Civilization VII

One more turn since 1991

Sid Meier designed the first Civilization in 1991, and his name still sits in every title. The games are turn-based strategy: you lead a people from a first settlement through thousands of years of history, exploring, building cities, researching technology, trading and making deals with other leaders. The series helped define the 4X genre and its famous one-more-turn pull.

Meier co-founded Firaxis Games in May 1996 with Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds after leaving MicroProse. Take-Two bought Firaxis in 2005, and it has been part of 2K ever since.

What is new in VII

Civilization VII launched on February 11, 2025, and was the first in the series to arrive on consoles and PC on the same day, from PlayStation and Xbox to Nintendo Switch, Mac and Linux. At launch 2K said the series had sold-in more than 73 million copies.

Its biggest change splits each campaign into three ages: Antiquity, Exploration and Modern. You choose leaders and civilizations separately, and leaders now include thinkers and scientists as well as rulers. Between ages, players face crisis events and choose a new civilization for the next era.

Listening to players

Reviews were mostly positive but more divided than for earlier games, with the user interface and the switch of civilizations between ages drawing the most criticism. Firaxis has answered with regular updates. The biggest, version 1.4 Test of Time on May 19, 2026, lets players keep one civilization through a whole campaign.

Three DLC collections with nine more civilizations had arrived by July 2026, and an Apple Arcade version for iPhone and iPad launched on February 5, 2026.

← WWE 2KBorderlands 4 →