Take-Two Boss Strauss Zelnick Says He's 'Thrilled' With Civilization 7 So Far Even Through More People Are Playing Civ 6 and Even Civ 5 on Steam

Civilization 7 has had a unsmooth motorboat connected Steam — that overmuch is clear. The strategy sequel has struggled for players connected Valve’s level ever since its motorboat successful February. Reaction is ‘mixed,’ according to Steam idiosyncratic reviews. And contempt a fig of patches issued by developer Firaxis to reverse the sentiment, Civilization 7 finds itself successful the unenviable concern of having less players connected Steam than Civilization 6 and adjacent the 15-year-old Civilization 5.

Civ 7’s Steam show does not overgarment the full picture, of course. The crippled besides launched connected PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch (a Nintendo Switch 2 mentation that makes usage of the caller Joy-Con rodent controls volition soon release). But Civilization’s breadstuff and food is PC, and determination Civ 7 is intelligibly struggling.

You’d think, then, that Firaxis genitor institution Take-Two wouldn’t beryllium champion pleased. But speaking to IGN successful an interrogation up of the company’s latest fiscal results, CEO Strauss Zelnick told maine helium was “thrilled” with Civ 7 truthful far.

“I'm thrilled with Civ 7 truthful far,” Zelnick began. “However, determination were immoderate issues initially, and our squad astatine Firaxis has done a large occupation addressing those issues. There's much enactment to beryllium done. I'm optimistic that enactment volition beryllium done and volition suit consumers, and yet that we person a precise palmy rubric connected our hands.”

Zelnick past pointed to the Civilization franchise’s inclination to person a agelong income cycle, astatine slightest compared to galore different games, and his content that Civ 7 volition travel suit.

“The past of each the Civilization releases is that initially immoderate of the changes that we marque origin consternation among our consumers due to the fact that they emotion the Civilization franchise truthful much,” helium said.

“And past radical realize, oh, this truly is an betterment and implicit a agelong income cycle, we bash truly well. I deliberation that's what'll hap present too.

“But undoubtedly, we had immoderate issues successful the beginning, which we've addressed partially and proceed to address.”

When Civ 7 launched, players highlighted issues with the idiosyncratic interface, a deficiency of representation variety, and expressed a feeling that the crippled launched without a fig of features they’d travel to expect from the franchise.

Zelnick’s notation of hardcore Civ players being a small tense astir Civ 7 astatine motorboat is no-doubt a notation to immoderate of the melodramatic changes Firaxis made to the game.

A afloat run successful Civilization 7 is 1 that goes done each 3 Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Once the Age is completed, each players (and immoderate AI opponents) acquisition an Age Transition simultaneously. During an Age Transition, 3 things happen: you prime a caller civilization from the caller Age to correspond your empire, you take which Legacies you privation to clasp successful the caller Age, and the crippled satellite evolves. The Civilization games person ne'er had specified a system. Clearly, Zelnick believes Civ fans volition travel to emotion it implicit time.

Take-Two has yet to denote a income fig for Civilization 7, but successful its fiscal study said it was "pursuing opportunities to grow the audience," including the caller motorboat of Civilization 7 VR for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, arsenic good arsenic the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 port.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].