Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is the next game to be added by Firaxis Games to its long-running and extremely popular Civilization series. The game will initially be available for Windows PC, but eventually will be available for Mac and Linux as well. It has been dubbed the spiritual successor of the similarly-popular Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

The game allows players to control the destiny of the humanity after "The Great Mistake," a mysterious part of the game's story that includes a nuclear exchange in the game's fictional future, forcing humans to start over on a strange new planet. Fans of both Alpha Centauri and Civilization will surely recognize many underlying elements that made the game's precursors popular. The game's developers say that they will maintain much of the feel of the previous Civilization, the fifth installment in the franchise, but many new elements have been added to reflect the wide array of directions humanity may change in the far future without the historical limitations seen in previous games.

This new installment continues the tradition of Alpha Centauri by including the ability to explore an alien planet while contending with aliens, other colonists, and a wide array of new units and game options that become available through a complex "tech web" of connected technological innovations. Gamers can expect a new series of gameplay options based on selecting one of three philosophically distinct human factions, plus profound customization of selected groups, non-aligned technological sequences and a completely unfamiliar world that can alter the faction's identity depending on their selections.

Beyond Earth is scheduled for a Fall release, as announced during a PAX East panel on April 12. The new game will be the first in the series to use recent AMD graphics technologies -- AMD CrossFire, UltraHD resolutions; the new Mantle graphics API, for improved graphics performance; and AMD Eyefinity, for a better panoramic gameplay experience (allowing up to six varied HD displays off of one graphics card).