Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

 PC
User Score
5.5

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1084 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 343 out of 1084
  2. Mixed: 374 out of 1084
  3. Negative: 367 out of 1084
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  1. rodericrinehart
    Feb 7, 2015
    4
    Civilization has to be one of my 10 favorite franchises over the past 30 years and has brought me possibly thousands of hours of entertainment and great memories.

    This game honestly was disappointing and does not live up to the Civ name. It was tedious, lacked the depth of Civ V, and is really a watered-down, poorly done skin on Civ V. I wish I had never bought it.
  2. Megatanis
    Mar 23, 2015
    4
    Sid Meier's last good game (and it was very good..) was Civilization IV. Ace patrol was nice, yeah.
    Beyond Earth is boring, it's a reskin of Civ5 (which I absolutely disliked), and as a successor of Alpha Centauri it doesn't even get close. I still remember those secret project videos, absolutely brilliant. Alpha Centauri was (is) a much better game. Beyond Earth is not a terrible game, I    Sid Meier's last good game (and it was very good..) was Civilization IV. Ace patrol was nice, yeah.
    Beyond Earth is boring, it's a reskin of Civ5 (which I absolutely disliked), and as a successor of Alpha Centauri it doesn't even get close. I still remember those secret project videos, absolutely brilliant. Alpha Centauri was (is) a much better game. Beyond Earth is not a terrible game, I just find it uninteresting, boring and easy. Would deserve a 5 but I'm angry, because I know the Man can do a lot more, even though it's ten years things got a bit..streamlined.    … Expand
  3. tobas1
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    First of all this game have absolutely nothing in common with Alpha Centauri ... except one - both taking place in future. And really thats all!!!
    Alpha Centauri had unique ecosystem that felt alive and could really mess you up sometimes. Fungus was spreading and spamming mindworms and those could really do a lot of harm even lategame when apear in big stacks. Here alien life forms are    First of all this game have absolutely nothing in common with Alpha Centauri ... except one - both taking place in future. And really thats all!!!
    Alpha Centauri had unique ecosystem that felt alive and could really mess you up sometimes. Fungus was spreading and spamming mindworms and those could really do a lot of harm even lategame when apear in big stacks. Here alien life forms are normal barbarians from other Civ games - nothing to worry about. The only problem is siege worm that even dont do much damage if youre carefull arround him but when you take him down with your city's or mobile artilery there is absolutly no thread from alians any more! And if aliens really have some mechanics to promote 'green' thinking and not attacking, than i missed that totaly. They attack you even without doing them any harm at all, and when you killing them right from a start they attack you even less coz have less units. So green thinking here is dead - and Gaians were my favorite fraction in AC!
    Ah yes - fractions - except 1 small bonus that every one of them has they are all totaly the same! I cannot even name those that i played or played against coz they were to borring and uninteresting to even remember their names. And i can name EVERY Alpha Centauri fraction even now - and didn't play that game for years!

    What ele made AC great game for me? Terraforming - there you could drill rivers, buld improvements changing climate or even terraform up your land and flood other players with global warming. Here you can do **** You can cut trees and build improvements and thats basicly it. So your terraforming abilities are simmilar to Egiptian pessant with copper axe.

    Next is upgraing units - in AC you could take any unit and select what type of researched already wepon or armor or skill put in it and if you had enough money upgrade your units to this newer model. So for me it was brilliant. I needed fast artilery rover with no armor? or good armored garnison supressing riots with poor wepon? or mindworm catching unit? or maybe few types of terraformers to clean fungus faster or to move twice as much hexes? You could do EVERYTHING... if you could afford upgrating and first created prototype unit that costs twice as much as regular one. Here you can -again- do **** Through some strange God intervention every unit is upgrated without costs to new model after gaining point of whatever that was. Especialy strange coz newer model in production costs like 20% more so why the hell its free?

