It’s been almost eight years since Civilization 6 was first released on PC, and while the game has received plenty of updates, DLCs, and expansions that have managed to keep it alive and breathing for so long, there’s a strong desire to see something new from the franchise. And though it’s still early days for Civilization 7, it could very well offer that genuinely new experience that fans have been looking for. First soft-announced in February 2023, Civilization 7 has finally received its first teaser trailer at the recent Summer Game Fest showcase.
While visually impressive and suitably atmospheric, this initial Civilization 7 trailer hasn’t given fans much information about what they can expect from the next mainline installment in the three-decade-old franchise. Thankfully, fans won’t have to wait too long to see Civilization 7 again, with its full reveal now set for August 2024. But it’s still a little uncertain just what Firaxis will reveal during this showcase.
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What Fans Can Expect From Civilization 7’s August Showcase
What Previous Civilization Showcases Have Looked Like
The time between announcement and launch has usually been rather short for most entries in the Civilization franchise, often meaning that there isn’t much time to tease the game or its new features before it’s in the hands of players. For instance, Civilization 6 was initially announced in May 2016, and it was released just five months later in October 2016. In the month following its announcement, Civilization 6 received a few gameplay demonstrations, such as the GameSpot preview where two Firaxis devs sat down with Danny O’Dwyer to take him through some of the sequel’s new gameplay features.
A few years after its launch, Civilization 6 announced a large-scale expansion titled Gathering Storm. A few months before the expansion’s release, Firaxis dropped an hour-long deep-dive on the DLC’s new content. Some new leaders were announced, new features such as natural disasters were showcased, and the developers spoke candidly about the process of creating all the new content. Actual real-time gameplay was running throughout the hour-long presentation as well, which gave fans a great idea of what to expect from the upcoming expansion.
What Might Be Revealed During Civilization 7’s Showcase
After airing Civilization 7‘s announcement trailer, Firaxis posted that the “full reveal of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII and its exciting new features and innovations” was coming in an August 2024 showcase. This statement is pretty vague, but it does seem to suggest that Civilization 7 will be pushing the franchise into new territory in at least a few major ways. But this statement doesn’t detail just how much Firaxis is going to reveal about Civilization 7 in August.
It’s likely that Civilization 7‘s August reveal will find itself in a middle-ground between the two aforementioned Civilization 6 showcases. The Civ 7 showcase probably won’t be a full hour-long breakdown of all of the game’s new features, mechanics, and its roster of leaders, but it’ll likely be a little longer and more substantial than a simple 10–15-minute overview of the long-awaited sequel.
It also seems like a safe bet to assume that there will be plenty of gameplay shown during the
Civilization 7
reveal in August, as Firaxis has a long history of showing in-game footage and gameplay during its showcases.