Even if you don’t know what “4X” means, you’re likely familiar with some of the games in the genre. The term “4X,” coined by game developer Alan Emrich, stands for, “EXplore, EXpand, EXploit, and EXterminate,” outlining the different phases of gameplay. 4X games are well-known for their complex game systems, sprawling technology trees, detailed empire management, and strategic combat.

Most 4X games feature either turn-based or real-time gameplay and are commonly set in either real-world historical settings or outer space. There are also a handful of great fantasy-themed titles. We’ve made sure to include our favorite below. If you’re looking for something new to get your “one more turn” fix, check out this list of our favorite 4X games!

Civilization IV: The Complete Edition

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At a glance

Best 4x Games Machine

• Genre: Turn-based strategy
• Developer: Firaxis Games
• Platforms: PC, Mac
• Original Release Date: October 25, 2005
• Price: $29.99
• Where to Buy: Steam, GOG

No list of the best 4X games would be complete without an entry from Sid Meier’s insanely popular Civilization series. While more recent Civilization titles, including Civilization V and Civilization VI, are certainly great, we always find ourselves going back to Civ IV as the definitive Civilization experience. The Civilization series set the gold standard of the turn-based strategy genre on PC.

We recommend picking up the Complete Edition, as it includes the full collection of excellent DLC, including the extremely good Beyond the Sword expansion. You’ll get a plethora of leaders, civilizations, units, and more, offering the most vibrant and most diverse experience possible. You’ll even get to fight zombies, which is a lot more than the real Otto von Bismarck can say. If you’re entirely new to the 4X genre and decide to pick up only one title from this list, make it Civilization IV.

Stellaris

At a glance

• Genre: Space exploration “grand strategy.”
• Developer: Paradox Interactive
• Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4 (upcoming), Xbox One (upcoming)
• Original Release Date: May 9, 2016
• Price: $39.99
• Where to Buy: Steam, Paradox

Like Firaxis, Paradox Interactive are no strangers to the 4x genre, as their major developmental focus is on “grand strategy games,” wargames focusing on real-world maps and historical accuracy. Their credits include other great 4x titles, including the Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis series Stellaris is a slight departure from their historical titles, taking the exploration experience into the expanse of space.

In Stellaris, faster-than-light travel has just been developed, and empires are competing to be the first to succeed among the stars. As with most 4X games, you’ll start things off by choosing a pre-made empire, or you can opt to be assigned a random species. You can also use existing species and options to create a custom species or even create a new species from scratch with the game’s extensive modding capabilities. Speaking of mods, Stellaris has Steam Workshop support, and there you’ll find tons of mods to alter and enrich your experience. If exploring space and conquering empires is your jam, Stellaris is the game for you.

Galactic Civilizations III

At a glance

• Genre: Space strategy
• Developer: Stardock Entertainment
• Platforms: PC
• Original Release Date: May 14, 2015
• Price: $39.99
• Where to Buy: Steam, Stardock, GOG

Stardock’s latest entry in the Galactic Civilizations series offers a rich and diverse experience for fans of the sci-fi genre. Galactic Civilizations III focuses on space exploration and the development of your empire within, featuring many species to meet and new worlds to colonize. Galactic Civilizations III has a wide breadth of choices that promise a different experience every time. You even get to design your ship.

Galactic Civilization III features a story-based campaign as well as multiplayer against actual players or an incredibly challenging AI. Galactic Civilizations III’s Crusade expansion, included in the $39.99 Steam and Stardock versions of the game, adds unique new features, allowing you to design your faction right down to its citizens. You can even train citizens to serve as spies and soldiers to aid in your efforts of galactic conquest.

Endless Legend

At a glance

• Genre: Fantasy strategy
• Developer: Amplitude Studios
• Platforms: PC, Mac
• Original Release Date: September 18, 2014
• Price: $29.99
• Where to Buy: Steam

Endless Legend is easily the best in the genre when it comes to fantasy-based 4X games. It takes place on the planet of Auriga, a land of an exotic assortment of races, each with their history, technology, and skills. Endless Legend features a unique combat system that has you assign individual units to armies, then control them in battle by issuing commands and moving individual units along the game’s hex-based map. This additional layer of depth makes combat in Endless Legend substantially more engaging than in other 4X titles.

