Highlights

  • Civilization 6 brought success and new fans to the franchise, but the gameplay formula has become repetitive over the years.
  • Civilization 7 could be a complete reboot for the series, offering a fresh experience while retaining the core essence of the game.
  • A reboot could involve subverting expectations by twisting the core gameplay loop and expanding features, such as victory conditions and city management.

When it comes to grand strategy franchises, there are few quite so beloved or renowned as Civilization. Debuting all the way back in 1991, the Civilization franchise was an almost immediate success when it initially launched for the PC, and the franchise has only continued to grow from there, with new entries popping up pretty consistently every few years since. The franchise gained substantial traction with the release of Civilization 5, remaining a must-have PC game throughout the early 2010s. Then Civilization 6 brought a whole new audience to the franchise thanks to its console ports. Now, the stage has been set perfectly for Civilization 7.

Announced earlier this year, Civilization 7 is set to gain even more traction than any entry that's come before it, with past games laying the foundations gradually seemingly for a moment exactly like this. But while Civilization 7 is very likely to be another big success, it isn't guaranteed. The Civilization formula has been getting increasingly repetitive over the years, and if Civilization 7 follows the mold too closely, then it could be detrimental to the franchise in the long run, which makes a good case for Civilization 7 being a complete reboot for the whole series.

RELATED: How Civilization 7 Could Reshape Civ 6's Difficulty Levels

It Might Be Time to Reboot the Civilization Franchise

Civilization 6 Was Just More of a Good Thing

The Civilization gameplay formula is incredibly addictive and engaging, but it is admittedly largely the same formula that's been used by the franchise for over three decades now. Though the victory conditions have changed, the unit types have been expanded, the buildings and Wonders have been updated, and the Civilizations themselves have been continuously upgraded and increased over the years, the core Civilization gameplay loop has been pretty much the same since the very beginning, with players having to build up their empire from scratch, manage towns, create units, and choose one of the victory conditions to strive for, most of which end in practically the same way in each and every entry.

This core Civilization gameplay formula is far from bad, however, and there's a reason why it's stuck around unchanged for so long. Civilization 7 could easily skate by just delivering more of the same, as it's exactly what fans have come to expect. But while this would probably still result in some decent sales numbers for Civilization 7, it might not go far enough to convince newer fans to move over from Civilization 6. For that, a full franchise reboot might be in order.

Civilization 7 Could Usher in a New Age for the Franchise

For the last few years, reboots have been all the rage in the video game landscape. While video game reboots have varied pretty wildly in quality, the best of the best show that they can not only bring in long-time fans of the franchise but also entice newcomers, acting as the perfect starting point. Mortal Kombat 1 is probably the most recent example of this, and while it and Civilization share very little, Civilization 7 could learn a few big things from Mortal Kombat 1.

Rather than restart the franchise from scratch with totally new characters and stories, Mortal Kombat 1 instead decided to just restart the universe's timeline, taking beloved characters and plot beats and turning them on their head to produce intriguing new twists on the franchise's established lore. In this way, Mortal Kombat 1 was able to retain the franchise's core essence while still giving fans something completely new to experience. Civilization 7 could learn from this, taking the core gameplay loop of Civ and twisting it in some unique ways to subvert expectations. A Civilization 7 reboot could pair back the number of playable Civs in the game, but really build on what makes each one special, along with expanding the victory conditions, unit types, and city management features.