Pandora: First Contact

Pandora: First Contact is a science fiction 4X turn-based strategy game on a planetary scale.
In the future, factions have risen up from opportunities and ideologies independent of governments. Private corporations and religious movements have started wars over greed, ideology and power. Many have died and many lands lay in ruin. Planet Earth has been exhausted and colonial attempts on other planetary bodies have been in vain.
Finally, after decades of exploration, an interstellar probe has brought promise of a new world many light-years away. The most powerful factions have gathered their best men and women to send on a long journey to Pandora.
Far from desolate, the earth-like planet has been found to host a plethora of indigenous life forms. While the gigantic monstrosities inland and at the oceans seem relatively calm, human-sized bugs and fungus are threatening to stop mankind's expansion.
As the various factions strive to take control, each will research and develop numerous new technologies, discovering new weapons and industry, whilst opening trade agreements and forging alliances with other factions to gain a foothold. As they spread, they will discover ancient ruins from alien civilizations that will grant them advantages over their rivals.

Key Features

  • Explore a new world harboring a variety of eco-regions, from the frozen ice lands of the north, to vast deserts and lush tropical forests in the south.
  • Survive encounters with the planet's dangerous wild life. Deadly swarms walk the lands and agile predators fly in the skies. There is even talk of a giant creature in the oceans.
  • Live in harmony with nature or use it to further your cause. The indigenous life will react to your actions and treat you accordingly.
  • Discover ruins and artifacts, the relics of an ancient alien civilization long forgotten that can give you an edge against the planet life and other rivaling factions.
  • Found new cities to expand the borders of your empire. Manage cities by adjusting the tax rate, choosing production and assigning colonists to jobs.
  • Operate a fully globalized and pooled resource and growth system. Specialize one city to harvest minerals while churning out units in another.
  • Adapt your empire to pressing demand. Your colonists will migrate between cities based on factors such as pollution and living space.
  • Shape the landscape with terraforming, construct farms, mines, forts, and other improvements to increase the productivity of your colonies or to fortify positions.
  • Progress through a vast randomized research tree spanning dozens of technologies providing operations, buildings, units, weapons, and more.
  • Negotiate trade and research pacts with other factions for mutual benefits. Forge alliances to stand united against common foes.
  • Design your own units by choosing from a range of different classes, armors, weapons, and devices to maximize the strength of your forces.
  • Command vast armies across the battlefield against enemy factions, making use of the variety of terrain types to gain an advantage.
  • Unleash hell on your opponents with powerful military operations, ranging from drop pods behind enemy lines to black hole generators eradicating entire landscapes.
  • Prove yourself in multiplayer with friends or strangers and discover entirely new strategies.
  • Customize your experience through easily moddable XML data and well-known image and audio formats.
Minimum Requirements
OS: Windows XP SP2 / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
Processor: Intel Core 2 or equivalent
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 256 MB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series / ATI Radeon 9500 series)
Storage: 1 GB available space
Recommended Specifications
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core i3 or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 512 MB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 series / ATI Radeon HD 4870 series)
Storage: 2 GB available space
Minimum Requirements
OS: Mac OS X 10.7
Processor: Intel Core 2 or equivalent
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 256 MB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series / ATI Radeon 9500 series)
Storage: 1 GB available space
Recommended Specifications
OS: Mac OS X 10.8
Processor: Intel Core i3 or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 512 MB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 series / ATI Radeon HD 4870 series)
Storage: 2 GB available space
Minimum Requirements
OS: Linux
Processor: Intel Core 2 or equivalent
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 256 MB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series / ATI Radeon 9500 series)
Storage: 1 GB available space
Recommended Specifications
OS: Linux
Processor: Intel Core i3 or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 2.0 compatible with 512 MB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 series / ATI Radeon HD 4870 series)
Storage: 2 GB available space
  • Pandora: First Contact does a good job in reviving the classic Alpha Centauri, though it lacks some personality to reach the same level.

  • Pandora offers a stiff challenge, and will keep space-faring strategists happy until Civilization: Beyond Earth breaches the event horizon later this year.

  • Pelit (Finland)

    Pandora: First Contact delivers very decent spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, but it unfortunately falls short on some aspects. It needs more focus on the story, diplomacy and the endgame in general. [Jan 2014]

  • Pandora is a good game in its own right, but falls short of recreating the philosophical implications and sheer depth of Alpha Centauri.

  • Developed by a small indie-studio, Pandora: First Contact lives the spirit of classic 4x-games, namely Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. The gameplay is fluid, the mechanics well done. Though it’s not that epic and complex like Civilization, it’s fun to play. Overall it’s solid, but not a real long-time-challenging game, because there is a lack of variety concerning the six factions and the small tactical possibilities during the battles.

  • PC PowerPlay

    A space diamond in the rough, Pandora may not get everything right but exceptional combat and city management shines through. [Feb 2014, p.86]

  • A solid, fresh and addictive empire builder that is well worth playing for fans of the genre. But it needs more life and dynamic events, especially towards the end.

  • Despite of its bad balancing and badly-arranged gameplay Pandora: First Contact is manna from heaven for gamers longing for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4X's successor. However, this sci-fi strategy game lacks in balancing along with user's comfort to be truly excellent.

  • Inspired by the classic Alpha Centauri, it looks like a modern version at first glance, but lacks the depth and long term motivation.

  • LEVEL (Czech Republic)

    A solid modernization of the classic Alpha Centauri that honors its tradition and brings it to new life. Sadly, the AI is a tragedy. [Issue#238]

  • They say that something is better than nothing, and Pandora is not a bad game. It’s just nowhere near the source of its inspiration – the still brilliant Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.

  • There are a lot of neat ideas here, but none of them pan out. The game's creators clearly adore 4X strategy games in general, and Alpha Centauri specifically, is clear here, but Pandora: First Contact is not a proper tribute. I want to love Pandora, I really do, but nostalgia can't fix a game that doesn't work even at the most basic level.

Pandora: First Contact
$29.99 $4.28
Title: Pandora: First Contact
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
Released: 30 May 2014
Developer: Proxy Studios
Publisher: Slitherine Ltd.
  • Online Multi-Player
  • Cross-Platform Multiplayer
  • Single-player
  • Multi-player
  • Co-op
  • Steam Achievements
  • Steam Cloud
  • Retro XP
UI Audio Subs
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