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