Civilization VII is starting to find its feet
Barry Collins/Firaxis
The recently released Civilization VII: Test of Time update has boosted the troubled game’s fortunes, with players reacting positively to the new update.
Civilization VII has struggled to match the huge popularity of its predecessor (and other titles in the long-running series) since its release in February 2025. A flat 50% of the reviews on Steam were positive before the free update was released on May 19, compared to 84% positive reviews for its predecessor Civilization VI, which was released way back in October 2016.
Negative sentiment is a big problem for a franchise such as Sid Meier’s Civilization because of the long gap between major new versions of the game. The bulk of the game’s income comes from the ongoing sales of DLC, but if there’s little enthusiasm for the game, DLC sales suffer.
Victory conditions have been made clearer in the new update
Barry Collins/Firaxis
The Test of Time updates fixes one of the biggest complaints about Civilization VII: the way players were forced to change civilization at the start of each new age.
As the game’s developers Firaxis acknowledged in a recent dev diary, “the core tradition of Civ, for the entirety of its 30+ years of existence, has centered exclusively on playing as a single civilization from beginning to end. To upend that essential piece so suddenly, without even the option to continue telling that same meta-historical tale, felt like too far a break.”
Now players can continue with the same civilization through all three of the game’s ages or switch at the beginning of each new age, as before.
Other changes include a revamp of the victory system, with scores now added for each of the four different victory types (military, cultural, economic and scientific), giving you a better feel for your progress throughout the different ages and leaving less hanging on nabbing victory in the final modern age.
The vastly unpopular legacy paths system has also been replaced with minor and major triumphs, which are effectively mini-challenges that you can tick off throughout the game.
One of the most interesting new features is Syncretism, the ability to “borrow” abilities from other civilizations. This is unlocked in the civics tree, and allows you to adopt the same special traits as your rivals, such as a unit or building that would normally only be available to one civilization.
The new features seem to have gone down well with players, as have other more minor updates throughout the game’s 16-month lifespan.
Since the Test of Time update was released on May 19, the game has not seen a single day when the negative Steam reviews outweighed the positive. Average review scores over the 11 days since the update was launched stand at 55%, which is an improvement on the 51% positive score over the game’s entire lifespan.
Reddit is home to many of Civilization VII’s fiercest critics, but Test of Time also appears to be well received there, too.
A Reddit thread from last week asking if the game is worth getting now was met with largely positive responses. “It’s definitely gotten better, but now I don’t know for sure how to play for victories lol,” wrote one player. “I went from winning about 75% of my games on immortal, and now I’m playing sovereign and getting an absolute run for my money with the AI. They got a lot smarter.”
“As someone who has been disappointed in it since launch, I can say ‘Yes’,” wrote another player. “The game, while still not great, is at a point I think most players would have hoped it would have been at launch.”
Many in the Reddit thread were also anticipating the release of Civilization VII DLC. When fans are keen to spend money, you must be doing something right…
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