Back in August, I got the chance to play the first few hours of a game of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII. At the time I said I was tremendously impressed by how the team had worked to construct the freshest Civ sequel yet. Having now completed several full games of it across both PC and Steam Deck, this sentiment remains true, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be my new go-to entry any time I’m in a Civ mood.
A new Civ always has one fundamental problem on release; that it simply feels anaemic compared to its predecessor. It’s the same issue that plagued The Sims for years – how do you make a game feel as satisfying and ‘full’ as one that had years of expansions and updates? You can’t, really, and Civilization VII does end up feeling ‘thinner’ than its predecessor as one would generally expect.
The team at Firaxis has long prescribed Meier’s ‘33% Rule’ philosophy when designing a sequel. Sid believes that when crafting a follow-up, 33% should be brand new, 33% should be old systems that are updated and expanded upon, and 33% should remain the same as it was prior so as to not alienate the audience. But Civilization VII feels as if it skews the ‘brand new’ percentage significantly higher than 33%.
I’ve been a rabid Civ player since Civilization II. I’ve been around on day one for the growing pains of each system that a sequel or expansion added. Cultural borders, religion, natural disasters, city states… Civilization VI in its final form became so stacked full of every conceivable system of empire management (and those systems have become so refined in their design) that I really don’t know what else there could possibly be to do with a follow-up game, except for reworking Civ to its core.

Ages and Legacies in Civilization VII
No longer do you choose one civilisation and guide it seamlessly through all of history. Instead, a game of Civilization VII splits the run up into three distinct ‘Ages’, with specific civilisations locked to each, with only their leaders persisting through. Your actions during each age will lay down the groundwork for subsequent ones, not just in terms of settlements placed and tiles developed, but also for which civs you’ll be able to select.
Each age features a chain of quests split under Culture, Economic, Military, and Science branches. Each step accomplished earns you a Legacy Point, and the ultimate key to victory is to end the game with more points than your rivals.
Additionally, each new age acts as something of a soft reset, with wars ending and grudges largely forgotten. Research trees are unique to each age, and military units will be automatically upgraded to something more era-appropriate upon transition. There’s no way to extend an Age beyond its pre-set limit, nor is there a way to keep playing once the third age has ended.
While these interlocking systems work great at keeping you focused on short-term goals, they can also leave you feeling a bit railroaded. While previous Civ games did essentially require you to invest in all of these areas as much as possible, lest your rivals exploit your shortcomings with any one of them, laying it all out bare like this in Civilization VII does kind of harm the illusion of you being free to run your empire as you see fit.
On the flip-side, it will undoubtedly be great for guiding newer players along, which is important for series growth. It does make every game feel a little more repetitive than it otherwise might, though, as you check off the same goals each time. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.
The severe lack of diversity in Civ VII’s map generation system unfortunately doesn’t help matters. No matter which presets I picked, I always seemed to end up with same-y landmasses on each game. They look utterly gorgeous – the whole game does – but the system is crying out for an overhaul to simply mix things up a bit more. There isn’t an Earth map either, which is a bummer.
Leaders can be levelled up and customised in small ways with unlockable ‘Mementos’, two of which can be slotted at the start of each new game. It’s a small thing, but I appreciate how it lets you lean into certain playstyles a little more.

It’s still Civ
Despite the big foundational changes, Civilization VII is still very much Civ in its turn-to-turn feel. While much of the changes confused and annoyed me during my first game, I did grow to appreciate them on my second and third. By the fourth and fifth, I’d settled into a good rhythm with it and found myself as unable to put it down as I had with any of its predecessors.
The team at Firaxis have crafted an impressive refresh for a series that I truly believe had nowhere else to really go. It’s not going to replace Civilization III as my go-to for a desktop 4X fix, and I don’t think at this stage that it’s going to dethrone Civilization VI as the number one use for my Steam Deck either.
Civilization VII is just so much its own thing. I appreciate and enjoy that thing enormously, but on some level it just doesn’t quite scratch the same itch. It’s a rock-solid foundation however, and I’ve no doubt that with the inevitable expansions, tweaks and updates down the line, it will evolve into a beloved entry in the pantheon.
For now though, Civilization VII is a compellingly bold step in a new direction that’s brimming with fantastic ideas and brilliant design, but feels unfortunately narrow on subsequent runs. It’s a fertile land awaiting its empire.
Four stars: ★★★★
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Switch
Developer: Firaxis Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Release Date: 12 February 2025
A PC code for Sid Meier’s Civilization VII was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.