Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth Reviews
It is a wonderful love letter to fans of 'Alpha Centauri' and certainly one of the best turn-based releases this year.
It's Civ, but not as we know it… and that's a good thing. The focus on choice and adaptability on the alien world allows players to deal with new challenges on the way to taming this new frontier. It's not a flawless effort, but provided you can overcome the slower pacing of progress, the addiction of going yet another turn is absolutely there, making Beyond Earth a highly enjoyable entry in the Civilization series.
Beyond Earth is still fun, and an immense time-sink – of course it is, it's Civilization. But would that it was truly beyond Earth, and truly beyond Civ V. Not a crash and burn – but the Prometheus of the Civ franchise, an interesting failure with much of value in the wreckage.
Like its predecessor, Civilization: Beyond Earth is going to benefit from Firaxis' attentive and proven post-launch development plan. Its series of interconnected systems are well balanced and while some of them will feel disappointingly familiar to series veterans, there's sufficient diversity and flexibility here to feed the series ongoing evolution.
[W]e're left feeling like there's greatness to come. Beyond Earth is a wonderful experience but we can't shake the feeling that the past holds much more than the future, at least for now.
Firaxis' sci-fi spin on Civilization V has some intriguing ideas that, sadly, don't come together into an equally engaging experience.
If you're a fan of the series and you're not short of money, then Beyond Earth is worth getting. Otherwise, wait for a sale or buy Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri instead.
Put aside your expectations of an Alpha Centauri successor, play it like a sci-fi Civilization V and enjoy experimenting with the combinations of sponsors, affinities and techs.
Civilization: Beyond Earth is a solid attempt to bring back the glory days of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. It isn't what everyone has hoped for, but if you have the time and patience to put into it, it makes for an enjoyable game for fans of the franchise, while simultaneously being pretty accessible to newcomers as well.
I'm sure Firaxis will eventually make a great game out of Beyond Earth. They're a smart development team that knows how to improve and iterate on a solid core product, which Beyond Earth certainly is. Right now, though, I can't help but feel slightly disappointed by the state of the game. It's perfectly enjoyable, but for every smart innovation it seems to have lost a portion of both complexity and character. There's potential here, but we'll have to wait for a couple of meaty expansions to see Beyond Earth's promise fully realised.
Taking the playstyle from Civilization V and launching it into space, Civilization: Beyond Earth introduces a number of interesting concepts into the series' tried-and-true strategy formula. While the gameplay remains addictive, the learning curve here is steep, with lots of small details that demand your attention. What you make of it depends on your patience and ability to adapt to the cruelties of space.
Beyond Earth is a bold step into the future for the Civilization series, and one that is well-judged and deftly executed. While hardcore genre fans might not get much of a kick out of its – in places – stripped-down take on 4X, what it provides is something quite unlike anything the series has provided before – one that fully embraces its potential for creating unique stories with every game, and provides the tools through which they might be more fleshed out than ever before.
Any game where you can to transform humanity into a race of Cybermen to go back, conquer Earth, and upload everyone's consciousness to a great network is a damn good game IMHO.
The final result is a brilliant alteration of an old friend, shining a new light on a proven structure.
Civilization: Beyond Earth sets itself apart from the previous games in the series in ways big and small, and you would be mistaken to dismiss this entry in the strategy franchise as "Civ V in space." Beyond Earth is an excellent standalone experience that can be enjoyed regardless of your history with the series—though having some understanding of how the turn-based strategy gameplay works is certainly an asset. After 300 hours of Civ V, the time has come to move on; I've left Earth and headed into space, and I think I will be there for thousands more turns to come.
Civilization: Beyond Earth is, in many senses, the next logical step forward in a series that has always been about celebrating the human drive to understand, control, and expand our environment.
It's funny, there's a lot about Beyond Earth that I'm not too sure about and a fair number of mechanics that could be better. Yet it's incredibly playable and just as addictive as every other Civilization game. It's incredibly easy to lose a lot of time while playing, which is a testament to how the game can really get the player involved. It's ever-present that the game has a tendency to force the player down a certain path, lacking the overall freedom of something like Europa Universalis IV. Yet when the path is as beautiful, thoughtful and fun as Beyond Earth, it's not exactly a challenge to walk that path over and over again. It does indeed feel like a reskin of Civilization V, but it's a skin that the game wears quite well.
Beyond Earth grasps its topic less firmly, but more fully, insisting that whatever future comes to pass won't be the only future that might have been. Truth be told, though, Beyond Earth likely won't have quite the staying power of either Alpha Centauri or Civilization V.
Civilization: Beyond Earth shakes up the turn-based strategy formula, taking the series to new heights and new locations. The past experiences of the team at Firaxis with Alpha Centuri shine through, blending both styles of games into one of the best strategy games of the year.