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Civilization 7 finally announced, but you’ll have to wait for more info

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This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII - Official Teaser Trailer

Civilization 7 will conquer your game time soon. The latest in the iconic turn-based 4X strategy franchise was announced by developer Firaxis Games during Summer Game Fest on Friday.

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The studio showed off a cinematic teaser trailer that didn’t feature any in-game footage, but showed iconic world leaders and locations from The Great Sphinx of Giza to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. There will be a full reveal in August, and it’ll be coming to PC and consoles at launch, which is currently set for sometime in 2025.

The announcement wasn’t a huge surprise. Friday morning users on Reddit and Resetera noticed that a banner for Civilization 7 had appeared on the 2K homepage. It was quickly taken down, although was still immortalized via quickly taken screenshots.

2K had also previously announced that it would be making a big announcement at Summer Game Fest. A post via the SGF X (formerly Twitter) account read that the company was going to reveal the next game in one of its “biggest and most beloved franchises.”

Civilization 6 was released in 2016, so a new entry in the franchise was long overdue. However, the sixth entry has been receiving a lot of support since initial launch, with mobile ports, a Switch version, and multiple major updates and expansions. Take-Two Interactive confirmed in 2023 that Civilization 7 was in development in a press release that revealed Heather Hazer would be the new studio head at Firaxis Games while announcing Marvel’s Midnight Suns creative director Josh Solomon would be departing. The game will also be led by Ed Beach, who led the design of Civilization 6.

Carli Velocci
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
Firaxis wants to make sure you actually finish a Civilization 7 game
A walled city sitting behind a mountain.

Civilization games are easy to get lost in, so much so that I don't think I've ever actually finished one of them. This is apparently a common problem because developer Firaxis Games wanted to address it with Civilization 7.

In an interview with Game Developer, creative director Ed Beach said that less than 50% of players completed a game of Civilization 6 due to its drawn-out pacing, something that many absolutely "hated." Tasks took longer and longer to complete as you went, and as the game became more complicated, players became overloaded with things to do to expand their empires. So Firaxis made some changes.

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Civilization 7: everything we know so far
Two world leaders, Cleopatra and Caesar, going up against each other in front of their flags.

The announcement of a new Civilization game is one of the only things that strikes both joy and fear into the hearts of fans in equal measure. On one hand, they know they're about to begin one of the most engaging, frustrating, rewarding, and deep 4X games ever created. On the other, they know that booting this game up has the mystical power to fast-forward time by multiple hours in the blink of an eye. You might start a game at 9 p.m., planning to play a few rounds, only to look back at the clock and see that it's 6 a.m. the following morning. Before you start coming up with excuses to get out of work and stockpiling microwavable food, here's everything we know so far about Civilization 7.
Release date

Civilization 7 will launch on February 11, 2025.
Platforms

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Ara: History Untold will make the wait for Civilization 7 less painful
Key art for Ara: History Untold.

Sid Meier's Civilization VII impressed with its gameplay debut at Gamescom Opening Night Live, but it's not out until next February. Thankfully, Oxide Studios and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have an excellent alternative on the way next month, one that's been seven years in the making. That would be Ara: History Untold, which I went hands-on with for over an hour at a Gamescom-adjacent Xbox event in Los Angeles.

It's certainly overwhelming at first -- as most 4X games are -- but the more I played Ara: History Untold, the more I fell in love with its intricacies. With some clever design decisions, Oxide takes a fairly familiar strategy subgenre and applies tweaks to make watching a civilization grow feel even more personal and satisfying. While I'll probably need to spend a couple of hours reading through the game's glossary and tutorials before I can master it, I'm looking forward to doing so.

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