X3: Albion Prelude being released on PC next week

By Robert Purchese Published 7 December, 2011

Leads into X: Rebirth.

X3: Albion Prelude, a standalone expansion for space trading and combat game X3: Terran Conflict, will be released on Steam on 15th December - Thursday next week.

A Mac version will be "available soon" for €19.99, according to publisher Deep Silver and developer Egosoft.

Albion Prelude offers a storyline that will lead up to the release of new game X: Rebirth. It spins some yarn about corporations vying for power. And where have we heard that one before, Sony and Microsoft?

Albion Prelude also brings 30 new spaceships and stations, a new Stock Exchange for advanced investing, improved graphics for muscular computers a better user interface.

Also, crucially, there's support for head tracking.

X3: Albion Prelude won't be compatible with saved X3: Terran Conflict saved games.

If you own X3: Terran Conflict, you can pick-up Albion Prelude for €9.99.

If you own the X3: Superbox, Albion Prelude will be free. And if you want to buy X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude together, you can do so for €19.99.

There's no sign of X3: Albion Prelude on Steam yet. There's an X3: Albion Prelude site should you want more information.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (18) Latest comment 6 months ago

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  • GOWAp #1 6 months ago

    Excited for this, but i do hope they bring back the bulletin board. They packed an awful lot of (useless for the most) information in there but it really immersed the player in the universe.

  • xYOSSARIANx #2 6 months ago

    I'd love to see X games on the consoles, my laptop will only run X2. These games are good fun but deep enough to satisfy you in the long term. Want.

  • uzivatel #3 6 months ago

    On a completely unrelated note, an Albion sequel / remake would be nice.
    Makes me wonder if anyone at Ubisoft remembers the game.

  • darkmorgado #4 6 months ago

    Albion Prelude offers a storyline that will lead up to the release of new game X: Rebirth. It spins some yarn about corporations vying for power. And where have we heard that one before, Sony and Microsoft?

    Did we really need a blatant attempt to bait the fanboys?

  • PearOfAnguish #5 6 months ago

    The saves from this one won't be compatible with Rebirth, either, I assume, since that will only have a single player-controllable ship and not the massive range available in the other X games.

  • orpheus #6 6 months ago

    Been keeping an eye on Rebirth, this should be pretty cool!

  • peppergomez #7 6 months ago

    Among other things, it's the first X game to support TrackIR POV panning. Very cool, and suggests that the upcoming XRebirth game, which will model ship cockpits, will support TrackIR too.

  • not_themilkybarkid #8 6 months ago

    As someone who has never played an X game but would be quite interested due to loving the old space games (X-Wing, TIE Fighter), that trailer did feck all to convince me to buy it. If anything it was so dull and obtuse that it put me right off.

  • Mister-Wario #9 6 months ago

    So this ISN'T some sort of X-Men/Fable crossover movie?

  • ModishNouns #10 6 months ago

    The one game I miss most from PC gaming is X2 The Threat

  • Miths #11 6 months ago

    Sounds good. I've never been as hooked on the X series as many fans obviously have, but between X-Tension, X2 and the various X3 incarnations I probably have put in at the very least a hundred hours combined over the years, and I imagine it might be closer to 200.

    I haven't been keeping tabs on the series for the last year or so though, so I wasn't even aware there's an X: Rebirth coming up.

  • GOWAp #12 6 months ago

    @not_themilkybarkid
    Id still recommend the games, especially at these prices, its an unbelievable experience, really sets the vastness of space(not that i've been there).
    I'll give u that the trailer isnt actually exciting, but then again it's a german company, and most of the trailers coming from there are very clinical and just outright show how the game is like (unlike other trailers showing a bunch of cgi and no actual gameplay). IMO a fair show of the product being sold although not that bombastic as lets say UC3 or the latest AC (that commercial makes me go crazy).

    Ahum... rambling aside, great game, very interesting lore that could be included in the Skyrim/DS article when it comes to storytelling, and when you're actually piloting the ships you see in the trailer, trying to survive an attack, it's worth every penny and a lot more. Too many hours of my time spent in these series obviously.

  • GOWAp #13 6 months ago

    @peppergomez didn't X2 already model ship's cockpits, i remember that i could glance to the sides using the numpad, or the sidewinder pro's upmost controller thingy.
    And bring back the bulletin board

  • misinformed #14 6 months ago

    Where did this come from ive been keeping track of X-series related news, most out of the blue expansion ive ever known.

  • Caimbeul #15 6 months ago

    Need more space sims...
    not space SIMS EA! just to make that clear!

  • super_monty #16 6 months ago

    I have the MAC version of Terran it's broken beyond belief. - will never buy another one of there games.
    Edited by super_monty at 08/12/11 @ 11:34

  • DarthMorbus #17 6 months ago

    @misinformed They did keep it quiet from the news but it was behind a NDA for a couple of months.

  • peppergomez #18 6 months ago

    @GOWAp

    Yes, but Egosoft abandoned cockpits in all X games after that.