TheCivilizationfranchise has held a strong position in the strategy video game market for well over 30 years now, with six mainline entries continuing to deliver some of the best 4X gameplay of their respective eras. Though it seems incredibly outdated now,1991’sCivilizationwas a very innovative title for its day, offering a strategic experience unlike any other. While strategy games had been around for a while,Civilizationwas one of the first games to offer an expansive, real-world strategic sandbox to play in, with far more than just military domination to work towards.
Over the years, theCivilizationfranchise has evolved at a steady pace, adding new nations, leaders, victory conditions, and units. But these changes are rarely drastic, and for the most part, theCivilizationfranchise has remained largely the same for three decades. Though every once in a while,Civilizationgets to dip its toes into uncharted waters, andCivilization 7’s imminent releasemight cause the series to pass over that opportunity for the first time since 2006.
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Civilization 7 Might Break a Long-Time Series Tradition
In 2005,Civilization 4released. Though it came just four years afterCivilization 3,Civilization 4brought a number of acclaimed features to the franchise, including a brand new 3D engine, smarter AI, a more refined multiplayer component, and a handful of quality-of-life improvements. In many ways,Civilization 4was seen as the start of a new era for the franchise, and that was celebrated with the launch ofa spinoff,CivCity: Rome.
Coming just nine months afterCivilization 4’s release,CivCity: Romewas a unique departure for the franchise up till that point. While theCivilizationseries had several spinoffs beforeCivCity: Rome, such asColonizationandAlpha Centauri, they all followed the same 4X strategy formula laid out by the mainline series.CivCity: Rome, on the other hand, took the series in a different direction, focusing not on an entire nation, but just one city.CivCity: Romesees players take control of a Roman leader, in charge of managing a bustling ancient Roman city, with gameplay centered around ensuring that the city has all of the commodities and facilities it needs to thrive, more similar to a tycoon game than a 4X strategy title.
Just two years afterCivCity: Rome’s release,Civilization Revolutionwould launch on the seventh generation of consoles. WhileCivilization Revolutionwould follow in the mainline series' footstepsmuch more closely thanCivCity, it still marked a big departure for the series, stripping back a lot of the franchise’s more complex systems in favor of offering a more streamlined, accessible experience for newcomers.
Two spinoff titles came betweenCivilization 4and5, and that same pattern would repeat forCivilization 5and6. Following on fromCiv 5’s launch in 2010,Civilization: Beyond Earthwould release in 2014, alongsideCivilization Revolution 2in the same year. SinceCivCity: Rome’s release in 2006, there have always been two spinoff titles in between mainlineCiventries, but that trend seems to be coming to an end withCivilization 7.
A few months ago, Firaxis announced that it wasworking onCivilization 7. With that presumably being the nextCivilizationentry slated for release, it’ll mark the first time since 2001 that there have been no spinoff entries at all between mainlineCivilizationreleases, and the first time since 2006 that there haven’t been two. While it’s great to have another mainlineCivon the horizon, it’s a bit of a shame that there hasn’t been a spinoff title in almost a decade, as these tend to offer a particularly unique experience that often isn’t found in the mainline entries themselves.
