After nearly nine years of Civilization 6 expansions and updates, it’s finally Civilization 7‘s turn. The new game in Sid Meier’s distinguished grand strategy series is a major departure from Civ 6, restructuring our progression through history and tweaking many of the systems we’ve grown used to, including city planning, warfare, and diplomacy.
I love Civ 7’s new environment art, and the three-age structure strikes me as a smart experiment, introducing soft resets on the way from antiquity to modernity that inject some of the early game fun into the midgame. But there’s a lot for Civ 5 and 6 fans to pine for, too—I expect this to be a controversial game among Civ lifers.
We’ll be covering the response to Civilization 7 and all the other launch news here with regular updates. Scroll down for info on our review, launch times, and more.
Our Civilization 7 review: 76%
Reviewer Robert Zak had plenty of criticism in our Civilization 7 review, but ultimately enjoyed Firaxis’ latest 4X game, noting that its flaws exist in comparison to Civ 5 and Civ 6—two exceptionally good strategy games that have both had years of post-launch updates. In his conclusion, he wrote:
Civilization 7 feels like a reaction to the maximalism of its predecessor: sleeker and speedier, colder and less complex. Being the first game in the series to come out on consoles at the same time as PC, I can’t help but feel that some of the complexity cutbacks are made with gamepad players in mind. Some of these cuts are positive, and they help the game flow better (especially, I imagine, in multiplayer), but the simplification of systems like religion, diplomacy, city-states, and espionage means that the journey through history doesn’t feel quite as rich or rewarding.
It’s as if Civ’s gone through its own age transition—a few steps forward, a few steps back. While it’s addressed some longstanding issues, there’s a little too much that’s been stripped away for veterans like myself to call this meaningful progress on the legendary series’ Legacy Path.
Civilization 7 performance analysis
Our Civilization 7 performance test turned up mixed results: It’ll run on lots of systems, but as usual, late game AI calculations can make your CPU sweat. Our testing was done with a pre-release version of Civilization 7 which did not include the “Day 0” patch, so your results may differ—if we see a big difference in the launch version, we’ll update our impressions, and we do expect future patches to address the inconsistent framerates we experienced.
How to break Civilization 7
Although some of the systems from Civs 5 and 6 and their expansions have been pruned for Civ 7, it’s plenty complex enough for strategizing and theory crafting. The ability to mix and match leaders and civs should especially contribute to the invention of unusual tactics.
Before Civ 7 even released, one player managed to break the game—it actually started asking for negative food—by stacking so many growth-related bonuses that his capital was on its way to being the world’s first megacity before he’d even invented mathematics.
Civilization 7 launch times
Civilization 7 is launching in two phases:
- Advanced Access: February 5 at 9 pm Pacific (must pre-purchase Deluxe or Founder’s Edition)
- Full release: February 10 at 9 pm Pacific
The launches will happen simultaneously worldwide, so you just have to find out when 9 pm Pacific is in your time zone to determine when you can start playing. Firaxis put together the graphic below with launch times across the globe:
Civilization 7 review round-up
Civ 7 reviews dropped on Monday—we gave it a 76%—and as I expected, there’s a mix of high praise, cooler-but-still-optimistic takes (like you’ll find in our review), and a handful of mostly negative assessments. Here’s a sampling of what critics are saying:
- The Guardian — 100
- Windows Central — 4.5/5
- Destructoid — 9/10
- GamesRadar — 4/5
- TechRadar — 4/5
- GameSpot — 8
- IGN — 7
- Eurogamer — 2/5
