Right now, Civ 6 and Civ 5 each have more players in-game on Steam than Civilization 7 – and it's not particularly close. The latest entry in the venerable 4X strategy series has failed to connect with fans the same way as its predecessors, and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says you can blame him for the game's failures.
"Every time there's a new Civ," Zelnick says in an interview for the latest Game File newsletter, "the team at Firaxis thinks about: 'How do we push the envelope far enough that it makes sense to buy this new game? And how do we preserve what people love enough so that they’re not disaffected?' And we got it wrong with Civ VII, but it wasn’t for want of trying. And again, I take responsibility for it."
One of the biggest controversies around Civ 7 was the fact that, in contrast to previous games, it forced you to swap between civilizations with every age transition. Zelnick's comments come just as the devs are detailing a major update that brings back the old ways, and addresses some of the other biggest points of player feedback.
"We've made a bunch of fixes," Zelnick continues. "We'll continue to make fixes. The game is a really good game. And it's certainly a profitable enterprise for us. But this is one where I think what we tried to do was a bridge too far, from the consumer's perspective."
Not everybody hated the game, of course. In our own Civilization 7 review, Andy found it a strong evolution of the series – though not a perfect one – in his four-star review. The game has clearly fared worse among everyday players, given the 47% positive Steam user reviews. The devs at Firaxis are promising an "expansion-level" improvement for that impending update, so here's hoping they can deliver on that grandiose ambition.
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