Highlights
- Civilization 7 has been announced at Summer Game Fest 2024.
- The next entry in the long-running series is targeting a 2025 launch.
- Civilization 7 will make history by becoming the first franchise entry to have a simultaneous launch on both PC and consoles.
Civilization 7 is official, with 2K subsidiary Firaxis Games announcing it as part of Summer Game Fest 2024. The next entry in the beloved franchise will mark a notable departure from the series norm of having a PC release ahead of the console one(s), with Civilization 7 aiming to have a day-one multi-platform launch.
Part of this surprise was already spoiled by the publisher, as 2K accidentally leaked the existence of Civilization 7 by sharing the game’s logo ahead of the opening showcase of SGF 2024. The image was removed from the company’s website almost as soon as it appeared on June 7, but not before it was spotted and subsequently started making the rounds online.
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Civilization 7 Getting Multi-Platform Release in 2025
But what the leak didn’t spoil is that the game will be the first entry in the Civilization series to have a same-day release on both PC and consoles. That was confirmed by no one other than Sid Meier, the legendary game designer and founder of Firaxis. Meier appeared at the end of the Civilization 7 reveal trailer that premiered at Summer Game Fest 2024 in order to thank fans for their decades-long support and inform them that the next series installment is scheduled to have a multi-platform release sometime in 2025.
The list of the game’s target platforms is extremely extensive, comprising the PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and the Nintendo Switch. If the Switch version of Civilization 6 is any indication, the seventh mainline series entry won’t make any feature sacrifices in its transition to Nintendo’s hybrid console. The Civilization 6 Switch port was also praised for its small install size of only 5.2 GB, indicating that Firaxis is already well-versed in how to make the most of the seven-year-old console. Mobile ports may also be on the cards for Civilization 7 in the future, as its predecessor made its way to both Android and iOS devices.
The trailer itself doesn’t really reveal much in terms of what the upcoming game will have to offer. But it still turned quite a bit of heads with its impressive production values, underlined by the epic orchestral soundtrack that some fans have labeled as reminiscent of the works of Christopher Chiyan Tin. The award-winning composer has scored a number of Civilization soundtracks in the past, and is best known for his iconic Civilization 4 choral piece Baba Yetu. Widely considered as one of the best original songs ever produced for a game, Baba Yetu made history by becoming the first video game song to ever receive a Grammy Award nomination, which it subsequently won in 2011. Firaxis has yet to reveal whether it was Tin who scored the Civilization 7 trailer.
The game’s lack of a firm release date suggests that its 2025 launch window is more likely to refer to the second half of the following year rather than the first. All mainline Civilization games that were released in the 21st century had their original debuts in either September or October.
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