Civilization VII: plan an empire for the next Age
The current game lets your civilization endure or change. Read the updated objectives, give settlements clear jobs, and make the Age Transition part of the plan.
Read storyTurn-based strategy · released
Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Guide an empire through Antiquity, Exploration, and the Modern Age. Read the map, give settlements a purpose, and plan for the next Age before it arrives.
Player rating / 10—
GV interest81
GV interest reflects our editorial ordering. Player ratings appear below.
- Release
- Feb 11, 2025
- Developer
- Firaxis Games
- Publisher
- 2K
- Platforms
- PC · Mac · Linux · PS4 · PS5 · Xbox One · Xbox Series X|S · Switch · Switch 2
01
About Sid Meier's Civilization VII
How it plays, who it suits and where to start.
Sid Meier's Civilization VII asks you to plan at two scales. At the local level, a settlement needs useful land, an economy, and enough protection to survive its neighbors. At the campaign level, you are building an empire through Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern Ages. A choice that solves today's problem may create tomorrow's opportunity, or leave you supporting an expensive border you never meant to defend.
Read the current game before using an old guide
Firaxis Games has changed important systems since the February 2025 launch. The free Test of Time update, released in May 2026, introduced Time-Tested civilizations: you can now keep one civilization through the campaign or choose to change it at an Age Transition. Triumphs replaced Legacy Paths, and the victory system was reworked. Advice that insists you must change civilizations or follow the original Legacy objectives describes an earlier version.
The Ages still provide a useful planning rhythm. Check what the current objectives ask for, examine the land you can reach, and decide what your empire can support. Choose a direction without treating every decision as permanent. A difficult frontier may call for an army; a coast may become a route to expansion; a productive town may supply what a city needs.
What an evening looks like
You explore, research technologies and civics, develop settlements, negotiate, and sometimes fight. Each turn asks which limited resource deserves your attention. A turn-based format gives you time to inspect the tooltips and reconsider. It also makes it easy to spend an entire session following one promising idea a little further.
This is a strong fit for players who enjoy learning rules and watching a plan take shape over several sessions. Newcomers should leave room for a learning campaign. A save where you discover how towns, cities, and diplomacy work can be worthwhile even if the eventual victory belongs to someone else.
The original worldwide release date is February 11, 2025. The main game is available on PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and Switch 2, with platform-specific limits to check before multiplayer. Separate VR and Apple Arcade editions have their own feature sets and are not bundled into this listing. Start with the rules available in your installed edition and then choose how ambitious the first empire should be.
Sources
2K's Test of Time release details, official game guide, and Civilization VII FAQ.
02
Stories and guides
1 story about Sid Meier's Civilization VII.
03
Player reviews
Read what other players think, or sign in to share your own rating and review.
Share your experienceWhat did you enjoy? What fell short?
Sign in to reviewSign in to add a rating or review. Other readers can see it on this page.
No player reviews yet.Played it? Sign in and tell other readers what to expect.