Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth Critic Reviews

Beyond Earth is the finest thing that Firaxis has made and a game that we suspect we'll be playing for a long time to come.

Beyond Earth is Civilization V with a new souls. It delivers a bright, perhaps too optimistic view of the future, but its great design will set the goalpost for 4X in the years to come.

This is a must play for strategy fans, and if you’ve always been curious about the genre but never jumped in, your opportunity is here.

The Civilization pedigree holds a lot of weight after all these years, and Beyond Earth more than lives up to its name.

This is a work of speculative fiction that allows the player to speculate for themselves, starting from a similar place each time but potentially reaching vastly different conclusions. It’s also a tightly-designed, well-balanced 4X game that is sure to consume many gamers’ free time in the coming months and years.

Another success in the line of Civ games. It does a good job of setting the scene and taking the player along on a story of hope, struggle and triumph.

Packed with big ideas about science and science fiction, it meticulously interlocks dozens of strategic gaming systems that work together at a level that approaches genius.

I can't remember when I last enjoyed a Civilization game as much as I have enjoyed Beyond Earth. I'm itching to jump on it again, raise the difficulty a notch or two, and see how fast my plans go down the toilet as I try to mount a panic-stricken comeback. It's an excellent strategy game, and despite minor problems it deserves a warm recommendation.

This is a great 4X title that leaves little to be desired. You really feel the decades of experience behind Beyond Earth.

While the visual and stylistic choices may not prove to be to everyone’s tastes, there is plenty of both new and familiar to satisfy anyone willing to hop on aboard and see where Beyond Earth is able to take you.

It brings a solid experience, with lots of possibilities and a new environment that makes it feel classic but fresh at the same time.

This is the bag of potato chips for turn based strategists: Once you start, you cannot stop. With aliens, satellites, xeno mass and all the other futuristic flair it not only plays distinctively differently, but culture, ideology, affinities and research are exceptionally connected. You can look forward to a sleepless fall and winter.

The final result is a brilliant alteration of an old friend, shining a new light on a proven structure.

Aims for the stars and reaches them.

Civilization: Beyond Earth takes the best that Civ V had to offer and liberates it from the baggage of history repeating.

Almost perfect 4X fun.

Cancel all your plans and fill up the fridge, because once you launch Beyond Earth you will not want to leave your home.

Quotation forthcoming.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is Civilization V with planetary colonization theme and minor differences. It's a great game, but a great game well known.

As first impressions go, Civilization Beyond Earth makes a staggeringly poor one. After a few games -- after you get your head around the affinities and the tech web and the dos and donts of living on an alien planet -- it becomes a gorgeous and engaging, if not revolutionary, 4X game.