The developers are getting really close to the finish line

Nov 20, 2014 12:52 GMT  ·  By

Aspyr Media is working to port Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth to the Linux platform and they say they are weeks away from finishing the work and launching the game.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth was announced for the Linux platform a while back and the developers from Firaxis and Aspyr Media said that the game should be ready in time for the holidays.

The devs doing the port have been keeping the community up to speed and informing users about the progress made so far, which is actually a very rare gesture.

Most companies that put forward commercial software, regardless of whether it’s just an application or a game, don't have a transparent process for the development.

Aspyr Media saw that the Linux users were much more interested in what was happening behind closed doors, and they chose to reveal some details about the porting process, which are actually quite interesting and shed some light on the entire process.

Linux users are not usually aware of the kind of work that's required to port a game of such a magnitude, so any kind of information will be cool.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth for Linux is weeks away

The people from Aspyr Media say that they have managed to finish the Mac OS X version of the game and they have already pushed it to the Mac App Store. This leaves them plenty of time to deal with the Linux version, which seems to be a tougher nut to crack.

"We've made a lot of progress in improving out of sync issues with multiplayer games, particularly those of the cross-platform variety. Whereas previously out-of-sync rates for cross-platform games could be as high as 25-30 times per game, the rate now is closer to 7-10 per game (1-3 times for games on the same platform)."

"Don't worry, Linux users, we haven't forgotten about you. In addition to the all-important performance improvements, we've also been working on getting mods to work properly (via Steam Workshop). All said, the Linux version is still coming along nicely and is close behind the Mac version; at this point we'd say there's probably a 2-3 week gap between the platforms," says Russ Looney from Aspyr Media.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth has already been released on the Windows platform and it has received at least one patch, which will be made available for Linux as well.

Firaxis is already hard at work with the second patch, which should be quite consistent, but it remains to be seen if it is integrated before the release.

Civilization: Beyond Earth for Linux (10 Images)

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth main menu
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth world selectionChoose your civ in Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth
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