Brian Reynolds is no stranger to historical gaming; as lead developer at Microprose and Firaxis, he shepherded Sid Meier's Colonization, Civilization 2 and Alpha Centauri to store shelves. It has even been argued that his absence from Civilization III was keenly felt and to the game's detriment. But Brian moved on, taking some of Firaxis' best and brightest (like Tim Train and Jason Coleman) with him and they founded Big Huge Games. Like another former Meier protege, Ensembles' Bruce Shelley, Big Huge Games landed a deal with Microsoft and began work on an ambitious marriage between real-time strategy and epic turn-based empire building. That effort is called simply Rise of Nations and the first playable beta we just received is nothing short of earth shattering.
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