Summary
- Civilization 7 has sparked a polarising reaction following its launch.
- There is some concern among the community that the game was released unfinished.
- A Reddit user discovered leftover dev tools in the final release build.
Civilization 7 is experiencing a rocky beginning to life, to say the least. The latest instalment in the legendary turn-based strategy series debuted to ‘Mostly Negative’ reviews on Steam, with a lot of criticism centring around bugs and a lack of user interface elements. The game’s user review score on Steam has since improved to ‘Mixed’. Critically, the game performed well, with it currently holding an average critic score of 82 on OpenCritic.
A slow start is nothing new for Civilization, with many long-time fans of the series acknowledging that new instalments tend not to reach their full potential until the release of the first expansion. It’s not necessarily a good precedent, but it has proved consistent over the years. The addition of radically different systems was always going to cause some teething pains for fans of the series.
Transform Your Empire (And Your Units?)
Unfortunately, there are some bugs and general jankiness that players have highlighted in negative reviews on Steam. A user on Reddit, Banansegl2, discovered a harmless yet illustrative example of this in one of their games of Civilization 7. In the picture provided, you can see transform tools that have been left attached to a Landship unit model. As you could have probably guessed, these editing tools allow Firaxis’ artists to change the proportions of the game’s 3D models. It would appear someone forgot to remove them in the final release.
“Ah man, I love the game, but they’re not beating the “unfinished but pushed out the door” allegations,” writes Mindless_Let1. This appears to be a common sentiment expressed by players, especially in matters relating to the user interface. Firaxis has been responding to reviews on Steam, soliciting additional feedback from the player base and committing to improving the experience. I’ll note that another commenter made a fantastic tank/axis joke but I’m bitter that I didn’t think of it first, so I won’t be including it.
Although the initial reaction to Civilization 7 has been polarising, the overall legacy of the game likely won’t be cemented for some years yet. TheGamer’s own reviewer Harry Alston said “this game will devour your hours, chew up your days and spit you out in a hungry, sleep-deprived blob,” in his 4.5/5 review.
Grand Strategy
Turn-Based Strategy
4X
- Released
-
February 11, 2025
- ESRB
-
t