14 DAY TRIAL // Although Firaxis is using Alpha Centauri to push their next game, Civilization: Beyond Earth, they are adamant about the fact that it is not merely a Civilization-skinned version of the cult classic 4x game.
That means that, if you're looking for precisely that, a modern version of the profound and thought-provoking game that was Alpha Centauri, only with better visuals, improved mechanics and a better interface, you're going to be disappointed.
Instead, Firaxis intends to take the Civilization experience to space, with the same largely optimistic viewpoint that has you role-play as Abraham Lincoln and state that your friendly threats are backed up by the power of nuclear weapons, which has a rather weird sound to it, come to think of it.
"The word we use is aspirational," Beyond Earth designer David McDonough said during the PAX panel. "It's very important to us that Civ always be that way. It's something that can be a little shocking when you play Alpha Centauri. The game requires you to be evil to succeed. We were very careful with this game never to do that."
Nonetheless, the game is more than likely going to be a very solid experience that allows the members of the team to experiment a bit and take the game into a new direction, permitting them to express their creativity freely, without having the constraints of historical accuracy to bog them down.
The creators of Beyond Earth do not want to instill any notions of right or wrong in the upcoming game, they merely want to explore the question of how humanity is going to survive once it leaves Earth behind, stranded on a brand-new world that is not entirely welcoming.
"We recognize the value in darker and more antagonistic approaches. But we took it out of the civs themselves, and we put it into the planet. So when you land on this planet, the planet is very hostile. Your first work in the game is taming that world," elaborated Anton Strenger, Civilization: Beyond Earth's gameplay designer.
This may sound like a complete bummer for people who appreciated the rich character of Alpha Centauri and the exploration of darker themes of the human psyche, which were prevalent during our actual history, but, hopefully, the team won't disappoint.
The developers have already hinted at some of the paths that will open themselves up to players, allowing them to steer the destiny of mankind in several different directions, from gene manipulation, that will drastically alter our physical form and will make us more adapted to the new environment or developing AI and merging ourselves with machinery, to insisting that things have to remain exactly the same and attempting to keep our species pure and recreate Earth.
The full PAX East panel discussion that revealed the upcoming strategy game to the entire world has been uploaded on YouTube by Firaxis, allowing people who want to learn more about Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth to get all the info from the original source.
