Civilization 7 launches fully on February 11, 2025 (with early access starting on February 5) but the review embargo has lifted. That means you have more than a week to figure out if the game is right for your tastes, and there are plenty of reviews to check out. With all the major changes compared to Civ 7’s predecessors — new age mechanics, new military units, new diplomacy options, and more — knowing what you’re getting yourself into is more important than ever.
Checking in on Metacritic about six hours after the game’s review embargo lifted, Civilization 7 is sitting at an overall 81% score for PC reviews with 67 total critic opinions. That’s slightly lower than the 90% I handed out in my Civilization 7 review, but, as I noted therein, I knew that opinions would vary quite a bit. There are so far no console reviews, as it appears the game was only handed out early for PC players.
Here’s a varied roundup of opinions from around the web to give you a better idea of what’s arriving soon in Civilization 7.
- VGC (100%): The changes here are smart but don’t break the established formula, and there’s slimming down and streamlining throughout that are clearly influenced by the game’s handheld success. Combined, this means Civilization 7 is a confident, sleek and another high watermark for strategy games.
- The Guardian (100%): Some veterans may balk at the structural changes: Civilization VII is very much the Civilization for now – deep and complex, but with an emphasis on human drama and achievement rather than the sweep of faceless units across a mathematical matrix. There are still few moments in video games as pleasing as building the Hanging Gardens, or discovering a bountiful new location for a town, or marching a phalanx of troops into a battered enemy capital. This game, which once almost cost me my job, will gracefully sneak away with hours, days and possibly months of your life. But then, nobody ever conquered the world in an afternoon.
- Destructoid (90%): Regardless of my minor gripes with the game, Civilization 7 is a ton of fun. The Ages system is a major game-changer and really enhances the genre in a big way. Firaxis probably could have gotten away with a safer approach with this installment, opting for just better graphics. Instead, it boldly revamped a lot of the core systems to make the entire game more streamlined for both newcomers and veterans alike. I’m glad Firaxis is still finding ways to improve a genre it has mastered over the years, and as a result, Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 has the series in its best shape yet.
- Wccftech (80%): Civilization VII is a great game, that’s the simple answer. With an improved city-building system, terrain features, and diplomacy, there is much to like in the new release of the three-and-a-half decade old franchise. However, long-time fans of the series will find some of the omissions, such as the ability to turn off victory conditions other than domination, limiting. This, and the rapid nature of the ages, will also leave some feeling that the epic nature of some longer games is altogether missing. Still, even with the games feeling a little rushed, the one-more-turn that makes Civilization one of the best series ever remains there.
- GamesRadar (80%): Civilization 7 is a revolutionary strategy game for newcomers and long-time fans alike. Though some tweaks around diplomacy and Ages fall short, a host of small reinventions – along with Firaxis’ biggest gamble in tackling the tedium of long-running campaigns – pays off superbly.
- PCGamer (76%): Civilization 7 feels like a reaction to the maximalism of its predecessor: sleeker and speedier, colder and less complex. Being the first game in the series to come out on consoles at the same time as PC, I can’t help but feel that some of the complexity cutbacks are made with gamepad players in mind. Some of these cuts are positive, and they help the game flow better (especially, I imagine, in multiplayer), but the simplification of systems like religion, diplomacy, city-states, and espionage means that the journey through history doesn’t feel quite as rich or rewarding.
- IGN (70%): With Civilization 7, the desire to streamline and simplify this legendary 4X series feels like it has gone a bit too far, particularly when it comes to the interface. It’s frustratingly inadequate at providing me with the information I need to play well, or even understand what’s going on sometimes. Even so, it does have improved warfare and diplomacy, a bit of added narrative flair, as well as mostly gorgeous graphics and sound, so it can still give me reasons to keep clicking one more turn late into the night. There’s good reason to believe that with Firaxis’s usual pace of patches and expansions it can refine its new ideas and become everything it ought to be, and while what’s here right now is at least still a fun time, it’s also a bigger step backward for the series than we’re accustomed to when a new age dawns.
- Eurogamer (40%): Civilization 7 is pretty and detailed and sounds fine (I caught that one tune from Colonization!). AI turns are perhaps the fastest I’ve ever seen, and its UI has enough potential to make some of my complaints feel patchable. Its design broadly works, and a certain kind of city-optimising fan may even love it. But its lack of character is endemic, the extent of its annoying habits and oversights shocking for a series of such pedigree. It’s a dull, contradictory game, and instead of showing everyone how it’s done, it’s felt since hour one like a game that leaves the 4X throne empty.
As I expected, there’s quite a bit of variation in terms of the critic response to Civilization 7. With a series so legendary, you’re bound to have purists on one side arguing against more casual players who just want to have a good time. I consider myself in the latter camp, though I’ve played plenty of Civ 5 (and less so Civ 6). I took this knowledge first into my Civ 7 preview before committing to a full review.
It seems like more than a few critics found the game to be “boring” despite a strong focus on tightening up some of the mid- and late-game pacing and unit management. I have to subjectively disagree; I can’t stop playing Civ 7.
Looking at reviews with a similar score to my own Civ 7 review, opinions tend to match my own. The game has some minor bugs and is clearly gearing up for an extended stretch of paid DLCs, but the major changes to mechanics only benefit the series and make it feel a lot more modern.
Here’s a quote from me that sums up my more than 50 hours (so far) with Civilization 7:
“Civilization 7 doesn’t stray so far as to not feel like a Civ game, but the new mechanics and units will make you reconsider your old strategies. Civilization 7 is easy to pick up and play for newcomers to the series, and for veterans, it offers more valid strategies than ever before. Many of the big changes in Civilization 7 are undoubtedly due to the newfound competition from 4X strategy games like Ara: History Untold, Old World, and Humankind; the devs didn’t just want to give the series a facelift when other ways to operate a 4X turn-based strategy game have proven successful.”
Civilization 7 is expected to launch on February 11, 2025 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Playstation 5/4, Nintendo Switch, Linux, and macOS. Early access for buyers of the Deluxe or Founders Editions will begin on February 6.
