Firaxis announces Civilization: Beyond Earth

If you were worried that legendary game developer Sid Meier wouldn’t get his chance to make a new Alpha Centauri, it’s time to put those fears to bed. Civilization: Beyond Earth is coming this fall, and, as the name suggests, it takes the venerable PC strategy series to the stars. As Rock, Paper, Shotgun tells it, publisher Electronic Arts still holds the rights to the Alpha Centauri name, so this is developer Firaxis’ effort at a sequel, sans the actual title.

This is news worth working on a weekend for. Firaxis have announced Civilization: Beyond Earth, a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri. There’s an announcement trailer below, which doesn’t show any of the game but does set the scene. (The scene is of me, rubbing my thighs at all the spaceships). Also, it’s due out this “Fall/Autumn” which i) is not far away at all and ii) it’s nice that they wrote both Fall and Autumn because it makes me feel included as a non-American. Firaxis released Alpha Centauri in 1999 as a spin-off from the Civilization series, putting a scifi bent on the 4X formula. It was and is beloved, but the rights remain with the game’s original publisher, Electronic Arts. Beyond Earth is Firaxis’ attempt to re-capture the original, only without the name.