Highlights

  • Civilization 7 must impress fans by going above and beyond in improving units, technology trees, and victory conditions.
  • Insight into world leaders' interactions could add depth and personality to the game, offering a fresh gameplay perspective.
  • Embracing a more stylized art style for world leaders in Civilization 7 could make them visually distinct and engaging.

The next Civilization game already has quite a bit of pressure on its shoulders. After Civilization 6 managed to take the franchise to new heights with its unprecedented number of leaders, modes, and mechanics, and managed to capture entirely new audiences across multiple platforms, Civilization 7 has more eyes on it than any previous entry in the series. Civilization 7 is going to need to go above and beyond to really impress fans.

There are countless ways in which Civilization 7 could improve upon its predecessor, from adding new units to reinventing technology trees to reworking classic victory conditions. But one area that could do with more of a subtle redesign is Civilization 7's leaders, and in particular, the characterization of those leaders, many of whom have looked, sounded, and acted the same for years now.

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How Civilization 7 Can Improve Its Leader Characterization

Civilization 7's Leaders Should Interact With Each Other

A game centered around historical strategy, Civilization's world leaders have always been one of the most important features in the entire franchise, being the basis for much of the game's charm and character. But Civilization's leaders have stayed pretty much the same for the best part of three decades. The vast majority of the time, players will only encounter other world leaders when they talk to them directly, either via the game's diplomacy mechanics, or by initiating an act of war. Fans never get to see world leaders actually interact with one another, and it might be time to change that.

In Civilization 7, it might be refreshing to see other world leaders talk to each other, with the player either watching the interaction passively or being able to chime in with their own thoughts. For instance, if an AI takes over another AI player's city, these leaders could appear and start bickering, with the player then being prompted to side with one faction or the other. This could give Civilization's leaders some much-needed depth and personality, as they currently don't get to express themselves all that much. It would also be interesting to see world leaders appear more frequently in general, perhaps appearing at random intervals to discuss major events taking place on their side of the map.

Of course, Civilization 7 would need to balance all this very carefully. Too many instances of leaders arguing with one another could slow the game's pace right down and could easily end up feeling more annoying than interesting. The key thing to remember here is to keep these leader encounters short and sweet, injecting them with plenty of humor to keep things fun and lighthearted.

Civilization 7 Could Experiment With More Unique Character Designs

Right up until Civilization 6's release in 2016, the Civilization franchise was aiming for an increasingly realistic art style with each new entry, thus leading to Civilization 5's leaders looking fairly realistic in terms of proportions and physical features. However, Civilization 6 ushered in a much more cartoon-y art style. While this art style meant that maps were brighter and more colorful, it did mean that its leaders were given a much more stylized appearance across the board.

It might be fun to see Civilization 7 embrace this stylized aesthetic even further, using it to make its world leaders even more distinct. For instance, each world leader could be given a heavily stylized visual design based on their culture's traditional artwork, such as renaissance leaders looking like portraits come to life, 20th century leaders looking like a black-and-white photograph, and ancient leaders looking as though they were drawn on the side of a cave wall.