Firaxis Returning to The Final Frontier with 'Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth'

"Create the future."

This past weekend at PAX East, 2K Games announced a new direction for the excellent 'Sid Meier's Civilization series. Setting aside the series' normal historic trappings, the new game takes players to an alien world. 'Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth' tasks players with establishing humanity's new home after a global event puts Earth on its last legs.

The game begins with the player deciding some of the particulars of the expedition, such as the space ship, the faction to directly represent, and which equipment and personal will attempt the pivital journey. From there, the player begins the first human colony, and they can expect that there won't be any other human colonies for a significant chunk of playtime (10-20 turns). There will of course be plenty of alien life, and the player must choose how to contend with what may be very hostile or otherwise threatening creatures.

While war with human colonies may be inevitable, the player can utilize an orbital layer of satellites to maneuver their units around without being land-bound. These satellites must be claimed by players, and then protected. Their use is a big factor in survival and advancement, but the satellites themselves have finite lives and ultimately will crash, leaving behind salvage to claim.

The game also introduces a new affinity system which has three branches: purity, harmony, and supremacy. The harmony branch, for instance, will allow players to adapt to their new world at a genetic level. With all-new species a possibility mid-game, it's good that the new tech tree is much more multifaceted, full of branch technologies to allow players for personalized tech development rather than just a linear race.

There will be five victory conditions, three based off of the affinity system and two affinity-neutral:

Harmony: awaken a semi-sentient super organism within the planet and reach a new level of consciousness

Purity: terraform the alien planet into a mirror of Earth and relocate Earth’s populace to this new Eden

Supremacy: embrace cybernetic augmentation, then return to Earth and "free" the people from their bodies

Contact: discover evidence of intelligent life and construct a means to establish first contact

Domination: actually, domination is the same as in every other Civilization

Within these victory conditions, the game will offer players some direction in the form of a quest system, which also will deliver the narrative of this new world.

'Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth' is due out this fall for the PC. "The game will also be coming to Mac and Linux via Aspyr Media."

You can find the latest info on 'Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth' linked from our Video Game Release Schedule.

Source: Gamespot