Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide Review (PC)

Rising Tide for Civilization: Beyond Earth is the first expansion that developer Firaxis is delivering for its spin-off from the classic turn-based strategy title, clearly designed to address some of the criticism that fans have leveled at the experience since it was launched last year.

Gamers need to know straight up that the new features do not make the game the successor to Alpha Centauri, the Brian Reynolds classic, that many expect it to be, although there are some interesting mechanics to explore and enjoy.

Story

Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide once again invites players to take on the herculean task of creating a successful human (or not) presence on an alien planet, with four new sponsors joining the initial eight, coming in via a spaceship that refuses to communicate with the factions that have already landed.

The most interesting of the bunch is the North Sea Alliance, as led by Duncan Hughes, which can take advantage of the focus on the sea that sits at the center of the expansion, but the others also offer interesting bonuses and strategies.

Chungsu loves covert operations, INTEGR aims to make diplomacy its advantage, and Al Galh gets extra city bonuses and each of them has more actual personality than the factions that were part of Beyond Earth.

Unfortunately, the Firaxis team fails to make the universe of the new Civilization title feel different from the core series, and that means I never cared about the narrative bits that the studio inserts, from the flavor text associated with the tech advances to the quests that power much of the actual story.

The old Alpha Centauri managed to make the alien planet a character in itself and even introduced two factions that were non-human in its own expansion and that makes Rising Tide feel limited despite the new elements it delivers.

Gameplay

Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide keeps the core elements of the series, with its turn-based strategy genre affiliation, and adds a range of new systems that manage to introduce extra variety and some complex decisions.

The biggest change is the fact that the ocean is now as important as a land when it comes to colony development and resource exploitation.

Some factions are better suited to live on water than others when Rising Tide starts, but after a while anyone can try to put a city down on the water, which comes with some unique opportunities and challenges.

The Culture-based border expansion is gone here, with gamers asked to instead move their cities, at a glacial pace, to access new resources and maybe to get away from dangerous spots.

Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide development time

The aliens lurking in the water also seem more powerful in the early game, and the resources tend to be more clustered than on land.

There are also new buildings exclusive to water cities and some have been restricted only to cities that sit on the soil of the new planet, although they do not make a huge difference in terms of gameplay.

Rising Tide also reworks the diplomatic system for Civilization: Beyond Earth, building a new set of mechanics around a new Diplomatic Capital resource, which can be used to add some extra traits to a faction but also to deal with the others that have landed on the planet.

The classic freeform trading of resources and treaties is gone, and Firaxis introduces a much more rigid system built on fear and respect, affected by the philosophies and the actions of each of the civilizations.

Gamers can use their Diplomatic Capital to change their stance towards rivals, either moving towards war with them or towards alliance, or they can propose some deals, which offer benefits to both the included sides and are linked to the traits of each faction.

“The system seems weird, but after a while the extra structure seems like a good fit to the narrative of Rising Tide, which makes it clear that despite their shared initial humanity, the factions are very different and need to formalize their relations.”

The Rising Tide expansion also tweaks the Affinity system, allowing gamers to create some hybrids that come with their own special units, and a new Artifact category can be used to unlock unique buildings, which add some variety to the campaign.

Marvels have been added for each biome and the ocean, powering a range of extensive quests with some solid rewards, and gamers get the option to leash alien units under some conditions to get them to fight for their factions, something that should have been part of the initial Beyond Earth release.

I like the way the expansion manages to make the entire ocean feel alive, filled with opportunities to expand and gain that extra power required to take down a stubborn enemy faction or to reach for a victory condition that seemed to be out of reach.

The extra gameplay options and choices are solid, although diplomacy will be unappealing to a lot of gamers, and Rising Tide manages to make the new Civilization feel new even for those who have mastered the initial Beyond Earth features.

Graphics and audio

Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide comes with some visual updates when compared to the original release but the game also has to populate the entire ocean with settlements, resources and units, which means that most PCs will be taxed more.

The Firaxis title looks good both up close and personal and from the farthest zoom position, allowing gamers to either get a clear look at their strategic position or to see their workers and soldiers as they explore the planet and deal with enemy forces.

Weirdly, it's still impossible to zoom out entirely when in the tech three, which means that gamers will only have a full image of it by constantly moving around the edges, and the entire diplomacy interface is redone and might be a little confusing at first.

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Firaxis has introduced a new layer of help for the Rising Tide expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth in order to help everyone learn the entirely new features, and it's a good idea to have it active in the upper right corner for a few campaigns because it makes it clear how gamers need to deal with the interface to tweak the new options they have for their faction.

The music of the strategy title manages to give the alien planets that are explored a certain majesty and nicely underlines the moments when the player is either on the cusp of victory or defeat, but the voice work is very limited, and the various civilizations have a very limited range of verbal expressions to share.

Multiplayer

Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide allows gamers to play the classic hotseat experience on one machine or matches that involved multiple computers, either online or locally.

Given the genre, those who aim to play with friends should be aware of the time commitment that the experience involves and then plan accordingly.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion