Brace yourselves Civ fans: Civilization 7 is going to be contentious among critics and fans

Civilization 7 will be out soon on February 11, and so far our coverage has focused on explaining all the changes Firaxis has made to the first new Civ game in nearly a decade. You'll find the same kind of thing on YouTube, where previews dissect the new ages system, the difference between towns and cities, or how best to utilize the new commander units. We're overloaded with information about a game that isn't out yet, and all that buzz could give the impression that the historical 4X is primed for total critical victory—but I'm confident that it's going to be more contentious than Civ 6, Civ 5, or Civ 4.

I'm not reviewing Civ 7 myself and I don't know where our reviewer will land on it, but I have been playing a pre-release build and talking to other PC Gamer editors about it. (We can currently share details about parts of the game, but not all of it.) I like Civ 7, but along with all the praise it'll get, I expect sharp criticism, wrathful Steam reviews, and heated Reddit threads as 4X grognards and Civ lifers digest not just how different Civ 7 is, but how they feel about its differences.

As the most dramatic change, Civ 7's ages system has been the natural focal point so far. Rather than leading one civ from early history to the moon, we'll now progress through three distinct ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. The transitions between those ages are soft resets that end wars, shuffle city states, and most significantly require picking a new civ for the new age—Han China might transform into Spain, for instance. Because it alters the overall structure of a game of Civ, the ages system feels like an even more significant change than the switch from a square grid to hexes in Civ 5, or the addition of city districts in Civ 6.

Firaxis hopes that breaking up a game of Civ in this way will keep us from getting bored of mid-game micromanagement and starting over—the stats on how many people were actually finishing games of Civ 6 were apparently an eye-opener—and based on what I've played of the first two ages, I think it works as intended. The soft resets do motivate me to plow ahead when things start getting messy and sluggish. But I also miss the feeling that I'm guiding one distinct civ from ancient history to the present day in a straight line—as ahistorical as that sense of total continuity may be, it is a fun fantasy in the context of a game.

Another 4X game, Humankind, tried a similar idea a few years ago. It wasn't a bad game, but neither was it a standout hit (we're a lot more excited for Amplitude's next 4X game), and the cultural mixing-and-matching wasn't the highlight. The choice to try something that wasn't particularly successful in the last 4X game that tried it is going to raise some eyebrows, even if Firaxis has provided lots of design and historical justification for the change.

Beyond that soon-to-be controversial change, Civ 7 is also going to have the same problem every Civ has: Those who've been playing Civilization 6 with the Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm expansions and all the other DLC may find that it feels slight. I like the new diplomacy and espionage system, which is simplified and uses one resource you start gathering immediately, but that streamlining won't necessarily please Civ 6 veterans. Other systems have been pared down, too.

And although I understand why Firaxis did away with workers—training and using them was one of those rote tasks you just had to do—I miss those little guys and I'm sure others will feel the same. Some long-time Civ players still complain about the decision to end unit stacking in Civ 5, so to some degree the critical fracas I expect is just the usual new Civ discourse cycle. When you make changes to series people have been playing for over 30 years, they react.

Strategy sickos should still find plenty of complexity to experiment with in Civ 7—someone has already broken the game by stacking food and growth bonuses to absurd effect—and as for me, I'm a laid-back Civ player. What makes me happy is building the longest unbroken Great Wall I can and then admiring it, and the new environment art is the series' best yet. I've giddily mentioned the simple addition of navigable rivers in several articles, and there are probably lots of casual Civ players out there who also care more about the sandbox than the strategy.

But I also expect some fans to be seriously put off by the omissions and changes, while others will be disappointed that Firaxis didn't do something more radical. Civ 7 is quite different from past Civ games, but I haven't seen anything that 4X diehards are likely to say pushes the genre as a whole forward. So if you're anticipating Civ 7, be prepared to encounter mixed opinions and lots of declarations of "I'm sticking with Civ 6/Civ 5/Soren Johnson games!" I think there'll be a bit of a brawl over this one.