2K Games and Firaxis have announced the release date for Civilization: Beyond Earth, which will hit PCs on October 24, 2014.
Beyond Earth Joins Release-Heavy October: See Which Big Games Are Coming Out That Month
The highly-anticipated spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri will release worldwide on that date, bringing fans of the famous historical strategy series into a futuristic space setting. Humans have fled Earth in search of a new home, and the game takes place on an alien planet, a definite departure from the traditional Civilization experience.
Anyone who pre-orders the game from participating retailers will receive the Exoplanets Map Pack at launch, which includes six custom maps inspired by real exoplanets. The developers have also released a new narrated gameplay walkthrough video, below, and a behind the scenes look at the development process.
Watch This Perfect Fan Remake Of Beyond Earth Trailer Set To 'The Final Countdown'
Following the game's unveiling, Firaxis vaguely described the events that caused humanity to leave Earth in search of a new home, but are forcing players to use a little imagination to decide exactly what happened.
"The state of Earth a couple hundred years from now becomes rather dire," lead designer Anton Strenger told Polygon in April. "There's a series of events which we call The Great Mistake."
"Internally, we've written out exactly what those events are, but for the player, we're leaving it vague and allowing their imagination to fill the gaps," Strenger said.
"We don't take such a strong stance on narrative for the game because we want this to be a really repayable experience, a really customizable experience," he said. "A lot of the gameplay systems we're putting in really address that. We came up with, as designers, this geopolitical series of cataclysmic events," he said. "There's a nuclear exchange that a lot of nations fell under."
