Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Mild overall intensity
Highest flag: Animal combat — combat mechanic
Sci-fiStrategy

What's in it

Violence cartoon/stylized
Low

The player commands military units to attack rival factions and alien creatures from a zoomed-out strategic map; combat resolves as unit-versus-unit with no blood, visible wounds or gore.

Dark themes mild
Low

The setting's premise is that Earth was rendered uninhabitable by a catastrophe called 'the Great Mistake'; this is stated in backstory and flavor text and is not depicted on screen.

Animal combat combat mechanic
Low

The planet's native alien wildlife can be fought and killed by the player's units as ordinary strategy gameplay, with no graphic detail.

Who can reach your kid

What it is

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth is a turn-based science-fiction strategy game in which the player leads an expedition that colonizes an alien planet after Earth becomes uninhabitable. Played from a distant top-down view on a hex grid, it centers on founding cities, researching a branching 'tech web', pursuing one of three 'affinity' philosophies, and expanding across the map. Conflict is handled as abstract unit-versus-unit combat against rival human factions and hostile alien wildlife, with no blood, gore, or on-screen injury. There is no sexual content, nudity, profanity, substances, or gambling, and the game has no in-app purchases.

How it's framed

The game frames its content through the lens of grand strategy and philosophical choice rather than personal drama: warfare is one path among several to victory, alongside diplomacy, cultural growth, and contacting an alien intelligence. Its distressing element—a ruined Earth left behind—is presented as narrative setup and motivation for building a new future, not something shown or dwelt on. The three affinities frame differing attitudes toward the alien world and technology as strategic and ideological choices, without endorsing any one as correct.

Details

Developer
Firaxis Games
Publisher
2K
Released
Oct 23, 2014
Metacritic 81critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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