2K and Firaxis have announced Rising Tide, an expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth – effectively making this an expansion of an expansion pretending to be a full release. If that's too much to remember, then the new set of features promised by Rising Tide may be more ingrained into your memory thanks to partly being lifted from its predecessor, Alpha Centauri.
- Building floating settlements and accessing natural resources hidden beneath the seas of the alien planet, while alien beasts with unique abilities inhabit the water and challenge players in distinctive ways;
- Shaping the diplomatic landscape by upgrading traits, changing diplomatic relationships, and leveraging the benefits of your allies, all with political capital;
- Unlocking a dynamic set of Diplomatic Traits while activating different combinations in response to the changing world;
- Playing as one of four new factions, including the Al Falah, a group of nomad explorers descended from wealthy and resilient Middle Eastern states;
- Investing in multiple Affinities to unlock hybrid Affinity units and upgrades for the first time;
- Collecting and combining alien relics via a new Artifact System that unlocks powerful benefits;
- Exploring one of two new biomes, Primordial world, an untamed biome rife with volcanic activity and indicative of a chaotic landscape still forming in the new world.
It's not clear yet whether Rising Tide will add the much needed variety to Beyond Earth but everyone loves a floating city and a reworked diplomacy system sounds promising. Apart from the features above we don't know much about Rising Tide but we do know that it's coming for PC in fall (that's autumn, for us non-colonially challenged folks) 2015 and will cost £19.99. At least there's that, uh... shapely box art to enjoy in the meantime.
