14 DAY TRIAL // Civilization: Beyond Earth is a newly revealed video game project for Firaxis, but the company already has to deal with a lot of questions about the way the studio plans to balance the need to create a new and interesting strategy experience with the demands of the fan base that loved Alpha Centauri and its core features.
Greg Foertsch, Jerome Atherholt and Mike Bazzell were all involved with the original game and the developers are at the moment employed at Firaxis, working on both Civilization: Beyond Earth and XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
It seems that the team has a lot of respect for Alpha Centauri, but it will not use some of the elements that have come to define the game for players, like the ideological profiles of all the leaders, which in turn defined their play styles.
They are quoted by Gamespot as saying that, “The ideologies in Alpha Centauri were really expressions of the different ways you could play the game - aggressive military style, or heavy on the science, or in tune with the planet.”
The team adds, “With Beyond Earth, you have the capability to tailor so much of your faction during the loadout phase by picking your colonists and your cargo and the information you can gather from orbit--essentially the new system is much more flexible. And on top of that, with the different affinities, you’ve got all sorts of combinations for directions in how to shape your culture - that we think you’ll see players being able to tell all sorts of stories about themselves and their opponents.”
Civilization: Beyond Earth takes place after an unnamed catastrophic event affects all the nations on Earth and the player is in charge of one of the spaceships that travels to an alien world in order to colonize it.
Firaxis is allowing each gamer to make choices even before the actual campaign starts and the initial part of the title will have him fighting against the environment of the chosen planet rather than other human factions.
The development team says that all the core turn-based strategy mechanics of the Civilization series will be present and that the all new setting gives it a chance to try out some new ideas that will surprise long-term fans.
Civilization: Beyond Earth will be out before the end of the year on the PC and there are currently no plans to move the experience to consoles.