It seems it's increasingly rare to have a major game release that doesn't come filled with lots of issues. The latest is Sid Meier's Civilization VII from Firaxis Games.
The game isn't actually released proper yet, it's currently in Advanced Access, for people who got hooked in by the FOMO and paid more. The game actually releases for everyone on February 11th. Which is also when I'll get access, since 2K didn't reply to my mails about a review key I purchased it personally - so my thoughts on how it runs will come later.
As for Steam, the Advanced Access period saw a peak of 62,931 players which shows it's pretty popular in terms of sales quite clearly for even the more expensive version of the game. Unfortunately for Firaxis, less than 50% of people putting up a review gave it a positive score pointing out a great many problems.
Reading through the reviews it ranges from people pointing out a "horrible UI" to many saying how "barebones" and "unfinished" it feels. Even lots of the positive user reviews are pointing out the same issues, so it's clear there's problems here.
This has pushed the developer to issue a statement on the situation with a small roadmap:
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.Prioritizing UI Improvements: Our top priority is improving the UI. We need some time to digest all of your feedback, but some areas that we're already looking into include making UI interactions more intuitive, improving map readability, fixing areas of polish like formatting, and more. We're committed to getting this right, and will share more details as soon as we can.
Implementing Community-Requested Features: Several key features that we've seen you ask for will be included in upcoming patches as free updates, and we'll continue to work with the community to improve and add to the game. We're still working on exact timing, but can share the following items are being prioritized:
- Adding Teams to multiplayer games so you can play cooperatively
- Allowing full player counts in multiplayer in all three Ages through refinements to our Distant Lands system.
- Allowing you to pick your starting and ending Age to allow for single or double Age games
- Providing a wider variety of map types
- Enabling city and religion names to be customized
- Adding in hotseat multiplayer
Rolling Out Quality-of-Life Updates in Patch 1.1.0 (Deploying in March): Work is already well underway on Patch 1.1.0, which includes fixes and adjustments that were already on our radar. This list includes quality-of-life UI adjustments, ongoing AI balance and improvement, adjustments to diplomacy and crises, plus additional bug fixes.
Here's hoping the game improves quickly.
junibegood 2 hours ago
Every new Civilization game has an AI worse than the previous game (probably due in part to increasing game complexity). Civ6 AI on launch was absolutely ridiculous.
The fact that it does not seem to be a concern in early access is promising.
Last edited by junibegood on 7 Feb 2025 at 10:51 am UTC
Civ 7 blaming linux for cracking
Just because a company takes an IP you love from years past and adds a new number to the end doesnt mean it is actually the same thing. The people that made the titles you loved from before are gone and these new iterations are red hot garbage made by people that have no idea what they are doing.
Its interesting all of the positive videos on youtube for this but the actual reviews on steam are pretty telling.
For AAA games, these are the dark ages of gaming. No respect for the user, no ownership or physical media option, FPS killing DRM, overpriced underdeveloped slop. Crazy.
And most issues people are having in Civ VII tend to be in the first category of issues likely to be fixed. My primary concern was the age transition mechanic making the game "not feel like Civ" (or, to put it another way, damaging the emergent narrative of "building a civilization to stand the test of time") and few are comlaining about that. Aspects like the AI that were never fixed in Civ V/VI even seem to be getting some praise (not that it's competitively viable - if the bonuses are anything like before, Deity gets 500% sort of bonuses and will still lose to expert players which is embarrassing, but the diplomacy tends to be coherent, etc, which is pretty much what you want from the AI opponents).
I know i am quite biased, because when Civ 2 came out, my health and time budget was far more forgiving.
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