To top off a growing tower of gripes, navigation around space in Rebirth is an astounding hassle.

No matter what happens with stability and bug-fixing patches, its poor controls, awful interface, and dull pacing ensure that X Rebirth will remain unpleasant for all but the most forgiving, die-hard space jockeys.

X: Rebirth will get better over time, and anyone who’s open-minded enough to look past the ‘X’ branding and see the ‘game’, may even find many hours of entertainment.

You can (barely) fathom some good ideas about offering the players more accessibility in a saga that surely needed some, but they soon get lost in the utter and complete mess of unfinished mechanics and bugs that, sadly, is X Rebirth.

Long story short: In its current state, X Rebirth is just a sad affair.

Patches may stop the glitches, but I think this space sim is far beyond repair.

Somewhere in this mess is an X as you know and like it: Smaller, but prettier and with a solid foundation. But with problems like game-stopping bugs and bad design decisions all the ambition goes down the drain.