    And last thing is trade routes. In AC you could boost your production by sending suply crawlers to collect resources from not ocupied by your city hexes and this could significantly boost your production. Here you can do trade routs between your, neutral or other players cities. But those trade routs are ridiculusly good! Its not like 3 additional energy or production that you got from suply cravler, here from one trade route 2 cities will get for example 5 food+production each!! If you select your boosts wisely, you can just buy trade route building, teleport to that city 2 trade convoys (wtf is that anyway?) and send them to your cities (coz no point to send to other civs boosting their production) and from this your production in that city is 500% better - its crazy! and game killing coz the only limit for your expansion from now on is helth ... until you figure out that there is one terrain upgraide giving 1 helth each and you just build them all over your land. plus green upgraids giving you boost to trade routes and helth (why the hell its in the same branch if they are most important ones?) and in 100 turns in my playing for 2nd day i had colonised everything that i could being bigger than all other players combined. and it was supposed to be hard dificulity?

    Overall Alpha Centauri and this dumbed down thing that was supposed to be spiritual succeser have totaly nothing in common. And for me saddest part is that there is not even one thing that Beyound Earth did better than it was in AC - quite contrary! and Alpha Centauri is 15 years old! So really? people are getting so braindead that it's enough for them to be enterteined? Or just game developers are getting so lazy?    … Expand
  4. vandana
    Nov 7, 2014
    4
    I should start this review by saying that I love Civilization and I have played all games in the series since Civilization II. Although the vanilla version of Civilization V was rough, I loved that release as well - one unit per hex combat, new graphics and leaders full of character were refreshing enough to bear with the game until the expansions made it truly great (especially Gods &I should start this review by saying that I love Civilization and I have played all games in the series since Civilization II. Although the vanilla version of Civilization V was rough, I loved that release as well - one unit per hex combat, new graphics and leaders full of character were refreshing enough to bear with the game until the expansions made it truly great (especially Gods & Kings). I believe Beyond Earth is somewhere at the stage where Civilization V was at the release gameplay-wise (much to be improved, but can be easily achievable with expansions and patches). At the core design level however, affinities (affinity decides the way you play the game - it is a philosophy deciding your path of progress and victory) have been separated from leaders and that is something that took all character from the game away. The leaders and writing are generic and dull, lacking any emotional connection known from previous games. Moreover, I believe this core flaw cannot be fixed unless many more affinities were introduced and linked to leaders somehow which I simply cannot see happening at all. The result is a bland game, with potential for growth mechanically, but lacking character and because of design decisions simply not capable of getting anywhere near the legendary status of Alpha Centauri, of which the game is supposed to be a the spiritual successor. I hope I am wrong and the designers will find a way of making this game alive but right now it is a pretty space game, with marvelous music, unpolished gameplay that will be fixed in expansions and zero character. Not worth £30 and not a must play. I'll wait for the expansions and I regret not buying it on sale. I guess most people buying this game wanted another Alpha Centauri and this is not it and probably never will. Even comparing to Civ5 with expansions, already cheaper bundle, this game simply cannot stand its own and such comparison is inevitable when the engine is basically the same and the game plays like a glorified mod.… Expand
  5. Vel
    Oct 28, 2014
    4
    This game is pretty bad. It's not terrible, but it's pretty bad. The easiest way to describe it is to imagine that they took Civ 5, re-skinned it with different graphics, got rid of some of the more enjoyable aspects (Like picking different civilizations with different bonuses at different ages), and emphasized some of the more annoying aspects of the game (ever get annoyed by randomThis game is pretty bad. It's not terrible, but it's pretty bad. The easiest way to describe it is to imagine that they took Civ 5, re-skinned it with different graphics, got rid of some of the more enjoyable aspects (Like picking different civilizations with different bonuses at different ages), and emphasized some of the more annoying aspects of the game (ever get annoyed by random barbarians? Well say hello to an occasional SUPER barbarian). The game doesn't feel like you are really playing or advancing towards anything, it just feels like you are making a never-ending series of random decisions that have no real effect on the game. Not to mention the fact that the new "health" system (which replaced the happiness system) is not well balanced, if you conquer even one or two enemy cities you will probably have a negative effect on your civilization for the foreseeable future. Honestly, just avoid this game and go back and play more Civ 5 (at least until the price drops below $20).… Expand
  6. Hellseele
    Oct 28, 2014
    4
    I was sadly disappointed with this game. While it plays much like Civ V, it feels like a lazier, cheaper copy. The game is full of new features, some which work well and some that don't, but ultimately operates more like a Civ V expansion than a proper next installment to the game.

