The success of Civilization 7’s Steam launch has been mixed so far. Complaints about the 4X sequel’s user interface and some of the drastic changes to its progression systems have dragged down its overall rating. On the contrary, others have welcomed the new mechanics and structural changes – for some, Civ 7 is too streamlined and simple, whereas others, myself included, feel it cuts out the micromanagement and choice fatigue that typically undermine big strategy games. Firaxis has already released a number of patches and says it wants to “expedite” improvements to the PC version of Civ 7. However, as of this writing, the new sequel has fewer concurrent players on Steam than its 2016 predecessor, Civilization 6.
You can read more in our full Civilization 7 review, but it seems that Firaxis’ overall goal is to reduce the clutter and noise that often invade the late stages of a 4X game. When you reach a new Age, units are cleared from the board, cities are reset to towns, and the entire match is quasi rebooted, breaking games of Civilization 7 into three discrete sub games. It’s a bold change, one that might wrongfoot players who prefer the density of previous Civ entries. UI troubles have also been a source of contention – as of this writing, of the 17,000 user reviews posted on Civilization 7’s Steam page, only 51% are positive.
And Civ 7 has fewer concurrent players right now than the nine-year-old Civilization 6. It’s marginal, but based on data from SteamDB, 36,512 people are playing Civ 7 simultaneously versus 37,072 in Civ 6. The figures are different, but tracking site SteamCharts provides a similar insight – based on its most recent numbers, Civilization 7 has 34,448 concurrent players while Civ 6 has 35,149.
There is a significant caveat: as well as Steam, Civilization 7 has been released simultaneously on all other major platforms, which means its total player count is divided across multiple systems. Civilization 6 is also available outside of Steam now, but on release day back in 2016, Valve’s store was the only place where the game could be purchased – though people are likely playing Civ 6 on other platforms, too, a lot of cast-iron fans likely bought the Steam version back on launch day and have played that ever since, leading to its still-high player count.
As for the PC version of Civilization 7, Firaxis has already deployed a variety of updates. On Tuesday February 11, the developer explained that “to expedite updates to the PC experience [it would] sometimes deploy patches to PC at a different cadence than on consoles.” The studio also says that it will support Civilization 7 for “years to come.”
If you want to give it a try, make sure to pick the best Civilization 7 leaders. You should also get to the grips with the new Civilization 7 Ages system.
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