Civilization games are easy to get lost in, so much so that I don’t think I’ve ever actually finished one of them. This is apparently a common problem because developer Firaxis Games wanted to address it with Civilization 7.
In an interview with Game Developer, creative director Ed Beach said that less than 50% of players completed a game of Civilization 6 due to its drawn-out pacing, something that many absolutely “hated.” Tasks took longer and longer to complete as you went, and as the game became more complicated, players became overloaded with things to do to expand their empires. So Firaxis made some changes.
“The number one thing we wanted to do was break the game up into chapters (which the team is calling Ages),” Beach said. “We’re only at three ages to get through the game, because there’s a lot of restructuring around the map that happens between the two age transitions. We wanted to make it so we could reset the board a little bit and simplify things out and change up the rules” in between and across each age.
The team made other changes to pacing as well, focusing on expanding the fun of exploration throughout an entire run instead of just in the beginning. Each game starts with the Antiquity Age that allows players to explore land, but not go across bodies of water, for example.
And don’t worry, Firaxis is still leaning on its Rule of Threes for developing Civilization 7: roughly one-third of the previous game will carry over, the next third will be tweaked, and the final part will be all-new. So far, we know about a lot of new stuff, including Ages and the new ways to use leaders. Ages were a big part of the gameplay reveal announcement during Gamescom 2024 this week, but this is the closest look we’ve gotten at what will arguably be the biggest change for Civilization veterans going into the new game. We also learned that there will be a tutorial overhaul for new players, as well as new ways to mix and match leaders to change up each game.
Civilization 7 is set to release on February 11, 2025 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.