    In the end, I only wanted 3 features fixed from Civ V: mods in multiplayer, improved diplomacy AI, and AI    I was sadly disappointed with this game. While it plays much like Civ V, it feels like a lazier, cheaper copy. The game is full of new features, some which work well and some that don't, but ultimately operates more like a Civ V expansion than a proper next installment to the game.

    In the end, I only wanted 3 features fixed from Civ V: mods in multiplayer, improved diplomacy AI, and AI which contacts players in multiplayer games. This is a list that a lot of people agree with, and have been waiting for since 2010, and not one of them was touched.    … Expand
  7. Vendaron
    Nov 27, 2014
    4
    Graphically the game is impressive. However if you've been playing Civ 5 there's not enough newness to justify paying $49.99 for this game. If you haven't played Civ 5 before then maybe the $49.99 is justifiable.

    Given the hype of the game before launch my expectations were high, however they were dashed soon after I started playing. :(
  8. timeknight
    Oct 24, 2014
    4
    This game is nothing close to what Alpha Centauri was. The diplomacy, for one, is absolutely terrible. It's worse than Civ 5. You can get allies easily, but you can't do anything with them. There are no trade or research agreements. There's no planetary council. Diplomacy is just bad.

    This game does not bring anything new to the table except for a new skin for Civilization 5. It feels    This game is nothing close to what Alpha Centauri was. The diplomacy, for one, is absolutely terrible. It's worse than Civ 5. You can get allies easily, but you can't do anything with them. There are no trade or research agreements. There's no planetary council. Diplomacy is just bad.

    This game does not bring anything new to the table except for a new skin for Civilization 5. It feels more like a Civ 5 mod. Is it a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri? No. Not even close.    … Expand
  9. owen1218
    Dec 14, 2014
    4
    Exactly what Firaxis said it wouldn't be: a mod of Civ V. For the standards of a mod it isn't a bad one, but it's absurd to sell this as if it was a new game.
  10. Awesumo
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    Beyond Earth just feels a bit hollow. Take civilization and strip out the history -or take Alpha centuari and strip out the unique civilizations. What you are left with feels like a rather soulless game.
    The planet - effectively an extra opponent/ally in AC feels like nothing but large numbers of barbarians that have their aggression turned right down. Another disappointment.
    There    Beyond Earth just feels a bit hollow. Take civilization and strip out the history -or take Alpha centuari and strip out the unique civilizations. What you are left with feels like a rather soulless game.
    The planet - effectively an extra opponent/ally in AC feels like nothing but large numbers of barbarians that have their aggression turned right down. Another disappointment.
    There just isn't enough here, it looks nice but plays like a half finished mod.
    One last thing - the Diplomacy is ridiculous and the AI openly cheats.    … Expand
  11. gracjanski
    Nov 2, 2020
    4
    The idea of the game makes you surely curious to play it: the best strategy gameplay combines with an interesting sci-fi setting, where you try to survive against the aliens (hmm...in truth we are the aliens ;) ) and compete with other colonists. Great cinematics improves this feeling to get into a new world, the music is also great.

    But...it is true, the game is not done, even in 2020.    The idea of the game makes you surely curious to play it: the best strategy gameplay combines with an interesting sci-fi setting, where you try to survive against the aliens (hmm...in truth we are the aliens ;) ) and compete with other colonists. Great cinematics improves this feeling to get into a new world, the music is also great.

