Back into the stars
Once you go Beyond Earth, the only sensible place to go next is Beyond the Stars. And how are you gonna get there? Damn straight, you'll hop aboard Sid Meier's Starships - the new downloadable game from Firaxis, planned for release on PC, Mac, and iPad in early 2015.
As you may have guessed, Starships disembarks from Civilization: Beyond Earth, taking place after the extraterrestrial colonies reach a new age of prosperity and look back toward the stars for their next adventure - and to reconnect with their fellow Earthling emigrants.
Players are cast as fleet commanders responsible for building their own planetary federations through research, expansion, and turn-based space combat. Players will be able to customize their fleet's ships as they explore a new galaxy in each campaign, and test their might in dynamically generated combat missions. Beyond Earth players will be pleased to find that each game 'enhances and expands' the other with some sort of unspecified cross-connectivity.
The focus on massive fleets is pretty militaristic, but it sounds like players will still be able to use diplomacy to exert their will across the galaxy. They'll just do it from the helm of a badass starship. Speaking of which, click on for some more screenshots of badass starships.
Shifting asteroid fields are the worst.
"Full power to Cool Ice Spearmint beams!" "Beams at peak freshness, sir!"
All of space is yours. Now you just have to figure out what to do with it.