As the name suggests, Endless Legend features endless replayability. World maps and quests are randomly generated with each new game. Endless Legend features excellent storytelling and RPG-like features, including the capability of equipping units with equipment to aid in battle. Additionally, the game’s latest expansion, Inferno, adds an all-new race, Kapaku, who are adept at traversing newly-added volcanic terrain. They can even create volcanoes.

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

At a glance

• Genre: Space colonization
• Developer: SimTex
• Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
• Original Release Date: November 22, 1996
• Price: $5.99
• Where to Buy: Steam, GOG

Master of Orion II may be positively ancient, but it’s also positively awesome. In this excellent classic 4X title, you’ll navigate the galaxy and colonize planets while being subjected to the grief of the Antarean race. The game is appropriately complex, while not absurdly challenging, offering an accessible and balanced experience once you’re able to get past the dated (though intuitive) interface.

As with any game focused on space travel and colonization, you’ll need a powerful spaceship. Master of Orion II offers an extensive ship design system, allowing you to construct and customize powerful warships featuring a variety of weapons and utilities complementing different battle tactics. You can even work towards creating a Doom Star, necessarily your Death Star, capable of destroying almost anything in its path.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

At a glance

• Genre: Space strategy
• Developer: Ironclad Games, Stardock Entertainment
• Platforms: PC
• Original Release Date: June 12, 2012
• Price: $39.99
• Where to Buy: Steam, Stardock

While not a traditional 4X game, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion combines real-time strategy with the 4X genre, blending an interesting and unique experience. We felt it was worth including on this list as its 4X features are excellently implemented, though there is a notable focus on the “exterminate” part. If you’d prefer a bit more of the other three (explore, expand, exploit), you can download the excellent Enhanced 4X Mod, which adds substantial additional content familiar to 4X gamers.

In Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, you’ll choose from one of three races with which to explore the galaxy, conquering planets and gathering resources. It’s worth noting that the game does not have a single-player campaign, though you’re certainly welcome to play offline versus AI. Sins also feature a beautiful soundtrack, and the graphics received an overhaul in a patch earlier this year, so the game is looking better than ever. If you’re a fan of RTS games and would enjoy adding the depth of 4X to your gaming experience, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a great pick.

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Age of Wonders: Planetfall

At a glance

• Genre: Turn-based strategy
• Developer: Triumph Studios
• Platforms: PC
• Original Release Date: August 6, 2019
• Price: $99.99
• Where to Buy: Steam

The Age of Wonders games have always been great, but Planetfall’s journey into a science-fiction future stands out. Pick your faction, then start carving some existence for your people amongst the rather hostile stars. There are six factions to choose from, all with their styles, look, and strategy. The tactical combat plays out a lot like X-COM, using the cover, firing angels, and your various abilities to your advantage are key. While combat might be narrow-focused and tactical, colony building and control occur on a planetary scale.

Best 4x Space Games

As you would hope from a game like this, there is no set way to win. Victory can be achieved by any means you think are necessary. Best of all, the campaign maps are randomly generated, so replayability is a significant factor in this game.

Brielle Bullard contributed to this article.

What is a 4X game? Explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate are the pillars of this genre, in which you’re tasked with steering a nation or faction across multiple generations.

4X was a term originally coined by guide writer Alan Emrich as far back as 1993, but the concept of guiding a nation, space fleet, or strange fantasy species across generations through diplomacy, war, and technological progress has already proven to have endless appeal from board games to PC games.

4X games owe much to Sid Meier’s Civilization series, but we thought we would show a bit of love to the other 4X games that have helped elevate the genre to achieve the prestige it enjoys today. We have also done our best to include a range of settings and strategy focuses in our best 4X games list, so if you are not all that interested in guiding an empire through history then you can also expect 4X games about medieval conquest, space empires and even religious domination.

The best 4X games are:

Age of Wonders: Planetfall

If you love in-depth empire building and have the patience to watch a great game unfurl, Age of Wonders: Planetfall ought to catch your eye. Triumph Studios’ 4X game comes with all the tactical turn-based combat and empire expanding tools you may recognise from its predecessors. This time, though, an all-new sci-fi setting is thrown into the mix to give the game some galactic pop, not to mention a few new tools for players to wrangle with.

