Beowulf is a Hero in Civilization VI. He is exclusive to the Heroes & Legends game mode, introduced in the Babylon Pack.
- Attributes:
- Has 6
Charges. - Counts as a melee unit.
- Cannot earn experience or Promotions.
- Does not end his turn after using his active ability.
- Has 6
- Abilities:
Strategy[]
Like all Hero units, Beowulf's 
Strength increases with the progression of the eras, as shown in the table below.
| Era | Combat Strength
|
|---|---|
| Classical | 46 |
| Medieval | 60 |
| Renaissance | 72 |
| Industrial | 86 |
| Modern | 98 |
| Atomic | 108 |
| Information | 118 |
| Future | 130 |
Beowulf's Challenge is a powerful ability that can be used to eliminate an enemy in a single attack without taking any damage in return. It also has the very unique ability to target units that are in a defensible district such as the City Center. This makes Beowulf exceptionally useful when laying siege to a city, letting him both dispose of a potential ranged attacker and weaken the city's Combat Strength. He also has the third-highest Combat Strength of any Hero, behind only Arthur and the mighty Hercules, but Beowulf's Challenge is a stronger ability than Arthur's Accolade, so Arthur's 2 extra Combat Strength is not the deciding factor.
Beowulf can also be a great Hero on the defense, as Beowulf's Challenge can kill dangerous units such as enemy Heroes besides Arthur and Hercules, and Giant Death Robots in the Future Era. It is also one of the few ways to permanently kill Vampires.
Civilopedia entry[]
The story of Beowulf was written in Old English around 1000 AD, making it one of the very first surviving works in that language. Beowulf is a hero of the Geats, a people that inhabited a part of what is today Sweden. He arrives in the hall of Hrothgar, a king of the Danes, whose lands are under assault by a monster named Grendel – a cannibal beast perhaps thematically related to the trolls of Scandinavian myth, but whom the poem identifies as a cursed descendant of the Biblical Cain.
Beowulf sets a trap for Grendel. He pretends to go to sleep in the hall, just as the monster’s victims have done. That night, a chill fog creeps in and, with it, the monster. Beowulf abandons his weapons, wanting to test his strength against the beast as equals. The two lock arms and, after a fierce grapple, Beowulf rips one of Grendel’s arms off with his bare hands. The troll, mortally wounded, hobbles back to its home. Back there, Grendel’s bog-witch mother receives her dying son and is consumed with anger, and Beowulf must again do battle.
Beowulf returns to the land of the Geats in triumph, where he rules for many years, but a new, and deadlier evil awakens. A dragon emerges from its lair, setting the countryside alight with its breath. Beowulf, prideful as always, insists on battling the beast alone, but a young warrior, Wiglaf, seeing that the old king is going to his death, disobeys and remains by the king’s side. In the fight, the dragon is slain, but Beowulf is bitten by its poisonous fangs and dies. Wiglaf buries the king in a tall barrow at the sea’s edge.
Beowulf wasn’t always considered to be the classic that it is today. None other than J. R. R. Tolkien advocated that the poem be taken seriously as an epic, and not simply as a folktale. It carries with it both a valorization of a warrior’s strength and cautions against pride – both Hrothgar’s pride at his riches, and Beowulf’s pride in his own power. Historically, Beowulf remains an artifact of a moment in time when a population that had nominally Christianized struggled with its pagan past, and an icon of England’s Scandinavian legacy.
| Civilization VI Heroes1 [edit] |
|---|
| Anansi • Arthur • Beowulf • Hercules • Himiko • Hippolyta • Hunahpu & Xbalanque • Maui • Mulan • Oya • Sinbad • Sun Wukong |
| 1 Requires DLC |