long with the whole birthing process, anyway? Egosoft head Bernd Lehahn says that it was all about embiggening the universe. “Our goal with the design of X Rebirth was to achieve a huge scale," he explains in this video, the first of X Rebirth's series of development diaries. "I do not mean the physical size of the universe, which is easy to increase. I am talking about a living, breathing futuristic universe crawling with life.”

You should see this as an innovative new jaunt into the X universe. As with previous games in the series, you'll get to Trade, Fight, Build, Think, but now there's all-new design and a significant graphical update. Also, you apparently won't need a "PhD in advanced space game menus" to get through Rebirth, which is great news for those of us who didn't land a scholarship at space college. The Steam pageis up, too. Though there are no details on pricing yet, we are given an idea of just how much computer muscle we'll require to run all those galaxies.