Sid Meier’s Civilization VI

Civilization VI was developed by the same Firaxis team that had built the Civilization V expansions Gods and Kings and Brave New World. Lead designer Ed Beach, lead producer Dennis Shirk, and art director Brian Busatti all carried over from that work. The 25th anniversary of the franchise was cited as context for the announcement in May 2016. It released on October 21 2016 for Windows and macOS, with Linux following in February 2017, iOS in December 2017, Nintendo Switch in November 2018, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2019, and Android in 2020.

Beach came to game design via board games — he is the designer of Here I Stand, the card-driven wargame covering the Protestant Reformation — and his central aim with Civilization VI was to make the map itself as strategically significant as any other element of the game. The mechanism through which he pursued this was the district system. Cities in Civilization VI no longer concentrate all their buildings on a single tile. Instead, districts are placed on surrounding terrain tiles, each hosting a category of improvement: a Campus for science, a Commercial Hub for gold, a Holy Site for religion, and so on. Each district type benefits from adjacent terrain and other districts, which means the geography of a city’s founding location determines what it can develop efficiently. Players can no longer follow the same city layout regardless of where they settle, because each location rewards different approaches. This was a deliberate break from the muscle memory that Civilization V had allowed players to accumulate.

The technology and civics trees both include an Eureka system, where completing relevant actions in the world provides a research boost that halves the cost of a specific technology or civic. Building a mine boosts an early metallurgy technology; training archers accelerates the relevant archery tech. The system rewards players who play in ways that mirror the development being researched, and encourages exploring the map and taking varied actions rather than settling early into an optimal build sequence. Religion is a full system, requiring the construction of Holy Sites to generate faith, the founding of a pantheon, and eventually a religion with customisable tenets. A religious victory condition requires spreading your religion to a majority of cities across a majority of civilisations. Victory conditions at launch covered science, culture, religion, military domination, and points at the time limit, with a diplomatic victory conspicuously absent — an omission that attracted criticism and was addressed in a later expansion.

Christopher Tin, who had written “Baba Yetu” for Civilization IV, returned to compose the main theme, “Sogno di Volare,” described as capturing the spirit of both geographic and intellectual exploration. The score, primarily written by Geoff Knorr, assigns each civilisation a core melody that develops through four variations across the historical eras, growing more complex as the game advances. Sean Bean voiced the technology and civics quotes.

Firaxis applied what Beach described as a 33/33/33 rule: one third of the game should retain established systems from the previous entry, one third should improve on them, and one third should be new. The district system and the Eureka mechanic were the major new contributions. One million copies shipped in the first two weeks of release, making it the fastest-selling entry in the franchise to that point. Metacritic recorded an 88 on PC.

The first expansion, Rise and Fall, released on February 8 2018, scoring 79 on Metacritic. It introduced a Golden and Dark Age system tracking civilisational momentum across eras, a loyalty mechanic that caused cities near hostile borders to rebel or defect, and governors who could be appointed to cities to improve loyalty and provide bonuses. The second expansion, Gathering Storm, followed on February 14 2019 at Metacritic 80, restoring the diplomatic victory and World Congress from Civilization V, and adding natural disasters including volcanic eruptions, floods, and a climate change system driven by industrial pollution that caused rising sea levels threatening low-lying districts and improvements. The New Frontier Pass ran from May 2020 to March 2021, delivering six additional DLC packs. A Leader Pass released from November 2022 through March 2023 added further historical leaders.

Beach later said, when discussing Civilization VII, that the number of players who completed full games of Civilization VI was depressingly low, and that the team had recognised mid-development that the late-game pacing had accumulated too many systems to manage comfortably. Civilization VII, announced with Beach as creative director, restructured around three distinct Ages partly in response to this. Civilization VI is the best-selling entry in the series to date. It is available on Steam and the Epic Games Store.