Genre: 4x Strategy
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games

Beyond Earth very obviously uses the same engine as Civilization V, and it also seems as if the exact same artists were involved, to the point where the game looks more like a total conversion than a brand new title. Problematically, and just like Civ V, Beyond Earth's heavily anti-aliased and clean look is very generic; it's not an ugly game by any means, but it does want for character.

A glance at the game's credits reveal that a plethora of composers were involved on the project, but it's not apparent that they've produced much of note-- it's difficult to recall any of the game's tunes even while listening to them! The sound effects, which mostly trigger via UI elements, are of the typical science-fiction "bleep bloop" variety.

Beyond Earth takes the mechanics straight from Civ V and its various expansions and essentially remixes them, sometimes simply swapping icons-- gold is now "energy"-- while other times changing how they work, such as the tech tree, which is now totally non-linear. While the mechanics feel obviously familiar, enough has changed to make the gameplay feel fresh too.

It's almost not an exaggeration to say that Beyond Earth is to Civ V what Doom II was to Doom; in this case, swap out some tile graphics, change the mouse cursor, make some new menu borders, and call it a day! The only truly new mechanic-- and it's a neat one in theory-- is "Affinity", but it's horribly underutilized and doesn't result in meaningful differences in civilization appearance until the late game. All in all, aping the very solid Civ V is not a bad thing, but some opportunities were clearly missed with this title as well.