    But...it is true, the game is not done, even in 2020.
    Something is missing, somehow it is boring to have more or less the same units, buildings and the same era.
    The quests are a good idea and well written, but they are only text, at least there should be some pictures. In addition the messages are so political correct, as the whole game.
    The tech tree is very important in the Civ series and was understandable, here it is confusing with a lot of branches and mixed with an affinity system.
    And yes, the AI is so bad sometimes, they declare war on you, although they are much weaker and you had very good relationship before. In another game they went on war and the AI was much stronger, but their army was far way. In a third game I was dominant and had 2 allies, a lonely and weak AI declared war anyway, lol. So stupid, it ruins the game a lot and it is impossible to change the AI via modification. Overall there are not many good mods out there, I recommend Codex overhaul and Infoaddict.
    And, this is not the end of the bad things in this game. We have end of 2020 and this game is 6 years old. On steam this game costs 60€ with the very needed DLC Rising Tide. 60€ !!. This is unacceptable, so I didnt buy it, but played it anyway. It should cost about 10-15€ today by the way. An alternative is to play it retail, where the prizes are lower, but still too high. Or you play the "lost copy from the truck".    … Expand
  12. Sergiohs
    Nov 4, 2014
    4
    The game is worse than previous civs... It should had been sold as one expansion/mod theres almost no new mechanics. Also there is a huge resolution / full screen bug which is preventing alot of people from playing the game correctly (me included).
  13. Deathmarch
    Oct 31, 2014
    4
    BORING! the AI is passive and makes illogical decisions ie: declaring war for no reason then offering all their goods and credits 10 turns later.
    Nothing in this game can be discerned "at a glance".
    Tech web is a confusing mess. Glance at the "tech web" and point out a wonder with in 30secs you cant without playing the game for a few hours and alot of reading. The map is muted and dull    BORING! the AI is passive and makes illogical decisions ie: declaring war for no reason then offering all their goods and credits 10 turns later.
    Nothing in this game can be discerned "at a glance".
    Tech web is a confusing mess. Glance at the "tech web" and point out a wonder with in 30secs you cant without playing the game for a few hours and alot of reading.
    The map is muted and dull , you cant tell a desert tile from a plains tile. you can barely tell which tiles have miasma. You'd expect wild contrast in terrain its Fantasy alien worlds there are no rules, you can have yellow oceans and purple deserts!
    combat might be better if Ai get improved but once you build elite units the ai has no chance.
    Missing immersion, ui is dull and lifeless no original artwork like Civ5, the leader scenes they just float on your screen no background to give you a sense of there culture; like Montezuma in his temple.
    If its was another developer I would say its a ok game around 70% buts its Civ Game and with it come higher standards and I feel like I paid full price for a indie game. hopefully they are working hard on improvments and not paid dlcs!!    … Expand
  14. SoakerCity
    Oct 31, 2014
    4
    Very disappointing. Alpha Centauri was one of the best games ever made. It seems as though this one was dumbed down, leached of mature content and graphics (these are too cartoony), and light on the serious depth of the spiritual predecessor.

    Also, the lack of an Anglo, Japanese, Scandinavian, German, Canadian, and other cultures make this a big miss. I was going to buy it but its a    Very disappointing. Alpha Centauri was one of the best games ever made. It seems as though this one was dumbed down, leached of mature content and graphics (these are too cartoony), and light on the serious depth of the spiritual predecessor.

    Also, the lack of an Anglo, Japanese, Scandinavian, German, Canadian, and other cultures make this a big miss. I was going to buy it but its a pass, and I will stick with the amazing Endless Legend, the current king of TBS games.    … Expand
  15. xspidermanx322
    May 13, 2016
    4
    I'm a huge fan of the Civ series and I was very excited for this version of Civilization. However, since Civ VI is coming out and they've only released one expansion trying to fix this game I can't give it more than a 6. It's just not that great. It's pretty, but everything that makes a Civ game great seems incredibly lacking in this version. Diplomacy is a big deal for me and theI'm a huge fan of the Civ series and I was very excited for this version of Civilization. However, since Civ VI is coming out and they've only released one expansion trying to fix this game I can't give it more than a 6. It's just not that great. It's pretty, but everything that makes a Civ game great seems incredibly lacking in this version. Diplomacy is a big deal for me and the diplomacy in this game is AWFUL. It's laughably bad. I suggest buying this if it's ever on a damn good sale. Until then, you might as well stay away.… Expand
  16. Boras
    Nov 12, 2014
    4
    Is this game Bad? YES! definitely. I felt so disappointed when I saw that this was another Civilization 5 with new graphic, a stupid techtree and a meaningless Victory.

