It has been some time since the release of Civilization VII on February 11th, 2025. However, it is clear that time has moved on and the game is languishing almost like a middle child between Civ 6 and Civ 5. The idea that Civ 5 is within striking distance of Civilization VII on Steam player’s count, shows that a game from the early 2010s is showing its staying power with the fanbase in Civilization.
However, there is always need for corporations to put out feelers in order to get people’s interest, even when it is clear that the game is not up to par. Firaxis Games seems to have put little effort into responding to the community, relying on “journalists” to write up sycophantic articles. Especially in the beginning of the games release, many journalists were trying to play nice with the Firaxis Games, so they can get exclusive insights which would help boost their video channels as well as their websites.
However, since the release of the game, there has been very little written about Civilization VII. Even on YouTube, hardly any of the influencers are caring about it. Even the release of the newest path, 1.1.0 was not enough to bring players back into the game.
The game is currently not making splash on Steam.
While Steam does not represent every player who bought the game, Civilization VII is trailing Civilization VI by many thousands of players. No matter what the devs are saying about the game, the game is not selling well in comparison to Civilization VI, when it was released in October 2016.
Civilization VII is a game that is seeking an audience. What is that audience? Civilization VII is made for casual fans who do not want any micro. It also takes ideas from Humankind which were better implemented in that game. I think that the team who made this game were just throwing ideas together, without much consideration for whether they would be part of a coherent whole.
Civilization VI will remain the most popular game for many years to come. Unless Firaxis makes a Stellaris-style change to the gameplay, it is unlikely that any DLCs or expansions will revive this game.
Civilization VI was more popular at the same time in comparison to Civilization VII. This is a clear sign that Civilization VII does not have the staying power of previous games in the series.
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