Late last week, Firaxis announced the release of a new game: Civilization: Beyond Earth, a spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed 1999 Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. Matt Miller, co-lead designer of the process was quick to point out that this is not meant to be a sequel to the 90’s game, but rather a look at the Civilization series in space which is strongly influenced in Alpha Centauri.
The game will be based on the engine used for Civilization 5, and will have some of the hallmarks of that series. However, the intention is to provide a brand new experience for the player. Like Alpha Centauri it will be based around a loose narrative, which should be interesting since that game used the tech tree as a way to tell the story as well as gauging the progress the player has made.
An interesting addition is the inclusion of three separate tech trees: Purity, Harmony, and Supermacy, which means that options will become unavailable as the player makes choices through the game. The victory conditions have been altered as well, allowing the game to take advantage of the Science Fiction setting to provide a new experience.
All in all this is exciting news. So far Firaxis has had a great record revisiting 90’s strategy games, with the excellent X-Com: Enemy Unknown and X-Com: Enemy Whithin and the decent Civilization: Colonization released a few years ago. As a longtime fan of Alpha Centauri, I am excited to see what its spiritual successor will play like.
