Choose Your Own Spaceship - 50 Mins Of Civ: Beyond Earth

It hasn't quite struck home for me yet that Civilization: Beyond Earth is only two months away, but this video helps. It's 50 minutes of lead designers Pete Murray and David McDonough playing and talking through civilization creation at the start of the spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri: selecting the sponsors who can fund and define your reason for travelling to the stars, the spaceship you're flying upon, the cargo you can put onboard, and how those choice and more can affect the faction you end up playing as when the game begins proper.

I love that Firaxis are putting the energy into making these pre-game choices interesting and powerful. I've recently been playing King of Dragon Pass (which is not well optimised for Android, unfortunately) which does similar things with barbarian tribes. Those early choices can be a quick route to feeling invested in your side in strategy games that otherwise take a long time to play.

Civilization Beyond Earth is due out on October 24th. You can read Adam's promising hands on with the game, or his profile of the company behind it, Firaxis.

Thanks, PCGamesN.