Stars Beyond Reach - First Gameplay Sneak Peek

Stars Beyond Reach is Arcen Games's first true 4X title, taking place on a hostile world where you are the newcomer and you have to find your way among the 13 other established races that already live there. Unfortunately you can't speak to any of them except with some rough guesswork, so you'd better get your linguists on that.

SBR is unique in its approach to combat, eschewing the typical "units on tiles" model and instead using a completely "buildings on tiles" approach. A number of inspirations from the citybuilding genre are carried into this title, making the management of your own empire something that is robust and interesting even before you (inevitably) make first contact with potential allies or enemies.

SBR is also unique in how it approaches the question of victory. Many 4X games have multiple victory conditions, but SBR has a hybrid set of victory conditions: you can "dominate" each alien race militarily, diplomatically, economically, intellectually, or via entertainment or espionage. Once you have dominated all surviving races via any of those 6 categories, you win the game.

And yet! There are four other victory paths that have nothing to do with the other races at all. Sure, they'll be friends or foes as you work toward these special endgames... but in these endgames, it is the planet itself that is your chief enemy.

Stars Beyond Reach will be entering a private beta soon, and is planned for a June 5th release on Steam other major PC, Mac, and Linux storefronts.

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