Civilization Is Finally Getting A Long-Awaited Sequel
Sid Meier's Civilization 7 is officially in the works.
The sequels are raining down from heaven, and the next Civilization game, Civilization 7, is in development at Firaxis Games. The sequel to one of the most prominent turn-based strategy games was announced and subsequently confirmed by Firaxis Games’ parent studio, Take-Two Interactive—the same company that holds the legendary Rockstar Games.
As reported by IGN, Take-Two, and 2K Games announced the sequel to Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise in the same news release, which announced the promotion of Heather Hazen to the studio head and the departure of Jake Solomon—Firaxis’s longtime developer. Hazen expressed her excitement over the opportunity to carry on the studio’s legacy, beginning with the announcement of Civilization 7 — the next iteration in the legendary gaming franchise whose beginnings date back more than 30 years.
This is fantastic news for the fans of Civilization since the most recent installment to the franchise, Civilization VI, came out in 2016, and the fans have been clamoring for a sequel ever since. Admittedly, the game was very successful, and its lifespan was prolonged by the release of two additional expansions (that’s what we used to call DLCs), called Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, released in February and November 2018, respectively. The third update, titled Red Death, was released in 2019 as a free update to the game’s multiplayer component.
And for all the teenage gamers out there, yes, the game did receive downloadable content as well, most of which started with the aforementioned free update. From 2020 onwards, Firaxis implemented a sort of a season pass, which, over time, introduced 21 new leaders and six different “personas” — which were alternative versions of pre-existing leaders—and eight new civilizations. Furthermore, on November 21, 2022, anyone who linked their 2K Games accounts to Civilization VI received Julius Caesar as a leader of Rome for free.
With so much development behind the previous installment in the franchise, the fandom’s excitement over Civilization 7 is quite reasonable. With 20 civilizations and 21 different leaders in the current game, it’s hard to imagine the sequel adding anything more in terms of historical nations. Leaders, we had plenty of those, but there are only so many old-world civilizations we could introduce to the game. However, that doesn’t mean that Civilization 7 can’t severely expand upon the pre-existing features.
Ubisoft‘s Anno franchise, admittedly a few years younger than the original Civilization, focused primarily on strategical micromanagement throughout different ages of human history. But its core gameplay, though severely expanded by subsequent releases, hasn’t changed, and the same could be said for the entire Civilization franchise. If you really think about it, the whole strategy games genre is pretty interesting, despite not being very widespread among the general audience, especially among those below the age of 25 — the youngsters prefer battle royales.
Hopefully, Civilization 7 will stir things up a bit, and strategies will become more appreciated. Unfortunately, there aren’t any other details surrounding the game, but we’ll keep the readership up to date as the development progresses.
