Civilization 7 isn’t the best game in the franchise. It tried too hard to be similar to other games that themselves were iterations on the formula (chiefly Humankind) and wanted to branch out its gameplay loop rather than focusing on what it had already nailed down for so many decades.
And so, the game tried to send us down a path of shifting civilizations for every age, instead of allowing us to focus on the humble beginnings and stellar highs of our singular chosen civs. In the meantime, though, Firaxis decided to walk back the most unique aspect of its own game, allowing players to stick with a single civ for the entirety of the playthrough, rendering the sequel a tad meaningless compared to Civ 6 and even Civ 5.
Now, the developers are finally patching up the ages, allowing players to progress into the Atomic Age set between the 1950s and the middle of the 21st century. It will allow players to have nukes, a staple of the Civilization franchise, and experience their civs’ modern-day looks.
Every other game in the franchise – for literal decades – had an atomic age from the get-go. It was such a meme during the early days of the series that Gandhi became the ironic mascot of nuclear warfare, but for some reason Firaxis did not include it by default in Civilization 7.
There are nukes in the game, sure, but they’re a bit of a late-game thing and very limited due to the game’s cut-off point being around 1950, leaving players without high-speed or precise payload delivery methods. And since it’s part of the so-called Modern Age, nukes appear at basically the very end of a match and do not carry much of an impact overall.
Even so, this free update won’t be coming before 2027, so you’re going to have to stick to what the game already has for the time being.
Civ 7 is a very strange “sequel” indeed, and I hope Firaxis finds a way to address every player complaint and perhaps turn the game around over the next few years.
