Civilization: Beyond Earth is the same game you know and love, just without all of that boring history stuff.
My favourite bits of Civilization involve progressing enough to send ships into space. Now, we’ve got a whole game that’s placed far after that event, as humans have grown too large for a resource-depleted Earth and are forced to venture to the stars to continue our race.
Pete Murray from Firaxis took us on a hands-off demonstration of the game, playing as one Earth faction on a very lush, very neon green planet.
As in Civilization V, the world is a hexagonal grid that allows for ease of movement and greater opportunities to strategise. Setting off, we already had to be careful; the planet we found ourselves on was a fairly hostile place. Pockets of green gas – called Miasma – would be deadly to the fragile little explorer we were controlling. Huge siegeworms also burrowed through the ground, chewing up anything in their path.
It was the explorer’s task to find a suitable place to begin our colony, creating a habitable environment that aligned with the affinity our group had chosen to follow. In Beyond Earth, those with the supremacy affinity believe it best to terraform the alien planet to look and feel like Earth, while harmony go in the opposite way, believing we should change the human genome to better suit our new environment. Finally, the purity affinity believes humans and the planets inhabit should remain untouched.
As you’d expect, the differing viewpoints of the colonies mean you’ve not only got to thrive, but use diplomacy or force to continue to spread your affinity. To do this, you need to build, build and build, using the game’s tech web to acquire and upgrade skills. Standard Civ stuff, really. If you want to throw diplomacy to the wind, you can first use covert ops to raise intrigue and understand more about your neighbours. You can then use force, choosing to simply annex the other colony or install a puppet leader to make the populace think all is well once you’ve crushed them.
If, for some reason, you lose control of the situation, you can always rely on your trusty orbital laser – and the game’s corresponding orbital layer view to see said satellites – to lay waste from high above the atmosphere. Clearly, Firaxis ended with this devastating weapon ’cause they knew I’d then find my new favourite toy in Beyond Earth.
As great as Civilization is, it was time for a change. Civilization: Beyond Earth certainly looks like it will deliver.
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