Cities on oceans can move and other changes are also coming

Jun 30, 2015 21:51 GMT  ·  By

The development team at Firaxis is getting ready to launch the first expansion for Civilization: Beyond, called Rising Tide, and the studio wants to make sure that gamers understand the core changes to gameplay that will be introduced.

In a new official site interview, the studio talks about both the new primordial biome and about aquatic gameplay, with the full gameplay demo from E3 2015 also now available.

Todd Bilger, the art director at Firaxis, explains that the new environment template is designed to portray a younger planet, active on a volcanic level and with a much more extreme climate.

He adds, "We wanted the Primordial biome to stand out, which we thought was going to be difficult because we already had a 'hot' planet-type in the Arid biome. The key difference is the Arid is a stagnant and dry terrain. There’s a lot of desert and inactivity. The Primordial biome is rocky, parts of the terrain are black from the cooling lava, and there’s a lot going on under the surface of the planet."

Civilization: Beyond - Rising Tide will also include upgrades for the original biomes, with more details, a focus on oceans and better representations of the alien presence.

The expansion is focused on water-based gameplay and choices

David McDonough, a Firaxis leader, explains that the new aquatic gameplay is designed to be relatively similar to what players are doing on land.

The big difference is that cities on oceans can be moved around, although it's unclear how far from their starting position and that boats tend to move faster than other units.

To balance this out Civilization: Beyond - Rising Tide will introduce a range of aquatic aliens that need to be dealt with using new tactics because they are powered by a new branch of the AI.

Firaxis is introducing a wide variety of both buildings and wonders that can only exist in oceanic cities and more expeditions are offered for gamers to find, as well as some surprises.

Civilization: Beyond - Rising Tide does not yet have an official launch date and can only be played on the PC.

Civilization: Beyond - Rising Tide Images (4 Images)

Civilization: Beyond - Rising Tide ocean look
Civilization: Beyond - Rising Tide new biomeCivilization: Beyond - Rising Tide design
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