If you’re looking for a vibrant, detailed game to sink the next year of your life into, you’re in luck.
Civilization 7 is the latest addition to the storied Sid Meier’s Civilization franchise, and it feels like so much more than just the next link in the chain.
Civ 7 has elements that fans of previous titles will know and love, but its core gameplay loop is unique. While it may be a sticking point for players who’ve been with the series from the start, it’s exactly what the Civ world needed to keep things exciting.
First impressions

The first time you jump into Civ 7, you’ll be treated to a visually stunning cutscene that sets the mood for the upcoming experience.
As the orchestral music builds and the dramatic scenes unfold, the narrator notes, “In each layer of history, we can rediscover hope—a way to chart our future.” This perfectly ties into the new Age system in Civ 7, hinting at what you’ll need to do to secure a win.
Hopping into a game for the first time, you’ll get a variety of Leaders to pick from, each with different combinations like “Militaristic Scientific” or “Diplomatic Economic” and their own unique perks. You can also add Mementoes, which are unlockables that add extra buffs.
The next screen is where the new gameplay loop rears its head. Here, you choose your starting Age: Antiquity, Exploration, or Modern. Civ 7 is played in three phases, with your successes and losses in the Antiquity Age affecting the Exploration Age and so on.
Having a bad run in the Exploration Age doesn’t mean the Modern Age is a loss, though; remember, “in each layer of history, we can rediscover hope.” There are Legacy Paths to follow, Dark Age traits to pick up, and empire mechanics to experiment with throughout each Age that can help you get back on your feet.
Once you’ve got your Leader and Age down, you can pick the Civilization you want to lead. These are not tied to the leader. You can have a historically accurate run if you want—and the game does encourage this, highlighting synergies between logical Civ and Leader combinations—but rewriting history is completely possible.
Throughout the Ages

While the new approach to the Ages and the Civilizations may be off-putting to players who enjoyed the previous style of play, I found it made my playthroughs feel lively.
The Legacy Paths—split into Economic, Military, Culture, and Science—were detailed and made it feel like my Civ was truly progressing. When I had a bad start to the game (and trust me, I had several while experimenting on higher difficulties), I knew I just needed to hang on until the next Age to reset the balances and focus on the Legacy Paths.
The Dark Age mechanic was particularly interesting. Between Ages, a transition period occurs where you can cash in points accrued by working through a Legacy Path or challenges in the previous Age. These might award you with attribute points, for example, or give you the ability to change where your Capital is.
If you don’t make much progress with a Legacy Path, you can claim a Dark Age in the transition period. A Military Dark Age would provide you with three fully-packed cavalry armies, but it would remove all of your existing armies and all your settlements except your Capital. They come with a tax, but they help to reset the balance.

The trio of Ages and the overlap between the game phases made the pacing of each match feel enjoyable, no matter what map type and difficulty I had picked.
There are plenty of customization options on offer when setting up a game, with advanced settings to help you tweak and adjust your ideal gaming experience. You can pick from six difficulties and change elements like disaster intensity.
Alongside the new Ages, combat feels exceptional in Civ 7. The Commander unit makes managing your troops much easier, stacking them up to a point and allowing you to shift them around to take on Settlements. There’s also an incredible variety of units, themed perfectly to match their corresponding Civs and points in history.
While I’d argue this is one of the most approachable games in the franchise for newer players, there’s still a bitterly challenging aspect that can be uncovered with the right settings and game type for hardcore players to enjoy.
Elegant, but with a few rough edges

Visually, Civ 7 is a breath of fresh air for the franchise.
The overall aesthetic feels refined and elegant, and the attention to detail in the tile designs is mesmerizing. I spent the first half hour in the game just clicking through all the tiles I could see, watching the leaves fall from the trees and the campfire logs crackle. Birds soared around the Grand Canyon, while smoke swirled upwards from bustling towns, and scouts ran alongside their dogs to mark new discoveries on the map.
Even the smallest Settlements in my Civilization felt alive, and coming across new treasures while exploring the map felt infinitely rewarding.
The music is exquisite, too, as is the voice acting. The soundtrack rolls alongside the game in a natural manner, and the narrator helps to make finishing tasks like building a Wonder feel that much more monumental.
On the whole, the game ran well during my experience with it. My PC isn’t exactly top-of-the-line anymore (my AMD Ryzen 5 5600 has seen me through plenty of reviews at this point) but I experimented with both medium and high settings comfortably.
I did encounter a few crash report windows popping up throughout the review period—not crashes, mind, just the pop-up window informing me that a crash had occurred despite the game seemingly being fine. This happened predominantly when closing the game, despite closing it via the menu as intended. It didn’t occur during my time playing, so no progress was lost and I couldn’t reliably replicate it during testing, but it was noticeably odd.
In terms of actual crashes or save issues, I didn’t run into any problems. Both multiplayer and single-player matches performed well, with no noticeable lag or performance issues.
There were a handful of visual quirks to note. The health bar of a Settlement would frequently pop through the character models when the diplomacy screen appeared, which looked strange, and the Civ selection screen would sometimes turn translucent for a moment during the transition between Ages, showing the home screen behind it.
The only gameplay complaint I had is some selection options were unintuitive. Selecting troops on the same tile was often fiddly and could be frustrating in larger-scale battles, and bumping up a specific production in a city queue was finicky.
None of these are significant issues, but it was a little surprising to see the health bar pop up in a character’s midsection in a game or two screens meshing together in a game that otherwise felt seamless.
A joy to play through

Civ 7 feels like exactly what the franchise needed.
Despite a few small issues here and there, the overall experience was impressive. The gameplay feels rich and detailed, especially thanks to the intricate narrative options that pop up as you explore the world, and there’s a wealth of options on offer for players to dig into.
The game’s accessibility options were impressive. They pop up immediately when you jump in for the first time, instead of existing in a far-away menu. It may seem like a small thing to some, but having the options for colorblind players and subtitles immediately available was impactful and showed how much the team behind the game thought about the overall experience.
The option for dynamic Civs and the trio of Ages may not appeal to diehard fans of the franchise at first, but I’d implore you to give it a shot if you’re unconvinced. It’s a completely new experience, but that doesn’t mean the game is any less rich or challenging. The amount of customization options on offer means you can craft your legacy in a way that suits your playstyle preferences, and there’s a mountain of content on offer with more on the way.
- Engrossing gameplay with plenty of customization options
- New Age system allows for multiple styles of play
- Stellar for both single-player and multiplayer gameplay
- Beautiful aesthetic and music throughout
- A few visual quirks and rough edges
Published: Feb 3, 2025 09:00 am