Civ: Beyond Earth Follow-Up; Starships Announced

Back in October 2014 I gave my opinion on the upcoming (at the time) video game Civilization: Beyond Earth. Having been a fan of the Civilization series for many years I was really looking forward to the sci-fi focused version that Beyond Earth promised. Unfortunately, I found myself a little disappointed with the final product. The game wasn't bad, and had a lot of good features (like auto-upgrades for units), but it was a bit boring to play.

I'm not sure why it was I lost interest so fast, but something seemed to be lacking in Beyond Earth that was present in the games that preceded it. Civilization V, even years later, is still a fun game to play. Maybe the sense of struggle for supremacy, be it cultural, scientific, or military, felt more intense in Civ V than it did in Beyond Earth. I can't say for sure. I just know that for me, Beyond Earth, fell flat.

A new Sid Meier game was recently announced: Starships.

Starships is a sequel yet not a sequel to Beyond Earth. The story of the game picks up at the end of Beyond Earth and takes it into the stars. The overall goal of the game appears to be to build an interstellar civilization, which is pretty cool in principle. I love interstellar empire-building, but I have some concerns about Starships: 1) There are already a million other games that do this, and the previews I've seen don't seem to add anything new to the genre, and 2) Beyond Earth was so lackluster I'm worried that maybe Starships will be the same. I sincerely hope not, but I can't say my hopes are up.