A new entry to the Civilization series is always a tricky proposition. As much as players love a fresh take on the long-running strategy staple, changes in design approach and the typical need for months of refinements and add-ons sometimes mean it’s better to play an older Civ or a competitor like Against the Storm, Total War: Pharaoh, or Crusader Kings 3, than the latest launch. This seems to be the case with Civilization 7, which only came out a month ago but had fewer players on Steam than 2010’s Civilization 5 earlier today, as Firaxis continues to struggle to improve its latest outing with regular updates.
Civilization 7 is hardly a poor entry to the strategy game series, our review scoring it a 7/10 and noting that “it’s tighter and more engaging than any of its predecessors.” But its had a rocky debut on Steam, where it currently holds a 49% positive or ‘Mixed’ rating based on user reviews. Its player count reflects this issue. Earlier today, Wednesday March 19, the 15-year-old Civilization 5 outstripped Civ 7, with 10,192 players active in the older game compared to the most recent entry’s 9,904.
This has changed as the day’s continued. Civilization 7 currently has 16,145 players, while Civ 5 has 15,357. As a sign of the relative popularity of Civilization’s most recent entries, though, Civ 6 boasts an impressive 34,379 active players at the time of writing.
But Civilization 7 may attract a wider audience as its makers continue work on the project. On March 25, for instance, creator Firaxis Games will launch a big new update, Update 1.1.1, that should help get the game into better shape with further changes and improvements to design elements like user interface and quick move functionality.
If you’re looking for other choices to help pass the time before that update, though, we have recommendations to check out in our picks for the top 4X games and grand strategy games on PC.
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