What's next for paid content in the Civ franchise?

[mrwho]

The April patch has been heavily marketed as the 'final free update of the season'. The term 'of the season' being used so frequently has led to heavy speculation that more content for Civ VI is on the way. Firaxis has refused to rule out additional content, but have made no comments to otherwise suggest more content could be coming either, as far as I know.

There have been previous discussions on whether there will be another season pass, but I though I'd expand the question to encompass the entire franchise, and also gauge community opinion with a poll. For the purposes of the poll, if you think Firaxis themselves haven't decided what to do next yet, put in your best guess as to what's next, or 'other' if you're not sure.

If you'd like, feel free to add to your response by what you'd like to see from the option you pick - i.e. what you'd like to see in Civ VII, just so this isn't another thread speculating on the breadcrumbs Firaxis has left us.

 

[mrwho]

Personally, I think Firaxis are probably ready to move on now and are done with Civ VI, except maybe one or two final patches. I don't think Beyond Earth sold especially well and wasn't recieved well, so my guess is they'll be soon moving on to Civ VII, and we'll hear more about this some time in the next 18 months. I think they're just being careful with their wording to not rule anything out, but they seem to have one foot out the door now to say the least.

It's hard to say what I'd like to see from Civ VII, because Civ VI introduced a lot that I don't think Firaxis can get rid of now. Civ VI added districts, Civ V added 1UPT and hex grids, Civ IV added religion, improved AI and graphics, and multiplayer. I'm not sure what Civ VII's USP will be at this point. I think it has to keep districts in, because they're a big improvement. I think Civ IV represented the best of a certain iteration of the francise, and other than the bad AI, Civ VI now represent the best iteration of the direction they took from Civ V onwards. So I'd like to see them take a risk with the next entry, and really focus more on the dynamism of real history. Once seemingly all-powerful empires falling away, countries splitting apart and unifying together, cultural revolution, etc. Instead of the current core gameplay where other than cities changing hands and discovering new civs, geopolitics is pretty similar 50 turns in as it is 250, make dynamism a core part of gameplay. This does borrow elements from what Humankind sounds like it's going to be, but hard to say right now what exactly that game will end up being and how Civ VII could differentiate itself. In theory, Civ VII could learn from some of the successes and failures of Humankind while putting its own unique 'CIv' stamp on things.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

As I said on the patch thread this would be a very, very strange patch to authorise if it was intended to be the last one. You want the final patch to tidy things up and not introduce anything new that may need to be rebalanced, you also want to minimise the chance to introduce new bugs. We have major changes to a number of civilizations, the introduction of culturally dominant pressure, a rework of the melee and ranged units as well as lots of other minor changes - none of this makes sense as a final patch. I expect at the very least a final bug fix patch but more likely NFP Season 2.

That would enable them to work on integrating the Modes into the base game more, I would also envisage a number of new Personas as well as a handful of new Civs / Leaders.

 

[Elhoim]

Civilization Online is the next one

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

 

[Stilgar08]

Although I'd love to get another full civ VI expansion (RF GS) this won't happen. I'm confident, they won't move forward as well. So what's left is a season 2.
The complaints about a feel of an unfinished game despite all the parts is justified. The pieces are not really all in place. They never will completely but more than right now is definitely needed.

 

[Linklite]

I'm 60% sure of an NFP2. Economic circumstances plus their language and actions lead me to believe that they're leaning towards a second run. I doubt it would be an XP (boo!), but I'm thinking that they will do another SP.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Honestly I'm not expecting anything more for civ 6 except bugfixes and maybe a few tiny balance/AI tweaks.

 

[civviefan]

So I'd like to see them take a risk with the next entry, and really focus more on the dynamism of real history. Once seemingly all-powerful empires falling away, countries splitting apart and unifying together, cultural revolution, etc. Instead of the current core gameplay where other than cities changing hands and discovering new civs, geopolitics is pretty similar 50 turns in as it is 250, make dynamism a core .

This. Bring on Civ 7!!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

So I'd like to see them take a risk with the next entry, and really focus more on the dynamism of real history. Once seemingly all-powerful empires falling away, countries splitting apart and unifying together, cultural revolution, etc. Instead of the current core gameplay where other than cities changing hands and discovering new civs, geopolitics is pretty similar 50 turns in as it is 250, make dynamism a core part of gameplay.

This sounds like Dramatic Ages, which people either love or hate - personally I played it once and never again!

 

[_hero_]

What I'd like to see is for them to release the DLL so that modding can finally meet its potential, but that likely won't happen until they're done developing Civ VI. The fact that the DLL hasn't been released implies to me they aren't done releasing new paid features for the game. Either that or they've foolishly decided they are never going to release the DLL, in which case I will be very hesitant in buying a Civ VII when it comes out.

 

[pokiehl]

What I'd like to see is for them to release the DLL so that modding can finally meet its potential, but that likely won't happen until they're done developing Civ VI. The fact that the DLL hasn't been released implies to me they aren't done releasing new paid features for the game. Either that or they've foolishly decided they are never going to release the DLL, in which case I will be very hesitant in buying a Civ VII when it comes out.

I don’t think the dll has anything to do with whether they’re finished or not. The Civ 4 dll came out in the first year of the game and the Civ 5 dll came out before BNW.

 

[acluewithout]

Maybe a “Legacy” DLC pack with 2 or 3 Game Modes, a few more Civs / Alt Leaders / Persona Packs and a few other things, mostly focusing on bringing stuff back from previous versions of Civ.

Or another Season Pass. FXS didn’t touch the back end of the game much, so there’s room for new content there if they want it. They also didn’t do much with Governors, Spies or Religion, so there’s that too. They’ve already done fantasy genre in NFP, but Sci-Fi is an option (I could see Game Modes or Scenarios borrowing from Beyond Earth), as is maybe War / Conflict themes.