    They tried to add narration with Quest System, it could work, but why there is no conclusion at the end of the Game? no explanation, no story, nothing, you go back to the main menu and that's it... so contraddicting    Is this game Bad? YES! definitely. I felt so disappointed when I saw that this was another Civilization 5 with new graphic, a stupid techtree and a meaningless Victory.

    They tried to add narration with Quest System, it could work, but why there is no conclusion at the end of the Game? no explanation, no story, nothing, you go back to the main menu and that's it... so contraddicting

    no new mechanics, it is Civilization 5 with new graphic, nothing more.    … Expand
  17. Gamling
    Oct 30, 2014
    4
    Aplha Centauri was a piece of art, this game is unbalanced and there is a mayor lack of story compared. The affinty systems feels interesting but is unfortunately mostly driven by the big wheel of technology which is a mess. There are to many buildings do the same things and no graphics to describe them giving any feeling what you are building. The wonders just feel like a couple of stats.Aplha Centauri was a piece of art, this game is unbalanced and there is a mayor lack of story compared. The affinty systems feels interesting but is unfortunately mostly driven by the big wheel of technology which is a mess. There are to many buildings do the same things and no graphics to describe them giving any feeling what you are building. The wonders just feel like a couple of stats.

    The trade lanes are ridiculously good and you can build 3 per city which have to be reset each 30 turns. So if you have lots of cities you are not doing much else late game.

    In Alpha Centauri it felt like you had the power to change the map and the nature of the new planet here the tile improvements dosnt affect each other at all.

    The jump in strength between the different units are so huge you can´t do anything with your units if they get behind. The alien is somehow boring and easy to handle.

    The one thing that is better than in Civ V is the spying system which is a great improvement which I hope they bring to the main game.    … Expand
  18. Parragu
    Nov 7, 2014
    4
    Lets be frank here Civilization:BE was really a disappointing game. Basically a expensive re-skin of civilization 5 there is no new content. In the beginning it's awesome to see new units, new civs and worlds. But after a few hours of game play, the game becomes uninteresting. Following the same plot every game, along with same quests. This game had the potential to be an awesome game butLets be frank here Civilization:BE was really a disappointing game. Basically a expensive re-skin of civilization 5 there is no new content. In the beginning it's awesome to see new units, new civs and worlds. But after a few hours of game play, the game becomes uninteresting. Following the same plot every game, along with same quests. This game had the potential to be an awesome game but 2k and Firaxsis kinda screwed it up. I feel like this game we a major let down for a Civ player like myself and I would not recommend it to huge Civ fans.… Expand
  19. MrM2014
    Nov 10, 2014
    4
    The core game itself is adequate. It is not anywhere near as complete as Civ V, but is enjoyable enough. The new tech tree does feel genuinely innovative and the alien world very much comes to life. The affinity system also feels fresh and new.

    However, other than this it's really CIv V with a different coat of paint and some things are worse. Trade Routes are a complete nightmare to    The core game itself is adequate. It is not anywhere near as complete as Civ V, but is enjoyable enough. The new tech tree does feel genuinely innovative and the alien world very much comes to life. The affinity system also feels fresh and new.

    However, other than this it's really CIv V with a different coat of paint and some things are worse. Trade Routes are a complete nightmare to micro-manage, and the diplomacy feels very limited.

    Now with all that alone, I would consider giving this a 7. It gets a 4 because this game was released unfinished with insufficient QA. There is a widespread problem preventing users playing full screen when their monitor reports more than 48 resolution/refresh rate combinations available. This is a very simple bug which can be resolved with a Registry Edit, yet after two weeks Firaxis have failed to produce a patch or even any ETC. Secondly, another widely reported bug is a failure to start - I suffer this with AMD Mantle mode despite the supported hardware configuration. As a result I have had to game in a window so far in the standard DX11 mode.

