It boggles me why Civ: BE sits at mixed reviews. I guess the core Civ audience is all about history and realism, which is fair enough. But as a sci-fi fan, I spent many happy hours with this one, and playing it now with the added content — the game still feels great. A sequel would be nice.

Our collective space-race attitude have changed a lot since the game released. The tech evolved, the ideas and goals evolved (degraded, rather) too. We have celebs in space now, Moon colonization became more clearly outlined, and our overall space knowledge has doubled — maybe tripled.

I can easily imagine some great new Sponsors based on our current societal landscape:
- a Musk-like power-obsessed crazy idiot (Techno-Messianic Oligarch)
- a Bezos-like ruthless, money-fixated bully (Hyper-Capitalist)
- an AI-led expedition (Algorithmic Technocracy)
- good-guy environmental bloc; underfunded and destined to fail (Climate Survival Collective)
- a Jared Isaacman–based charismatic reformer with real ideals but operating on a government leash (Benevolent Proxy)
- a Trump-based sponsor fueled by nationalism, money, and dumb impulse that sacrifices both resources and people to reach the goal (Populist Expansionist)
- and of course a paranoid autocrat obsessed with control and an invented “legacy” who lands and immediately starts the first space war. Surely I don’t need to name who this Sponsor is based off — let’s call them something like the Legacy State.

I could go on like this forever, because the current geopolitical scene basically writes the story itself. Let’s do it, Firaxis. Give me a call — we’ll figure out a deal.

I barely managed to put together this provisional review, because it’s really hard to look at Expedition 33 as a product. It’s an experience — one that I’m not sure can be compared to anything else. And I’m only a handful of hours in. I’ve barely seen anything. I don’t even really know what’s going on.

But I’m so obsessed, so touched, and so inspired that I needed to express it. I find myself frantically googling the names of the devs, their backgrounds — anything that can anchor me and steady my disturbed thoughts. Things are truly, groundbreakingly different with this one. Expedition 33 feels entirely new. It’s like you’re playing a game from a different timeline, where the whole industry evolved along a different path.

Obsessed.

I’m obsessed with the devs. I’m obsessed with Charlie Cox dropping in for eight hours of recording and delivering a performance that now rivals giants like Neil Newbon and Troy Baker. I’m obsessed with that seemingly random composer who just exploded with ideas on the spot and supplied Expedition 33 with nothing short of a magical soundtrack. The deeper I dig, the less realistic all of this seems — because so many different pieces had to align for this game to become what it is. And when I think about it for too long, I get scared, in the same way I do when I try to imagine what the edge of the universe looks like.

And yeah, I’m not saying we don’t get magical moments like these in gaming anymore. I was similarly stunned during the Raphael fight in Baldur’s Gate 3, accompanied by a song sung by Raphael himself, intimidating the living ♥♥♥♥ out of me. I still get chills thinking about it. Now imagine that feeling of “♥♥♥♥, this is something else” — that brief loss of connection to reality when immersion peaks — but stretched over hours. That’s the feeling you get throughout the playthrough.

I’ll update this review with some actual reviewing at some point.