New games: Pax Nova takes the Civ 4X formula interplanetary

There are few games that encourage the ‘one more turn’ compulsion better than the Civilization series, and it’s small wonder that it’s inspired many similar titles. But the Civilization games have remained fairly earthbound (even with a brief detour to another planet in Beyond Earth).

Pax Nova, which enters Steam’s early access program later this year, wants to expand the tried-and-true Civ-style 4X formula beyond single planets.
Pax Nova takes the hex-based planetary conquest model established in Civilization and lets players work out how to dominate alien planets after the Earth is abandoned due to years of pollution and war. Humanity is invited into deep space by a signal coming from the Eos system, which is where you’ll be spending your time, playing as one of three races.

But you aren’t confined to a single planet in Pax Nova. Instead, the turn-based 4X system extends to interstellar space in Eos, and you’ll be managing fleets and colonizing new worlds while you take care of building cities and researching new technology down on the surface.

Here’s the teaser trailer:

Portuguese developers Grey Wolf Entertainment have some experience with sci-fi 4X games – their Dawn of Andromeda launched last year. They’re publishing Pax Nova with Iceberg Interactive, which has a fairly sizable stable of quality 4X titles (and other space games, like Shortest Trip to Earth, which traumatized Rachel with some unpleasant similarities to the Donner Party).
(While we’re here, be sure to check out our full list of exciting upcoming PC games.)

Pax Nova will be available on Steam when it enters early access in December. Having been let down a bit by Beyond Earth, I’ll be looking forward to seeing if it’ll scratch that lingering Alpha Centauri itch that I’ve had lingering for lo these many years.