    There's some promise here, but don't buy until the game is on discount and a patch is released. Following this I will not be purchasing any Firaxis game on release again.    … Expand
  20. Dartboard
    Mar 11, 2015
    4
    Feels like a comprehensive mod for Civ V, if anything. The AI is as incompetent as it has ever been, the diplomacy is lacking, and the decisions you make start to have little meaning to you as a player as time goes on. The lack of eras really gives you a feeling of little progression. There is nothing genuinely innovative to this game that keeps you hooked, either. When compared to Civ V +Feels like a comprehensive mod for Civ V, if anything. The AI is as incompetent as it has ever been, the diplomacy is lacking, and the decisions you make start to have little meaning to you as a player as time goes on. The lack of eras really gives you a feeling of little progression. There is nothing genuinely innovative to this game that keeps you hooked, either. When compared to Civ V + expansions, it really pales.… Expand
  21. Harold_Lanchest
    Oct 24, 2014
    4
    The developers got away with Civ 5. Huge slap in the face, which made me abandon the Civ franchise entirely in favor of far better strategy turn based games. I have no idea how they're getting away with Civ 5: the addon standalone.
  22. Raf_KR
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    Graphic 2/5
    There is no info graphic.
    You must read text for getting information.

    Sound 3/5
    Not impressive.

    Gameplay 3/5
    Alien = Kinds of animal.
    limited type of units.
    No different from each civilization.
    Tech tree = sux. confused. meaningless tree.

    Replayable 2/5
    Very little volume.

    Conclusion 2/5
    Don't buy this game.
    Play again Civ5.
  23. ninepax
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    Only 8 civilizations, same engine, same diplomacy, same interface and less options.
    Civ 5 with less options=Beyond Earth.
    I have played Civ 4,Civ 4 BTS and Civ 5. This Civ Beyond Earth is the worst of all.
  24. Trainor
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    The AI in this game needs serious work. Linking your in game Ideology to a Strategic Resource makes the AI impossible to maintain any kind of alliance with. AIs of opposing ideologies hate you for your belief even if they are the other side of the world and AIs of the same belief covet the Strategic Resource linked to your shared beliefs with a Dark and Terrible Lust. Other aspects of theThe AI in this game needs serious work. Linking your in game Ideology to a Strategic Resource makes the AI impossible to maintain any kind of alliance with. AIs of opposing ideologies hate you for your belief even if they are the other side of the world and AIs of the same belief covet the Strategic Resource linked to your shared beliefs with a Dark and Terrible Lust. Other aspects of the game are good but this is making the game extremely frustrating to play, the AI needs to be fixed for me to recommend it.… Expand
  25. Sturmir
    Oct 25, 2014
    4
    Is this game bad? No.

    Does this game disappoint? Certainly. I've been playing Civilization games since the second game came out, and I've played pretty much every strategy game that has been released for English and German. I think I have a pretty good background in the field of strategy games. First: I won't be repeating a lot of what's being said. Second: I actually like this    Is this game bad? No.

    Does this game disappoint? Certainly.

    I've been playing Civilization games since the second game came out, and I've played pretty much every strategy game that has been released for English and German. I think I have a pretty good background in the field of strategy games.

    First: I won't be repeating a lot of what's being said.
    Second: I actually like this game.

    Now, if Civilization Beyond Earth was released without any Hype or expectations I had for it, this game would have been scored higher. It however, has the unfortunate pleasure of being compared to Alpha Centauri and it's expansion pack Alien Crossfire. As the developers noted several times, it was suppose to be a spiritual successor to the game, and repeated the mantra: "We made this for you" (Alpha Centauri fans)

    Unfortunately, with such a huge monolith in the field the game cannot stand a chance.

    The first thing I notice is the technically inferior selection of "sponsors" (factions.) that you have available to you (Compared to the base game of Civilization 5 of 16) - While this may be in more aligned with Alpha Centauri's faction selection and yet further expanded on by minor bonuses you can select upon planetfall, it fails to really touch 1 major problem:

    The fact is that the factions in Alpha Centauri were massively developed. They had unique story elements, unique faction dialogue and communications and a plot. The figurehead in Civilization Beyond Earth have snippets of information included in the loading screen showing the leaders outlook of the pre-planetfall situation which can be summed to the same 2 sentences about how all hope was lost, or that they are more ambitious than the rest and going to claim the galaxy for themselves. The ruler themselves and the faction they represent aren't unique in the slightest. They feel exactly the same, look exactly the same, and do everything exactly the same
    . At the moment of writing this I have 30 hours into this game and have played four games (all massive, all standard) which I purposely chose a new path each time. They were the same exercises in the limitations of terrain and the reduction of strategy.

