Firaxis Games unveiled upcoming updates for Civ 7 after its release on February 11. Read on to learn more about what’s to come in this upcoming game!
Civ 7 Roadmap Revealed, Includes Free Updates
Ada Lovelace and Simon Bolivar as Paid DLCs
Civilization 7(Civ 7) devs, Firaxis Games, released its roadmap ahead of its launch on February 11, with four new contents to be released in March.
Days before its release, Firaxis Games already unveiled the contents coming to Civ 7 in early and late March. The game’s updates are classified into three categories: Content Collections (paid DLCs), Free Updates, and Events & Challenges. The upcoming contents in March are:
| Early March | Late March | |
|---|---|---|
| Content Collections | Ada Lovelace with 2 Civs and 4 Natural Wonders |
Simon Bolivar with 2 Civs |
| Free Updates | Natural Wonder: Bermuda Triangle |
Natural Wonder: Mount Everest |
| Events & Challenges | Natural Wonder Battle |
Marvelous Mountains |
Beyond the March update, the devs teased an additional 2 Leaders, 4 Civs, and 4 World Wonders to enjoy. This also includes new events and challenges for players to enjoy. However, the release window for this upcoming content is not yet disclosed. Additionally, they also informed players that new content will be released in October 2025 and beyond.
The dev also revealed a list of planned updates in the future that "didn’t quite make it in for our initial launch." Please be reminded that there are no release dates for these updates yet, but they "already have developers assigned to get them out to you as soon as we can." These are:
⚫︎ Adding Teams to multiplayers
⚫︎ Expanding the number of players in multiplayer mode to 8
⚫︎ Allowing players to pick "starting and ending Age"
⚫︎ Create "a wider variety of map types"
⚫︎ Adding hotseat in multiplayer
Civ 7’s First Global Event Launching in February
Firaxis Games also announced an upcoming CIV World Summit event, streaming globally on February 8, 2025, at 8:00 am (PDT).
The devs will broadcast the event live from the "XPERION Hamburg in Germany, and hosted by Firaxis Community Manager Sarah Engel and famed Civ YouTuber PotatoMcWhiskey in partnership with Rocket Beans TV." Though fans can visit the event personally, the ticket is currently sold out.
Five Civ community members will also fight "in a single free-for-all match spanning the Exploration Age and the Modern Age, with the Game Speed set to Online. There's more than glory at stake, as these challengers are battling to become the first-ever Civ World Champion!" These players can also ask for the audience's favor via live voting, which can ultimately decide their fate in Civ 7’s first competitive battle.
Firaxis Balanced Civ 7’s Diplomacy Mechanics
GamesRadar reported that Civ 7 director Ed Beach supported the changes in the game’s diplomacy system because he was "ganged up" by the design team as soon as he initiated a war, according to PC Gamer Magazine’s 405 issue.
"I've had multiplayer games where everyone decided that the war weariness system was overturned," Beach shared. "And so as soon as I got into war, my whole design team all ganged up on me and put support to the other player in the way so that I would be crippled by how bad the war weariness was. And yes, I approved some changes to the balance of that afterward."
"It is a little trickier to stay on the fringes now than it used to be," said Beach. "And I credit that pretty much to the new mechanical approach and rethink we've had on diplomacy. It used to be diplomacy and multiplayer was sort of a non-event at all. It was just what you could do in terms of inner-talk between the players to try to convince them to help you. But now there's actually levers you can pull using the influence system that actually are actual, true game mechanics that are influencing how a multiplayer game is unfolding."
Instead of just trading resources and other strategically and culturally important items, Civ 7 introduced a new diplomacy system. The new system added four new types of diplomatic actions, such as Endeavors, Sanctions, Treaties, and Espionage, where they can support, accept, or reject actions made by other civs. However, players must accumulate Influence to initiate an action or react to it.
Aside from that, players will have new options in waging war, improving relationships with City-States, and trading. Despite the significant change in the diplomacy system, the devs are open to "new possibilities for expansion and refinement down the road," hinting that further changes or additions might happen in the future.
Beach also recommended that players, including Civ veterans, go through the tutorial stage of Civ 7 on the game’s Steam Dev Diary #8, posted on January 31, 2025. Beach argued that the game has new and updated systems, including diplomacy, that first-time and veteran players might need to get accustomed to before their first full match.
As the latest installment of the Civ franchise, Civ 7 is shaping up as the most complex civilization game out there with system overhauls that completely change the flow and pace of progression.
Sources:
Civ 7: Roadmap
Civ World Summit
New Diplomacy System
Civ 7: Steam Dev Diary #8
