The Aspyr Media developers are closing in on the launch date

Oct 21, 2014 16:48 GMT  ·  By

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, the next game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis and ported for Linux and Mac OS X by Aspyr Media, will be made available for the two platforms this holiday season.

Linux users already knew that Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth would be landing eventually on their platform as well, but there was no proposed date. The truth of the matter is that there still is no date this title, but at least now we have a time frame, and that's this holiday season.

Steam for Windows will get the latest Civilization game this Friday, on October 24. The fact that the Linux and Mac OS X versions don't share the same release date with the Windows iteration is not a bad thing, because Firaxis will most likely get a few patches in before the other platforms are blessed with the presence of Beyond Earth.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth will take Steam by storm

Civilization V is one of the most played games on Steam and it’s remained in the top ten for a long time. It's been out for couple of years already and there is no indication that it has lost any of its followers. The only other game that can replace it is another title in the same series, and that will most likely be Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth.

"Aspyr Media, in partnership with 2K and Firaxis Games, announced today that Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond EarthTM will be launching on Steam for both Mac and Linux and on Apple's Mac App Store this holiday season. Mac and Linux users may pre-order a Steam code for the title at Aspyr's online store GameAgent.com. All GameAgent pre-orders will include the Exoplanets Map Pack as a free bonus."

"Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth for Mac and Linux will retain the same features and gameplay as the Windows PC version, while also offering cross-platform multiplayer via Steam," say the guys from Aspyr Media on the official website.

Unfortunately, it's not all good news, but the bad news is not that terrible. First of all, users won't be able to preload the game before the actual launch, but that's a minor issue. Another problem might be the different speeds of the versions for different platforms. It's possible that it will take some time until a patch released for Windows is implemented for Mac OS X and Linux, which would make the multiplayer function unusable.

We'll keep you apprised with any new information about the precise launch date and, in the meantime, we'll look at the Windows gamers for entertainment.