    Which leads me to this point: I created an account here on metacritic, because I am fed up with this simplification mantra and the dumbing down of strategy games.

    Just a few things that this game is lacking from it's precursor:

    Weather effects
    Alterable terrain (raising and lowering it.)
    Water Cities
    Customizable units (and selecting units in a tier does not count as customization any more than selecting two different pieces of bread counts as making a new sandwich.)
    Interesting story elements (while I admit the quest system has a lot going for it, its exactly the same copy/paste material for each faction sprinkled oh-so-lightly with flavour.)
    Mindworms, Oh god the mindworms. - Aliens are about as much of a threat on frenzied aliens as the faction AI. That isn't a compliment.
    Effective strategy elements - 1UP Tile thing, Okay I get it, but Alpha Centauri solved the massive wave of death via Collateral damage. Should take a lesson.
    Massive map and strategy - I hate the fact that if I spend 18 hours on a game, and finally take the entire continent, my continent has about 30 cities. That may seem like a lot, and if you go by the tedious ****ing micromanagement of continually selecting the same traderoutes again and re-agreeing to deals that should just auto-continue indefinitely unless interrupted (or give me a prompt: "Do you wish to continue doing the same thing?") A hint to the developers - Shrink the cities, make them a bit more dynamic and interesting, increase the map size by about half again. Your 1UP Tile system might actually work then.
    Multiplayer that worked - At the time of writing this my friends and I have experienced 18 disconnects, over 8 crashes (seemingly at random.) and ungodly amounts of out of sync issues when doing things like launching a satellite.

    Now, there is a lot of things I do enjoy with this game. I enjoy the satellites, I enjoy the covert op (which is currently broken for it's ability to capture 6 cities at once, every 30~ odd turns if you focus it, and the AI functions like the lemming it seems to wish to represent.) I enjoy the purity/harmony/supremacy hooks. I enjoy this game.

    I do not enjoy what they squandered with the chance to deliver a real strategy game, with depth and choice.

    I'm sure after they've released 8 DLC sponsor packs, and 2 more expansions, this game might be worth buying. I know you will buy it but if you can, wait until it goes on sale. If you can't wait you know it'll be a long term investment towards a game; the real content will be released for the low-low price of 90$ over a period of 3 years. Sit back and wait for the next round of content.

    Thanks for reading this, and if you don't agree with this, well... there isn't accounting for taste.

    Final Verdict: Go play Alpha Centauri and wait for the DLCs.    … Expand
  26. kacperf10
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    While I hate this game, I certainly can see people enjoying it. If you've liked playing Civ V on lower ( by lower I mean lower than 6) difficulties, if you aren't look for challenge, but for simple empire building&wars winning game-CBE is for you. For me AI is completely ruining gaming experience. I'm sick of catching up on tech with completely over-buffed AI and on the end demolishingWhile I hate this game, I certainly can see people enjoying it. If you've liked playing Civ V on lower ( by lower I mean lower than 6) difficulties, if you aren't look for challenge, but for simple empire building&wars winning game-CBE is for you. For me AI is completely ruining gaming experience. I'm sick of catching up on tech with completely over-buffed AI and on the end demolishing there endless armies using couple of ranged units and city to defend.… Expand
  27. MogRules
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    This ladies and gentleman is another reason why we should not be pre-ordering or paying for games until they are released. I really had high hopes for this as I loved Civ 5 and didn't even get into the franchise until just before the last Civ 5 expansion.

    I wanted to like this, I really did despite early doomsday predictions saying that this was just a reskin of Civ 5 and it was going    This ladies and gentleman is another reason why we should not be pre-ordering or paying for games until they are released. I really had high hopes for this as I loved Civ 5 and didn't even get into the franchise until just before the last Civ 5 expansion.

