Civilization 7 off to rocky start with ‘mixed’ reviews on Steam

Civilization, the legendary strategy game series, has hit a roadblock with its latest iteration. Civilization 7 launched this week to an influx of negative reviews on Steam. Now, Firaxis has responded, promising patches. 

On Steam right now, those who pre-ordered the Advanced Access version of the game are leaving an influx of negative reviews. As a result, the game has a ‘Mixed' review score, just based on those who pre-ordered the Founders or Deluxe Editions of the game. The majority of players will get access on the 11th of February, although the negativity surrounding the state of the game could lead to some pre-order cancellations.

There are a number of issues being called out here. Long-time players are not pleased with the UI, making moment-to-moment gameplay frustrating. Some playing the game in languages like German have called out grammatical translation errors, leading some to believe that AI was used for the game's localisation.

As a result, fans are calling for a visual overhaul of the game and it is largely viewed as a downgrade compared to the likes of Civ 6.

In response, Firaxis has said that it needs “some time to digest” the feedback and will then begin working on fixing things up. The UI interactions, map readability and additional polish are all cited as key areas of focus for future updates. Additionally, the developers have compiled a list of community-requested features to implement, including co-op teams in multiplayer matches, a wider variety of map types, additional customisation options and more.

While Civilization 7 is off to a bit of a rocky start, Firaxis says it will support the game “for years to come”, which has been the case for older titles in the series. Eventually there will no doubt be a series of expansions and DLCs for players to dive into as well. For now though, Firaxis is focused on free updates to get the game into shape.

KitGuru Says: Have any of you picked up Civilization 7 already? How do you feel about the game in its current form? What changes would you like to see? 

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