Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth from 2014 picked up the legacy of the nineties classic Alpha Centauri and moved turn-based 4X strategy from Earth's history into space. The player leads one of humanity's sponsor factions, which, after Earth's resources ran out, sent a colonization ship to an alien planet, and builds a new civilization on it from scratch – without pharaohs, Napoleons, and other historical leaders the series is otherwise known for.

Instead of a classic tech tree, the game offered a branching technology web and a new system of so-called affinities: Harmony (adapting to alien life), Purity (cleansing and terraforming the planet in Earth's image), or Supremacy (replacing the body with cybernetics). The choice of affinity changes the appearance of units and buildings and determines how the player can win the game. Random quests reacting to discoveries on the map were also added, along with aggressive native alien life that the player must either pacify or exterminate.

The reception was mixed – the game was criticized for shallower diplomacy and weaker opponent AI compared to Civilization V at the time, which its expansions gradually caught up to but never fully matched. Even so, Beyond Earth remains Firaxis's only modern attempt to return to the Alpha Centauri theme.

The game was released exclusively for PC via Steam and never got a console version, which let it benefit from the modding community and the Rising Tide expansion, which added underwater cities, new units, and diplomatic options. Although at its core it uses the same turn-based principle as the main series, the atmosphere of an unknown, hostile planet and the need to build a completely new civilization from the ground up give the game a different pace and feel compared to the historical Civilization titles.

Why play: For fans of classic 4X strategy who want the same empire-building feeling as in Civilization, but wrapped in a sci-fi setting with affinities and the colonization of an alien planet instead of repeating Earth's history.