Nearly five months afterSid Meier’s Civilization 7’s abysmal launch, it comes as no surprise to fans of the franchise that previous games in the series have more active interest. It’s hard to narrow this fact down to a single point of failure inCiv 7, considering there have been countless major issues with the game since launch, from confounding UI decisions to essential missing features to core design mechanics. In the grand scheme of things, however,Civ 7is simply not as much fun as previous games in the series, particularly its predecessor,Civ 6.
At the time of this writing,Civ 6has a 24-hour peak player count of 40,128 users on Steam, perSteamDB. By comparison,Civ 7has just 8,240, which, if you’re bad at math, is barely more than five times fewer players. SinceCiv 7’slaunch, on average,Civ 6has easily and consistently had at least four times as many daily players asCiv 7.The numbers don’t lie when it comes to player interest, and even after the variousupdates toCiv 7since launch, nothing it does seems to scratch the same itch thatCiv 6does.
What Went Wrong With Civ 7
There’s No Shortage Of Issues In Civ 7
I want to preface the following tirade by noting that I don’t thinkCiv 7is a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, and it has quite a few successful features that fans will come to appreciate in the long run. That being said,doing a complete post-mortem onCiv 7’slaunch will prove to be an exercise in futilityconsidering the many issues the game faced, including inexplicable UI decisions, a misguidedfocus on future DLCwhen the base game was sorely lacking, missing essential features such asOne More Turn, and much more.
All of this is somewhat irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, because what I think really went wrong with Civ 7 was the core premise the game was fundamentally designed around: that it needed tofix the supposed problemsfromCivilization 6. Namely, from the very beginning ofCiv 7’sconception, the stated intention behind the game’s design was to solve the issue of a vast majority of players never actually finishing a game. This was associated with the idea that elements like micromanagement and snowballing wereproblems withCiv 6that prevented players from enjoying the game.
Firaxis should have focused on the features that madeCiv 6successful first.
However, in my view, these apparent issues withCiv 6were not only overstated, but they were also incorrectly framed as “problems” when they should have been seen as side effects of the game’s overall successful design.These side effects were put in the spotlight and ended up shaping the entire design philosophy forCiv 7, but this was a fundamental misread. Firaxis should have focused on the features that madeCiv 6successful first, and then found ways to address these side effects to create an overall improved experience,not the other way around.
Civilization 6 Is Simply More Fun Than Civ 7
Player Count Is Evidence That Civ 6 Got Something Right
WhileCiv 6isn’t a perfect game, it’s the most successfulCivilizationgame in franchise history, which makesCiv 7’sapproach to solvingCiv 6’s"problems" a confusing basis for the game’s design. Certain core mechanics like Civ switching and Age-transition resets were modeledaround reducing micromanagement, but the end result issomething so far removed from what makesCiv 6fun and enjoyablethat the supposed “cure” ends up being worse than the “disease” itself, metaphorically speaking.
Civ 7also lacks many of the quirks that makeCiv 6fun, such as oddball achievements that give you some random and hilarious tasks, like the"Pizza Party!“achievement that has you"activate Leonardo da Vinci in New York with Great Works from Michelangelo and Donatello - and a sewer - all in that city.“It boils down to the fact thatplayers don’tneedto finish a round ofCiv 6to enjoy the game; the gameplay is enjoyable enough in itself that victory conditions and completion aren’t really the point for a large percentage of players.
Civ 7 Might Never Be Better Than Civ 6, & It’s Time To Face Facts
Don’t Expect Civ 7’s Core Design To Change
At the end of the day, there’s simply no update or improvement that could be rolled out forCiv 7that will bring back players who don’t like the Ages system, Civ-switching, or Legacy Path mechanics, i.e., the core elements of its gameplay.These features are so far removed from theCiv 6experience that it’s no wonder its player count is so much highereven after various updates toCiv 7. In trying to fix things fromCiv 6, Civ 7completely lost the plot, removing core elements of what makesCiv 6so fun.
While everyCivilizationgame has evolved over its lifetime, there’s no wayCiv 7’score design will ever be completely remodeled to give players a more “traditional” Civ experience akin to the modern standard set byCiv 5and6. It isn’t that players wantCiv 7to be a re-skinned version ofCiv 6, but it seems like the redesigned approach toCiv 7didn’t pay off the way Firaxis hoped. The “problems” withCiv 6that motivatedCivilization 7’sdesign philosophy should never have been more important than what madeCiv 6the best-selling game in the franchise.