I think it’s about 50:50 if we get more, but I tend to think more likely than not that there’s more content. Really just doesn’t feel like we’re done.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

After spending the weekend playing the new Victor Open Dev version of Humankind, I think Firaxis would be foolish to keep trying to patch up Civ VI in the face of the new game coming out later this year. To be blunt, despite being a partial and unfinished version of a game, Humankind is already head and shoulders above Civ VI in its map graphics, city-building, combat system, and, frankly, has far more of the vaunted One More Turn feel to it than Civ VI does - at the moment.

Which doesn't mean Civ should try to emulate Humankind, but it does mean that to be competitive, Civ has to go beyond patches and added bits and pieces and take the Civ systems and enhance them in a whole new game.
That means a game with better map, unit and city graphics, more personalization of Leaders, Governors, Great People, Little People. Far better Resource, Trade, Religion, Civics and Governmental systems.

Basically, all the things we've been talking about on these forums for years now, distilled and enhanced and carefully planned to actually fit together in a coherent whole. It is not possible to do that by pasting more patches onto Civ VI: they need to start over with an entirely new game of Civ, with the characteristic (dare I say, Unique and Emblematic?) Civ personalizations and animations and the on-map graphic indicators of all the city systems that, as good as it is, Humankind does not have.

 

[Wellfooled]

This sounds like Dramatic Ages, which people either love or hate - personally I played it once and never again!

The problem is, Dramatic Ages was just tacked on as an afterthought. If something similar were included in Civ VII, planned ahead, and incorporated into the core game I think it could be a very successful feature. Dramatic ages though had none of that through integration. I never play with it enabled for my games either.

After spending the weekend playing the new Victor Open Dev version of Humankind, I think Firaxis would be foolish to keep trying to patch up Civ VI in the face of the new game coming out later this year.

Though I haven't yet played anything from Humankind, I do agree. Civilization no longer exists in a vacuum and having similar historical games vying for an audience will push Civilization to be more innovative. I think at this point Civilization needs to look at their competitors, learn from them, and use that information to adapt Civ VII more efficiently instead of trying to keep Civ VI going in the face of a more modern option. If they play their cards right they can listen to feedback about Humankind, use elements that people love and reject elements that people hate, and make Civ VII all the better for it.

 

[Abaxial]

It depends on what Firaxis have been doing the last few years.If they have been quietly developing "a game with better map, unit and city graphics, more personalization of Leaders, Governors, Great People, Little People. Far better Resource, Trade, Religion, Civics and Governmental systems" then well and good, but if not, if they are now looking at Humankind and thinking "we have to top this", it will take forever to get it to market. And there is no word of anything in the pipeline, whereas we have seen something of Humankind's look and feel for a good long time now.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It depends on what Firaxis have been doing the last few years.If they have been quietly developing "a game with better map, unit and city graphics, more personalization of Leaders, Governors, Great People, Little People. Far better Resource, Trade, Religion, Civics and Governmental systems" then well and good, but if not, if they are now looking at Humankind and thinking "we have to top this", it will take forever to get it to market. And there is no word of anything in the pipeline, whereas we have seen something of Humankind's look and feel for a good long time now.

BUT Amplitude has been extremely open about what they are up to, to the point of having people from Amplitude posting on these Forums as well as their own, g2g forums, whereas Firaxis is, if we are being kind, pretty tight with information until they deem it ready. It would be almost development suicide for Civ, given that Humankind has been 'in the works' for over a year now, to not have a team doing work on Civ VII already. And it would be typical of Firaxis not to give out a clue as to whether or what they are working on.

 

[Shadowstrike]

It's probably a toss-up between the 2K execs still not having decided about whether to invest in another expansion or 2nd NFP, or they are already deep into development on Civ7 (which honestly, they might be anyways). One thing we aren't privy to is what the financials for the NFP are like: did they make a big enough profit that it would be worth it to keep on the staff to make another one? That would probably greatly clarify what the likely future is.

The other part might be that decision had been punted, because of the pandemic. The NFP seemed like a great way to keep their staff going on a working-from-home basis (like you can have much smaller groups co-ordinate on each civ or set of game rules, instead of having to make a cohesive expansion), and they figured that by the time it ended, the dev team would be back in the office, and it would be easier to co-ordinate larger projects. If you believe that, then it becomes more likely that another NFP is possible (assuming the last one made a decent profit), given that we are still not necessarily going to be all back in the office for a while.

Speaking for myself though, I'm leery of going to a new base game, mostly because it means we're going to lose all of the content aspects of the game. It's much more interesting to play with the number of civs we have now, and the number of diverse gameplay mechanics we have now. In every past iteration since probably Civ4, the base game has felt very barebones because you suddenly lost the vast majority of the civs, and a lot of the interesting aspects of the previous game.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

https://twitter.com/tronster/status/1385914017282240512?s=20

That sweatshirt. It doesn't say New Frontier Pack. It says End of Cycle

 

[mrwho]

This sounds like Dramatic Ages, which people either love or hate - personally I played it once and never again!

As it happens I played Dramatic Ages once and never again as well. But I think there's a huge different between shoehorning something like that in, in a pretty lazy and unbalanced way, and building an entire game around a concept of dynamism and change. Civ IV basically perfected a certain version of Civ, so V had to change things pretty fundamentally. VI was basically a better version of V in almost every way, at least in my view, but I feel like it's more or less taken the V-type thread about as far as it can go. So I see VII being another new direction, even more of a departure than IV was. What that entails I'm not so sure, but I can't see there being sufficient ideas left for VII to be another variation on the same theme.