The full release of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII will take place in just a few days (February 11), but the game is already available for players who have purchased the Founders Edition. They have already tried out the new strategy and shared their opinions. The general reaction so far may disappoint fans of the series, although not for the reasons one might expect.
The game currently has «mixed» reviews on Steam, with only 43% of the more than 3000 reviews being positive. This is at least an improvement from the very first user reviews, which rated the game «mostly negative». It was expected that Civilization VII might be criticized because of the new transitions between eras, where players are forced to change their civilization in each of the three acts of the game. But player feedback has been generally positive, even negative.
«The game’s new mechanics are quite interesting», – writes Steam user WillNever, who gives the game a negative rating.
«The mechanics are fine, and changes are necessary, and they will always divide the community at the beginning», – a similar opinion is shared by Con user, who also left a negative review.
Instead, the main complaint of the community to Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is the user interface. WillNever writes that the «interface looks and feels like it was created at the alpha stage of development and never finalized by». User Lathium claims that the «interface is unfortunately very bad here and feels ported from the console in the worst way possible».
Other issues pointed out by the community include the limited map selection, the maximum map size of «Standard», and the lack of fast movement and fast combat features.
A few caveats are worth mentioning. These reviews come from a certain group of players who paid $130 for the game, so their standards are probably higher than those who buy the standard edition ($70 dollars is still not cheap). We’ll have to wait for the game’s full availability to see the full spectrum of opinions.
Nevertheless, this is not the reaction that Firaxis would like to get from its most loyal fans. What’s more, the negative reviews seem reasonable and sober compared to what Steam reviews can sometimes be. There are also more harsh opinions, such as the statement by user Cool CGI Dog that «comparing this unfinished mess to the Civ 6 release is like night and day».
It is worth reminding that critics were more inclined to the new Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, giving it an average score of 80 on Metacritic. In fact, this is the worst result for the series.
Source: pcgamer