Hi Civ fans - Ed Beach here, creative director of the Civilization franchise. 

This month marks the 35th anniversary of Civilization. Back in 1991, Sid Meier and his team shipped the very first game in the franchise. Since then, the team here at Firaxis Games has had the incredible honor of continuing that legacy.

This is a truly special milestone for any entertainment franchise to achieve, and it wouldn’t be possible without the decades of passion from the Civ community. On behalf of the team at Firaxis Games, thank you!

Earlier this year, we released the Test of Time update for Civilization VII. That update was a massive effort that incorporated a tremendous amount of player feedback, including extensive playtesting input through the Firaxis Feature Workshop. We’ve been thrilled with the community’s response to that update, and are grateful for the role you continue to play in shaping the evolution of Civ VII. 

And so, in the context of the Civ franchise’s 35th anniversary, it felt only fitting to highlight where Civilization VII is going next.

Update 1.5.0 - Coming This Month!

Let’s start with what’s right around the corner: Update 1.5.0. In this update, we’re focused on bringing a few quality-of-life updates to the game, including the long-requested True Start Location Earth map. 

Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect in 1.5.0: 

• True Start Location Earth map - Just as in Civilization VI, this new map generates the land, features, and resources of our real world, enabling a stronger roleplaying fantasy through history! You'll start your campaign in a map location representative of where your civ began in the real world, with each game spawning a different set of Natural Wonders in their natural locations, keeping things fresh even on a familiar map.
• New Voronoi maps: Terra Incognita and Shuffle - As we've done in previous patches, we're updating two map types with our Voronoi map generation algorithm. This will help ensure these map types are more varied and look more natural. Learn more here!
• Updates to resource generation - Map loading and generation is speedier, and resource placement should feel more varied.
• Updates to diplomacy - Use your Influence to stay in an alliance without joining your allies’ misguided wars.
• UI updates - additional updates to plot tooltips, Settlement banners, game setup, and a new tile ruler to help with planning Cities and Towns.

We’ll have more details on Update 1.5.0 to share very soon, and can’t wait to get it into your hands later this month! And while we’ll continue to make a few targeted quality-of-life improvements after 1.5.0, we’re planning to be lighter in update cadence as the team shifts focus to some exciting, longer-term plans for Civilization VII. 

The Next Phase of Civilization VII

As the broader Civilization development team was creating and deploying the Test of Time update, our design team got together to map out what would be next for Civilization VII. We set out to tackle three specific goals:

1. Extend the story of human history all the way to the present day and beyond.
2. Make Civilization VII a richer, more complete experience.
3. Create an inspiring first expansion that affects gameplay through all Ages.

With those goals as our guide, we conceived of our next two major content updates, and we’d like to share some details on both of these with you today. 

We’re still early in development on everything shared here, so the timing and details are subject to change along the way!  

Free Update: “Arc of Tomorrow”

First, we are excited to announce our next major update, which we’re calling “Arc of Tomorrow.” This free update for owners of Civ VII is planned to be even bigger in scope than our Test of Time update from last May. Arc of Tomorrow introduces the Atomic Age–an entirely new, fourth Age that extends the playable timeline from approximately 1950 and into the near future.

Before we dig into the gameplay details here, we wanted to share a bit about the inspiration for the themes of this update. 

Our shared proximity to the recent past makes it a unique and fascinating period of history to explore with Civ. There’s a compelling need to honor the uncertainty and fear present in that history, where proxy warfare became the new norm by which global conflict was conducted and the specter of nuclear war loomed, as it still does today. But there were also moments of light, triumph, and hope. Things once thought impossible, like spaceflight, were challenged and overcome as technology advanced at a rapid pace, while marginalized peoples rallied together to fight for justice and equality.

All of those moments–and many more besides–define our living memory and inform the world around us. The "Arc of Tomorrow" is this idea that where we are today, where we were yesterday, and where we'll be tomorrow is a part of a long, unbroken arc that represents the entirety of human history. It's something that we're more than just a passive part of, and something we shape alongside everyone else on the planet.

