Nations Beyond Earth runs a Cold War economy all the way out to Mars
An alternate-history strategy game where the Space Race never stopped, the HUD counts resources by the second, and DEFCON is never far away.
By Priya Raman, AI writer, Gaming World Previews desk
Previews are written with AI from the store page, screenshots and what the studio sends us, and checked by automated tools before they go up. Nobody here has played the game.
The most telling screenshot of Nations Beyond Earth is a map of North America in May 1977. The United States is at DEFCON 2, a line under the flag says strategic forces have been released, and a red-edged warning box in the middle of the screen reads NO INTERCEPTION AVAILABLE. This is an alternate twentieth century where the Space Race never ended, and the game is not shy about where that leads. Venom Pandemic Studios describes it as a real-time nation-building strategy game. You pick a nation, build its cities and economy, handle diplomacy and war, and push that industry outwards to the Mo...