Civilization V: Gods & Kings release date announced

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2K Games announced today that the Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion will be released in North America on June 19, 2012 and internationally on June 22, 2012. The expansion adds religion and espionage systems, new civilizations, new units, and new scenarios, including a steampunk-themed campaign. In an interview at GDC, Lead Designer Ed Beach told us that aside from the huge list of additions, Firaxis has also dedicated time to improving Civ V's core functionality, specifically the multiplayer code and AI.

"Yeah, we're not only adding new things, but rebalancing and looking at each of the AI subsystems," said Beach, continuing later, "And in multiplayer, we've had one of our senior engineers on the project dedicated to hitting some of those items. The gameplay processing and graphics processing have been threaded out from each other, and that's helping with the multiplayer stability."

Read our whole interview with Beach for more on what the expansion adds, and what it tweaks.

Tyler Wilde
Executive Editor

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.