There are a lot of systems at play here, and Age of Wonders: Planetfall can be challenging to get to grips with, even for hardened fans of 4X games – nevermind newer players. As Phil explains in his Age of Wonders: Planetfall review, however, if you stick with it you’ll reap the rewards. “Initially unwieldy but eventually engrossing, Age of Wonders’ latest entry translates its Civ-meets-XCOM formula brilliantly to a new sci-fi setting,” he says. “Even if the elements of that sci-fi are a bit rote.”

Galactic Civilizations III

Probably the most popular frontier for 4X games to explore is deep space. It is a natural fit: the fantasy of meeting new races and discovering new worlds across an entire galaxy is filled with tantalising possibilities.

Galactic Civilizations III came out nine years after its cult classic predecessor, and takes place in a huge, randomly generated sandbox universe. There is a loose story that follows on from the last game, but really the joy is in populating star systems, conquering planets, and interacting with the nine colourful space races that populate the universe. You play as one of these yourself, with each race encouraging a distinctive playing style based on their unique abilities. Or based on Bernie Sanders’ political policies, as we tried once.

Much like in other 4X games, there are multiple paths to victory, including conquest, technology, cultural domination, and political alliances. This makes for a great balance of deep diplomacy, careful development of your empire and, of course, intergalactic warfare. It’s also grown over the years through various expansions, including the near-perfect Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade.

Civilization VI

Kind of a given, but it would be rude not to include it as when most people think of 4X games this series springs to mind. Look at the most-played charts for Steam and you’ll see that Civilization, in all of its various incarnations, remains one of the most consistently popular games on our fair platform.

Civ VI took the bold step of expanding cities across more tiles, introducing the districts mechanic, and re-stacking combat units to an extent. They sound like minor tweaks but they go a long way and, frankly, the foundations Civ V left behind were rock-solid in the first place. It is very close to being the best Civilization game of them all according to our deeply scientific rankings.

Really, the only reason to stop playing Civ VI will be when Civ VII comes out, but even then the successor has a tough task in topping a game that learned so much from Civ V’s shaky launch, and subsequently arrived in decidedly complete form. Check out the Steam workshop to see what the community has been doing with Civ 6 mods.

Europa Universalis IV

Shoving aside the inevitable debate about the differences between 4X games and grand strategy games, the fact is that much of Europa Universalis IV’s gameplay revolves around those four big Xs, all contained within a stunningly comprehensive, historically meticulous simulation of Europe circa the 15th and 19th centuries…

… look, it’s a deep game, and it scratches that Civ itch, so shush.

Even for a seasoned Civ player, EU IV is daunting, in part because it feels so unrestricted by mechanics and forces you to deal with just about everything you can imagine a nation of the period having to deal with. Game center mac 10.14 1. Arrange marriages, declare war after spending a year fabricating a just cause for it, be among the first to head to Africa and establish the infamous slave triangle (or elect not to be an absolute monster and instead abolish it). One political misstep and your precious empire can quickly crumble around you. The scope is truly breathtaking. Even more so after installing Europa Universalis IV’s Mare Nostrum expansion, which focuses on the oceans and all the bounties floating underneath.

Best 4x Games For Mac

Granted, you won’t be settling cities as per the 4X games norm, and much of the world is laid out before you from the get-go, but no other game will teach you so much about the realities of managing an empire as this.

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri

Older by the day but still very playable, Alpha Centauri was created by Civ legends Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds after they left MicroProse. You could superficially call it ‘Civilization in Space’, but that would be ignoring the fantastic narrative running through the game. You are working both with and against several futuristic factions from Earth, each of which has a different idea about how to colonise the mysterious planet Chiron.

As you go about the usual Civ responsibilities of building up and maintaining your faction (albeit with completely new units, resources, and bizarre alien technologies), you uncover through monoliths and alien technologies that humans were not the first advanced species to visit the planet. The plot thickens deliciously in the Alien Crossfire expansion, where you can play as the mysterious alien Progenitor race.

With intelligent writing and innovative gameplay features that you can see in much later 4X games, Alpha Centauri is an important landmark for the genre, and still worth replaying for its excellent story that muses boldly on humanity’s competitive nature versus its need to survive.

Endless Legend

Ignore the spiel that Civilization: Beyond Earth is the spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri. Where Beyond Earth felt like Civ V with a reskin, Alpha Centauri was a rich story-driven experience as well as an accomplished 4X game – traits it shares with Endless Legend, one of the best games of 2014.