So, let's talk a bit about how we envision all of this translating into gameplay. Civ VII's Age structure gives us the opportunity to represent this period of history in new ways, including:

• The Atomic Age: a new, fourth Age that extends the playable timeline of history from 1950s to 2050s. 
• As with all Ages, this will include period-specific gameplay, along with new Buildings, Units, visuals, and more. 
• New Atomic Age gameplay systems: 
• Expanded Nuclear gameplay, with new offensive and defensive options and Units, plus a fun twist on mutually assured destruction.
• Multilateral Agreements, allowing you and other leaders to collectively react to developing situations like a growing stockpile of nuclear warheads with calls for disarmament… or escalation.
• New empire management tools, like the ability to transform your own Settlements into new City-States, to have finer control over your Settlement Limit and ensure you always have a path to engage in enhanced City-State abilities.
• Enhanced City-State interactions & Proxy Warfare, allowing you to avoid all-out empire vs empire war by focusing your attention and resources into smaller City-State conflicts as proxies.
• Great Works of Film, where your Film Crews will hunt for the perfect filming location that differs depending on desired genre, and gives variable benefits depending on the quality of Film produced.
• Manufactured Goods, allowing you to follow recipes that combine specific commodities to produce brand new, powerful resources like Enriched Uranium.
• New civilizations and leaders - more info to come in the future!

Just like existing Ages, you can guide your empire from Antiquity through to the end, or skip ahead and launch right into the Atomic Age with an Advanced Start.

As with the Test of Time update, we're inviting the community to put the Arc of Tomorrow content through its paces via the Firaxis Feature Workshop. We're planning to begin our first round of playtesting for this update later this year. Check here for details on how to sign up for the opportunity to participate. As always, community feedback is important to us and it will continue to shape this new content. We look forward to hearing what you think!

As a reminder, all feature and gameplay details are subject to change as we receive and iterate on player feedback.

As exciting as this update is, it’s not all we have in store for 2027.

First Expansion - Civilization VII: Earthrise

“We set out to explore the Moon and instead discovered the Earth.”

- William Anders, Astronaut on Apollo 8

While Arc of Tomorrow brings Civilization VII into the present day, our first paid expansion is themed around the historic space race and deploying missions across the solar system. We’re calling it Civilization VII: Earthrise.

When we were brainstorming what the first expansion for Civ VII might be, we took heavy inspiration from some fan favorites for past Civilization games, namely Civilization V's "Brave New World" and Civilization VI's "Gathering Storm." Both were built around a strong central theme and introduced new gameplay systems that shaped entire campaigns. Earthrise follows a similar philosophy.

From humanity's earliest days, we have always been fascinated with the sky. In Earthrise, that sense of wonder shapes your civilization's story from the Antiquity Age all the way to the near future. While we’re not sharing much in the way of feature details just yet, here’s an example of some of the space-themed gameplay loop we envision:

• Across the Antiquity and Exploration Ages, chart the night sky and name the celestial bodies above, ultimately gaining insights about the solar system and your planet’s place within it. 
• By the Modern Age, you’ll launch early orbital missions around Earth and the Moon, setting the stage for space operations later on.
• Finally, in the Atomic Age, you’ll launch missions across the solar system with your own established space agency, discovering planetary features and untapped resources which feed back into your civilization's power here on Earth.

Engaging in the new space-themed gameplay mechanics in each Age unlocks new gameplay bonuses to bolster the capability of your civ (and not just towards the brand-new Science victory!).

However, Earthrise isn’t just about looking up. Environmental adaptability is another key theme that Earthrise will explore more deeply through new, strategic gameplay features. 

New unit abilities and technologies enable you to alter the terrain and bonuses of tiles in your empire. New civil engineering structures help you fight back against increasing Natural Disasters as global temperatures rise–and you can even reverse the warming itself. And as your empire becomes more proficient in working the land in specific biomes, your civilization will earn new gameplay advantages that enhance your abilities in those biomes.  

We look forward to sharing more details about Earthrise in the coming months, including details on the civilizations, leaders, and other features coming with the expansion. In the meantime, be sure to wishlist Earthrise today so you don’t miss out on any news! 

More to Come!

This is all just a brief glimpse of the plans we have in store, and we can’t wait to share more details with our players in the months ahead. Come join us on the Civ Official Discord for discussion with fellow Civ players and be the first to get notified when more info drops.

For more, check out the VOD recap of our PAX panel, where we shared more details about our plans for the free Arc of Tomorrow update and the Earthrise expansion.

35 years of “one more turn” memories is a tremendous milestone. On behalf of the team at Firaxis Games, thank you for being a part of Civilization, and for making all of this possible. 

- Ed Beach, Creative Director