Review: Civilization VII (Civilization 7)

Developer – Firaxis Games

Publisher – 2K

Platforms – PC (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)

Civilization 7, the latest installment in the iconic 4X strategy series, has arrived with a mix of innovation and controversy. It’s been 9 years since the release of Civilization 6, but has all this time waiting been worth it? The sequel presents a bold new direction for the franchise, introducing significant changes that have unfortunately divided the fanbase.

As a quick refresher, this is a turn-based strategy game where you guide your chosen civilization from the dawn of humanity to a prosperous future. You first select a leader and civilization with different bonuses and skills. One of the most notable additions is the Ages system, which divides the game into distinct eras: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. You start by producing scouts to explore the map and collect Discoveries, which are unique locations that grant powerful rewards. While exploring, it’s also important to keep expanding your home city and build warriors to protect your home.

As you progress, you’ll need to balance city growth, technological advancement, and military strength. Cities now expand organically across multiple tiles, with districts and improvements interacting with the surrounding environment. Throughout the game, you must make decisions that align with your chosen victory condition, whether it’s Cultural, Military, Scientific, or Economic.

In terms of gameplay, Civilization 7 streamlines many systems, each of which have both pros and cons. The new settlement system, which introduces towns as specialized tributaries, adds an interesting layer of strategy and the combat system introduces commanders to bundle armies for transport. However, the simplification of certain mechanics, such as the removal of builder units for tile improvements is taking a step backwards. 

If you’re new to the series or the 4X grand strategy type game in general, then you should probably watch a YouTube video of some sorts to get you started because the game does a terrible job getting you acquainted with its mechanics and gameplay loop.

The overall narrative elements have been enhanced, with more events and quests to guide you through each era. But to be honest, they’re not that engaging and nothing more than pop ups that fail to add any meaningful depth to the experience. But still, it’s better than nothing I guess.

Many key features present in Civ 6 or earlier are missing here. For example, you can’t manually queue developments in the tech tree and there are no automated settlers. The game’s AI isn’t the brightest either, making poor decisions during city placement. This is also not to mention the lack of map variety at launch. It’s almost as if Firaxis was rushed by 2K or something to hurry up and push out an unfinished product.

Visually, Civilization 7 strikes a balance between the more realistic style of Civilization 5 and the cartoonish look of 6. It’s a gorgeous game with meticulously detailed units and breathtaking landscapes to explore. I really enjoy the effort put into the environmental work, with each hexagonal tile beautifully rendered. The audio design is another highlight, with Gwendoline Christie’s narration enhancing the overall experience and the soundtrack never becoming repetitive, even after hours of play.

The number one offender in the game is its user interface. To put it bluntly: it’s absolute garbage. Not only is it unfinished, and poorly optimized for PC, I also find it extremely difficult to find important information when I need it. Resource icons look outdated and the overall presentation of the game feels unfinished compared to previous entries. What happened? Funny enough, the community has already pushed out mods just for the UI.

On top of the poor UI, the game is also technically unpolished. Even on an RTX 3080 GPU with 32 GB of memory, I can’t run the game seamlessly at 60 frames per second. With the graphical settings set to High, the game frequently dips into the 40s. To top it all off, it takes an entire minute to load into the game from the main menu. Yup, you heard that right: 60 whole seconds. My only surprise was that the game only takes up 18 GB on PC. Don’t even bother getting the game if you have specs lower than mine.

To no one’s surprise, you need to create and link your 2K account in order to play the game online. Why can’t games just utilize your Steam profile to play with others? 2K already took down their atrocious game launcher, so I’m sure they can also get rid of their accounts that serve little to no purpose. Thankfully there is crossplay, so you can play with your friends on different consoles, but they too need an account.

Lastly I want to touch on the post-game or end-game, or lack thereof. Civilization 7 does not have the traditional “One More Turn” mode that was present in previous iterations. After you “beat” the game, your world pretty much ends abruptly and you cannot keep on playing. The developers have acknowledged this already, but it’s probably likely that any additional content would probably be sold in the form of paid DLC, instead of a free update.

I have no doubt that Firaxis Games will patch up and polish Civilization 7 down the line, as they have a good record of listening to community feedback, but the fact they shipped out a AAA $70 game like this is such a disappointment. Despite all this, Civilization 7 remains a competent and engaging entry in the series. It successfully maintains its addictive quality that has defined the franchise for decades.

Firaxis Games has laid a solid foundation with Civilization 7, even though there are plenty of things to improve on. It has the potential to evolve into a truly outstanding entry in the Civilization series, but right now, it needs more time to cook in the oven.