14 DAY TRIAL // Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth has already launched on the Windows platform and the guys from Aspyr Media are working on the port for Linux. The have released new information about their progress and it looks like the project is coming together.
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is one of the most important games on Steam for Linux for two reasons. It's one of the best turn-based strategies on this platform and it's a Civilization title that will probably remain in the top played titles for a long time.
In fact, the top made by Valve to show what games are the most played is almost full of titles that work cross-platform.
The Aspyr Media devs know this very well, so they are pressured to do better. They’re not porting just any games, but something that’s close to gamers’ hearts.
So far, from the blog updates they have posted, it looks like the Linux platform has been good with the devs and it hasn't provided insurmountable challenges.
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth for Linux is almost ready
The latest update from the Aspyr Media dev team is rather encouraging, mostly because it doesn't name the Linux platform in conjunction with any of the reported problems. Surprisingly, the Mac OS X build is giving them some grief, but it's also coming along.
"Our dev team is still working as hard as ever, and this week saw some great breakthroughs in terms of performance. For instance, on NVIDIA cards we were able to get the game running at a smooth 60 FPS. Additionally, we worked out a fix this week that significantly improves game load times (one of the core issues we've been dealing with), and we were also able to figure out a way to reduce memory usage."
"Another problem we've run into involves syncing issues in cross-platform multiplayer games. And, unlike Civilization V, some of these out-of-syncs can cause the player to lose progress. This is already a problem that can happen between games on the same platform (see current comments on the PC), though we're currently seeing out-of-sync rates essentially double for cross-platform games," write the developers.
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth for Linux doesn't have a precise launch date, but we do know that it's set for the holiday season. For now, you can enjoy some screenshots made in the Windows version of the game.