    I wanted to like this, I really did despite early doomsday predictions saying that this was just a reskin of Civ 5 and it was going to be horrible. Does anyone remember the fallout from Battlefield 4? and all the people calling it Batlefield 3.5? Well apparently Firaxis and 2k didn't see any of that because they have gloriously recreated all of that here.

    Where do we start? Well the game is marketed as a new Civ game at the full $50 price tag for us here in Canada and as such you would expect just that....a new game, not a game that looks visually worse and uses most of the same concepts and ideas from Civ 5 and simply calls them something else...such as the health system.

    The first thing I noticed when I loaded up my first game was even the loading screen looks terrible...you are greeted to a galactic background with some horrible looking text that looks like it was thrown together in notepad at the last second. There is no voice overs, nothing to welcome you to your civilization and nothing that gets you excited. This isn't the only thing that they have eliminated the voices from, they also all but axed the voices when you completed a tech. Instead of a nice detail and quite following the tech you completed you get a generic "you completed X" and that's it.....

    The new research "web" is cumbersome and hard to navigate and generally a step back IMO. Yes, it does offer you some customization not available in Civ 5 but it looks terrible.

    The Graphics in BE are quite honestly just bad compared to the way things looked in Civ 5, and everything looks like an older game, not something new. Most of the terrains blend together and the gas is hard to see so you better hope you can notice your units taking damage and not rely on being able to see the gas on the map.

    All in all this is Civ, but it is NOT a new game in any way shape of form and you are basically paying a new game price for a re-skin or DLC pack for Civ 5 with less units and the same AI from the previous iteration. Even the text the AI uses is copy pasted from Civ 5 into BE when your talking to them...like how lazy do you need to be.

    Basically DON'T BUY THIS GAME. If we continue to support this crap then game companies will just keep trying to hawk it on us.    … Expand
  28. Setari
    Oct 26, 2014
    4
    This gets a 5/10 from me, because it is legitimately borked. The beginner difficulty has enemies attacking you, and the game does not do a good job of explaining what's new in the game.

    I guess I expected too much from Sid Meier in the way of a tutorial, showing what's new from Civ5. It took me forever to figure out how to get the Covert Ops units, much less these tanks and aerial units    This gets a 5/10 from me, because it is legitimately borked. The beginner difficulty has enemies attacking you, and the game does not do a good job of explaining what's new in the game.

    I guess I expected too much from Sid Meier in the way of a tutorial, showing what's new from Civ5. It took me forever to figure out how to get the Covert Ops units, much less these tanks and aerial units that the AI are using that I can't even figure out how to get, since I've searched all over the tech tree.

    Actually upon further review I am lowering this to 4/10.    … Expand
  29. AddictivKaos
    Oct 27, 2014
    4
    Started playing it with music on and it was atmospheric and I had hope it would be a good game, but as the game went on I was playing without the music and the core game play is just stale and boring. I had hoped they'd improved Civ5 or at least made a different game, but it is just an overhyped and overpriced mod. Anyone paying full price (or the Australia tax) - get a refund!
  30. Raziel92
    Oct 27, 2014
    4
    >> I'd just like to say that this isn't a review from an angry Alpha Centauri fan - I never played that game so I'm not comparing Beyond Earth against it.
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Awards & Rankings

57
#57 Best PC Game of 2014
21
#21 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
4
#4 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 78 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 78
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 78
  3. Negative: 1 out of 78
  1. CD-Action
    Jan 9, 2015
    90
    Cancel all your plans and fill up the fridge, because once you launch Beyond Earth you will not want to leave your home. [13/2014, p.46]
  2. Worth Playing
    Dec 23, 2014
    85
    Passive AI and lackluster online support from the community isn't enough to make Civilization: Beyond Earth a total wash. If you've enjoyed the series over the years, you'll likely spend many hours with this entry as well.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Dec 21, 2014
    80
    Prepare for tech tree troubles, but the amount to discover and overall quality wins out. [Christmas 2014, p.64]
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