Like Alpha Centauri, Endless Legend is about several factions that crash-land on a mysterious planet, and seek to dominate it through various means – military conquest, science, expansion, and diplomacy. The game is an artful blend of high fantasy and sci-fi elements, as magic and steampunk technologies collide.

Each faction has its own story that you uncover as you play, as well as unique attributes that make for one-off playthroughs. Several of the game’s features, such as the fog of war depicting a hand-drawn cartography map and de-stacked cities, can even be seen in Civilization VI.

From the combat (which takes place on a dedicated battle screen) to the tech tree, to the lovely presentation of both sound and visuals, Endless Legend is a masterclass in 4X games, set in one of the most imaginative worlds in recent gaming memory – it is nothing if not true to its name.

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Stellaris

Stellaris is a space-faring empire builder that blends the best of Paradox’s grand strategy games with the victory paths of 4X games. You pick one of a number of intergalactic races – or create your own – and start off with a single solar system to your empire’s name (that is not a lot on the galactic scale). The robust ‘ethos’ scale lets you pick with precision the kind of empire you want to be – will you be a collectivist, militarist hivemind whose denizens crush all who oppose them? Or maybe an entrepreneurial empire that gains fame and dominance through business?

Unlike other Paradox games, one mistake is not likely to destroy you, and you always have the chance to adapt to the ever-changing political structure of the cosmos. It is not only accessible, but has echoes of Europa Universalis within its rich diplomacy system, as well as confronting you with monumental galactic events that can turn a game upside-down. It is a fresh new take on space-based 4X games with all the depth and wackiness that its sci-fi setting entails.

Like all the best 4X games, Stellaris has ballooned in size since launch, which is partly down to Stellaris mods, and partly down to expansions like Stellaris: Apocalypse and Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn. It all boils down to new playstyles, more replayability, and more of those juicy Xs.

Endless Space 2

Best 4x Games Ranked

Look, if Civ gets two entries in a 4X games list then so can the Endless series. Endless Space 2 builds on the steady foundations of both Endless Legend and the first Endless Space, delivering arguably the most stylish, sleek, and downright pleasant experience available in the 4X genre. Neat touches like its faction-specific soundtrack combine with beautiful art, a crystalline UI, and rich cutscenes to lavish charm and character over Endless Space 2’s sturdy strategic foundations. It’s not just among the best 4X games, it’s one of the best space games, too.

Expanded features like a deep and impactful political system and a bonkers cast of sci-fi races whose history and even their biology determine how each path to victory plays out ensure a level of depth that belies the game’s accomplished aesthetics. Fortunately, too, Endless Space 2 never locks you into any of its victory paths – discover later into your game that you enjoy growing your economy more than waging war and you will not be punished for changing tack. The flipside to that is Endless Space 2 also requires you to perform a delicate balancing act even if you just want to be a murderous space warlord – thankfully, a thorough tutorial and some wonderfully helpful UI tools like a searchable tech tree make doing so easy for those new to 4X games.

If you fall head over heels in love with Endless Space 2, then you’ll be pleased to know that developer Amplitude Studios has announced a new 4X title called Humankind, which looks like a worthy Civ competitor.

Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

The Dominions series has been quietly doing its thing in the background of the 4X games scene. It has built a niche but devoted audience who have come to worship it over the years.

That worship culture is fitting, because actual worship plays a big role in the game. You are a godlike being in charge of a nation, with dreams of ascending to godliness by controlling all the titular thrones in the land. These, however, are being contested by a whole bunch of pretenders, so war is inevitably a big focal point in Dominions.

4x Games

The setting is fantasy, but instead of elves and orcs the world is populated by creatures and peoples of diverse mythical and historical settings such as ancient Egypt, alongside Norse and Greek mythology. The game is much deeper than its simple visuals would suggest, and does admittedly take a while to gain a foothold in. But once you do, it quickly becomes apparent why Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension is one of the best 4X games out there.

That’s it. The best 4X games. A little bit of trivia to conclude with: the term 4X came from an XXXX review score given to the original Master of Orion, which was a pun on the well-known pornography rating. Of course, if that was the sort of content you were looking for then perhaps this list of the best XXX games will help. For the time being however, we’re more than happy with the exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating four X’s. Anyway, kettle on, slippers at the ready – it’s time to start a nuclear war as Gandhi.