Civilization: Beyond Earth Takes Aim at Space, Announces “Launch” Date

Revealed at PAX and uploaded as a Youtube video just two days ago, 2K Games announced its new Civilization release. It is to be set in space, presumably in the “distant future.”

Civ loyalists are undoubtedly bashing their heads hard on desks the world over, but I feel I must interject.

I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing.

Now I will not purport to be a long-time die-hard Civilization fan, but I will honestly say I’ve played 4 and 5 (and the iOS Civ), and enjoy them both extremely. But if the same premise has now been used five times, can it really hurt to shake up the mechanics a little bit? Yes, there are examples of mods on Civ IV such as Final Frontier or Planetfall. But to see an official release could be very interesting.

In an interview with Polygon, Lead Designer Anton Strenger claims 

“The state of Earth a couple hundred years from now becomes rather dire….There’s a series of events which we call ‘The Great Mistake.'”

It’s nothing that breaks the boundaries of homogeneous Science-Fiction, but nonetheless it’s an interesting new take. 

Strenger went on to say:

“Internally, we’ve written out exactly what those events are, but for the player, we’re leaving it vague and allowing their imagination to fill the gaps.” 

We always know the future in the preceding Cvilization titles, for it is our past. But for this release in the series, the future is somewhat undetermined.

With Civilization: Beyond Earth, I’m hoping to see more than just laser tanks and a satellite version of the Eiffel Tower on the moon. 

For at least the first play through, we will all be out of our comfort zone- unaware of the what the future has in store. With Civilization: Beyond Earth, I’m hoping to see more than just laser tanks and a satellite version of the Eiffel Tower on the moon. If it is a half-arsed effort to aesthetically alter the game, this will obviously please nobody.

But it sounds like they’re promising an offer of far more. If they do in fact invent an entire tech tree to cater for several thousands of years into the future… Won’t that be so fucking cool?