General
Beyond Astra is a real-time 4X sci-fi grand strategy game. Expand your own civilization, explore captivating and mysterious planets and star clusters, interact with your citizens and other life forms and shape your destiny through nearly infinite possibilities.
TAGS: 4X, Grand Strategy, Real Time Strategy, City Builder, Active Pause, Solo player.
All tests have not yet been carried out, but the current minimum and recommended configurations are as follows:
MINIMUM
Operating System: Windows® 10 – 64 Bits
Processor : 4-core Processor (Intel® Core™ i5 5th-generation or AMD® Ryzen™ 2×00 series)
Memory: 8 GB
Graphics: 4GB+ VRAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 or AMD® Radeon™ RX-460)
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 15 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 Compatible Sound Card
RECOMMENDED
OS: Windows® 10 – 64 Bits
Processor: 8-core Processor (Intel® Core™ i7 8th-generation or AMD® Ryzen™ 3×00 series)
Memory: 16 GB
Graphics: 6GB+ VRAM (Nvidia® GeForce® 1060 or AMD® Radeon™ 580)
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 15 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 Compatible Sound Card
Additional Notes: Mouse with Wheel, Keyboard and Speakers recommanded.
Beyond Astra is propulsed with Unreal Engine.
Demo
We have not planned to restrict access to the demo at the moment. It will likely be removed when the Beta is launched.
No! The spaceships will have access to pathfinding and will be able to perform orbital maneuvers, as well as use gravity to carry out interstellar travel.
That’s normal! Units can be garrisoned in the city. You can select your city (left-click), access the garrison menu (bottom tab), then select units from the garrison at the top, and finally right-click outside the city to move the units there.
That’s normal. When you want to land a unit, you need to choose the right spot: an area without oceans, rocks, or other obstacles. It’s best to aim for a grassy area.
The laboratory, like all other buildings, requires resources and manpower. If your population has declined too much, or if you aren’t producing enough resources like energy, your buildings won’t be able to produce resources, provide services, or, in the case of the laboratory, conduct research. Use the city’s Districts tab to see your buildings’ requirements.
Gameplay
The game is fully in real-time with active pause. You can reduce or increase the speed of the game and also pause it to have time to make decisions.
Mod support is something we’re definitely interested in, and it will likely be part of a free update after the game’s release. We’d love to see what kind of mods players come up with!
While Beyond Astra is currently focused on a single-player experience, we know multiplayer and co-op modes would be awesome. It’s something we’re considering for the future, but for now and the launch of the game, we’re focused on delivering the best possible solo experience, with reliable allies and challenging adversary AI civilizations. We’ll definitely keep the community updated if that changes!
As it stands, we’re satisfied with the direction the strategic aspect of the final version is taking, and no matter what, we love the idea of letting each player imagine and create their own stories.
At the same time, we’re huge fans of sci-fi cinema and literature, and over the past five years, we’ve already written the lore for many of the characters and the Beyond Astra universe.
Our current idea is that at the start of the game, the player chooses a “hero of their civilization” who provides bonuses (related to one of the different victory conditions), and as the game progresses, you’ll have the opportunity (if you want) to discover parts of that hero’s story. We believe this can enhance immersion, encouraging even more replayability, variety, and the joy of uncovering these character stories and the Beyond Astra universe.
Beyond Astra includes features like building (cities and space stations), managing units (land, orbital, and space), economy (soft power, budget, privatization, companies), logistics (resource extraction and transport), science (research tree), politics (laws, parties), diplomacy (with other civilizations and species, exchanges, federations, allies/enemies), culture (soft power, culture skill tree, tourism, megastructures), and even religion (soft power, religion skill tree, faith).
Currently, the largest map in Beyond Astra features up to 40 stars, which translates to around 300 planets with 3 different sizes (moon, dwarf, giant). The solo developer is considering giving players the freedom to choose a higher number of stars in the future. However, we still need to finish some tests to ensure the gameplay remains smooth from start to end with these higher numbers. Since the entire map loads at once and every part of it is instantly navigable, indeed having thousands of stars isn’t feasible with current computer power and we believe that having no loading is a particularly appreciated feature, especially in a 4X strategy game.
We completely understand the challenge of balancing complexity and accessibility in a 4X grand strategy game.
We believe it’s important to have a significant progression and mastery curve for the various elements of the game for those who desire it.
Our intention is to allow players to have many aspects of gameplay that can be “automated”, for example among others, ships automatically targeting the nearest enemy ships. At the same time, for players who are fans of micromanagement, they can for example force their ships to target specific enemies and even direct fire at specific enemy turret.
I want to emphasize that it’s a real-time game with active pause functionality. During intense moments, players can always stop time if they wish to take the time to do things at their own pace.
Release
Currently, the game is not yet released, but a Steam game page is already online here. We are planning a release on Steam, Epic Game Store, and GOG.
The game will be available for Windows 10 or 11 (64 bits architecture).
Linux and macOS are not excluded and may be supported after the game’s release if there is sufficient demand.
Beyond Astra is a PC-only game, as 4X games tend to be more PC-focused due to their complexity. However, we’re open to exploring console options in the future after the launch. We really appreciate your interest and support!
The game will be available in:
- Français ;
- English ;
- Deutsch ;
- Español ;
- Italiano ;
- Polski ;
- Português ;
- Русский ;
- Česky ;
- Українська ;
- 中文简体 ;
- 中文繁體 ;
- 한국어 ;
- 日本語 ;
Depending on community priorities other languages may be added.
Our vision is to ensure that all gameplay mechanics are available upon initial purchase without relying on paid DLCs. Furthermore, we see Beyond Astra as a game for long-term engagement, supported by regular free updates.