CIVILIZATION: BEYOND EARTH

RATING 4.8/10

Two games came out this year, each new additions to long-running and recognised franchises. They were both heavily-hyped by their developers and promised new innovations that would mix up the established gameplay. In actuality they were stripped-down versions of the previous iterations in the franchises, offering none of the complexity and depth built over years of expansion packs. Flashy new entries that were more of a step back than forward. The first of these games, The Sims 4, was lambasted by critics for these flaws. The second was largely lauded; presumably because it makes critics uncomfortable to compare Firaxis Games to EA Maxis.
Yes, Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is as bad as The Sims 4. At least that game patched in those swimming pools.

Here's the run-down for those who haven't been keeping up. Beyond Earth is the new Civilization game; Civilization V is a tough act to follow up on, and Beyond Earth's approach is to not try at all. “If it ain't broke don't fix it” seems to have been the mantra at Firaxis because this is basically vanilla Civilization V. In space. It's a glorified mod. The other thing you need to know is that Beyond Earth is the spiritual successor to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, a beloved 1999 game.

There are cosmetic similarities between Beyond Earth and Alpha Centauri. Colonists evacuate a dying Earth to settle in a distant planet, split into rival factions, and compete against each other and hostile native fauna for survival and eventually supremacy. This is a fine premise, and you can construct an exciting and layered fiction on it. Alpha Centauri did, hence its enduring popularity. In contrast, Beyond Earth is... superficial. By-the-numbers. There is no context, no life to the setting.

You won't have a Chairman Sheng-ji Yang preaching his fascist-ascetic credo at you in this game. Gone are Sister Miriam's musings on God and the universe. What you get in Beyond Earth are a generic friendly African, an old French woman and a profit-hungry American. Cardboard cutouts.

Much of the tension in the plot of Alpha Centauri revolved around the discovery that the planet was sentient. The humans had to decide how to interact with the planet; environmentalism takes on a new dimension if the planet is actively trying to kill you. In Beyond Earth this is replaced by three different Affinities that represent three distinct visions of future humanity. Old Earth Puritanism, cybernetic augmentation or hippie one-with-planet sort of stuff. There are a myriad of ways to customise your future society in Beyond Earth, which is admirable. But none of it achieves a sense of place or importance. It's all numbers and bonuses.

The native fauna that you battle is a step forward from Civilization V's barbarians. They are much more varied and there is an overall AI that remembers and reacts to your interactions with it. However, they too are bland alien archetypes. Looking for Alpha Centauri's psychic worm swarms? Here are giant bees instead.

The only real innovation is the introduction of the tech web. Unlike the more linear tech trees of previous Civilization games, here technologies branch out into multiple directions, and you are offered the choice of spreading your research wide or deep. This is a good framework that one assumes will be developed better in expansion packs. The game gives the impression that it's not a finished product. It's a Sims-esque module to slot expansion packs into.

In which case, you should play this game sometime in 2016 when it's finally ready.