Civ VI Lead Left Firaxis - Final Nail In The Coffin?

[blackbutterfly]

Anton Strenger on Twitter: "Today is my last day at Firaxis Games. It has been a thrilling 10 years, and I've had the privilege of working on one of my favorite games with some of my favorite people. Civ fans, you are the best fans in gaming!" / Twitter

IMO this is confirmation of no more content for Civ VI.

Beyond Earth 2 please! (Or SMAC 2)

 

[Gedemon]

Anton Strenger on Twitter: "Today is my last day at Firaxis Games. It has been a thrilling 10 years, and I've had the privilege of working on one of my favorite games with some of my favorite people. Civ fans, you are the best fans in gaming!" / Twitter

IMO this is confirmation of no more content for Civ VI.

Beyond Earth 2 please! (Or SMAC 2)

I don't see a relation here, on the contrary, if Anton was only in charge of new content for civ6, then surely something has been produced in the months since the last patch.

 

[Zegangani]

I agree with Gedemon. Since Anton was the Lead Designer of NFP and the main Firaxis Team wasn't working on NFP, I think Civ7 was already in developpement and Anton wasn't, at least not a major, part of the Dev Team.

Though, the Fact that Anton Strenger just announced his departure from Firaxis, could mean 3 Things:
1) They didn't leave Firaxis after the April Patch because they still had work to do, I suppose completing the Game with a Final BugFix Patch and maybe some new Content for the 30th Anniversary of Civ (Which he might be the Designer of, because the main Civ7 Dev Team had all their Hands on that Game).
2) They actually left Firaxis after the April Patch, but Firaxis didn't want the Civ Fans to know that at that Time, because they didn't want us to guess what's going on behind the Stage, so we don't have any Clue about what's coming next to the Civ Franchise/what they might be working on.
3) All just not the above.

 

[aieeegrunt]

The last thing Civ6 needs is more new content. It needs another patch.

Ten years is a long, LONG time in developer years, especially considering the often inhumane working hours and conditions (the reason I peaced out of this industry and never regretted it). He could be leaving for any number of reasons.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I didn't have high hopes for more Civ VI content at this point anyway. What surprises me about Anton's departure is that I had anticipated that he would eventually be taking over for Ed Beach as the head designer for the franchise. If not in Civ VII then afterwards. I really thought Ed would be the one who moves on. He has been with the franchise for a really long time now, and perhaps would like to explore other opportunities. But I guess that isn't the case.

 

[Alaindor]

One leaving doesn't rule out other may, too

 

[pokiehl]

Calling it the “nail in the coffin” is a tad dramatic - I don’t think anyone here realistically expected more Civ 6 content anyway.

At any rate I am surprised to see him go and I wish him the best.

 

[UWHabs]

I saw the post. Best of luck to Anton in his next endeavors. I enjoyed a lot of the parts that he seemed to have a hand on, and was somewhat hoping that he would take over and be the full lead on civ 7, but obviously that won't be the case now.

As for what this means about civ 6 and 7, honestly, none of us can say. It seems like he's been with the team there for a long time, so the simplest way to think is to just take comments at face value, that he's off to try something different. It doesn't necessarily take Anton to still be in the company to fix bugs and apply a last patch. Yeah, it's probably another big clue there won't be another big content pack, but I think we all knew that well before this, most notably when the whole team came on with a massive thank you thread was a pretty big signal that we're not going to see crazy new features.

I didn't have high hopes for more Civ VI content at this point anyway. What surprises me about Anton's departure is that I had anticipated that he would eventually be taking over for Ed Beach as the head designer for the franchise. If not in Civ VII then afterwards. I really thought Ed would be the one who moves on. He has been with the franchise for a really long time now, and perhaps would like to explore other opportunities. But I guess that isn't the case.

Ed could always be sticking around doing more sort of "advisory" stuff, and take a less day-to-day active role. I mean, Sid Meier obviously is still around with the company, but from a lot of the interviews and stuff around his memoirs last year, he's not necessarily sitting around his keyboard every day trying to decide where a tank should be 65 or 70 strength.

 

[Linklite]

If he was leaving because his work was done, then what was he upto for the last 8 months? If this was any indication on whether there will be any future content, I'd actually say that it indicated that more was in the pipeline.

To clarify, since I know people wil put words in my mouth, I don't think that's the case. In my mind it's independent of Civ 6 or at most an indirect relationship. It's just reading tea leaves to interpret stuff like this - which has happened a lot in the past.

 

[Xur]

I’m sure that he’s a friendly man, but is it really a loss? NFP and R&F were poorly designed.

 

[Thormodr]

I thought that they sort of passed the torch from person to person. There seemed to be a pattern.

Like Jon Shafer did some work at the tail end of cIV and then became lead designer for Civilization 5. Ed Beach took over Civilization 5 after Shafer quit and then became the lead designer of Civ VI. Anton Strenger sort of took over the tail end of Civ VI so I assumed Anton Strenger would be the lead designer of Civ VII.

Not sure what this all means. Whether this is good or bad news for Civ VI, a Civ VI spinoff or Civ VII.

Anyway, I do wish Anton Strenger a well deserved rest (it's a tough industry) and continued success in whatever he does. He did a decent job with the Civ VI expansions, IMHO.

 

[KayAU]

The last thing Civ6 needs is more new content. It needs another patch.

Absolutely agree, although I would say it needs a major overhaul and rebalancing, rather than the usual "+1 to this and -1 to that".

Beyond Earth 2 please! (Or SMAC 2)

Yes, pretty please. BE is seriously underappreciated in my opinion. I also believe it was just 1 expansion away from true greatness. It's sort of the opposite of Civ 6, in that most systems work well and are well integrated, but we could have done with some more content.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I didn't have high hopes for more Civ VI content at this point anyway. What surprises me about Anton's departure is that I had anticipated that he would eventually be taking over for Ed Beach as the head designer for the franchise

Yeah I was literally just speculating that on another thread considering he was the lead designer for R&F and then I saw this.

 

[Civinator]

Ed Beach took over Civilization 5 after Shafer quit and then became the lead designer of Civ VI.

Ed Beach (with Breakaway Games) was involved in the development of the Civ series since Civ 3 Conquests and there are close connections between Sid Meier and Breakaway since Sid Meier´s Antietnam! - very old connections.

 

[The_J]

The people who follow the live stream right now could follow the discussion with Rony Kahana.
Which itself doesn't point out anything specific, just that she is a producer for civ, who got hired after the NFP was done.

 

[blackbutterfly]

NFP and R&F were poorly designed.

I agree with you, R&F was poorly designed. Half baked IMO.

But I wouldn't blame the lead designer. I know what it's like working in the tech industry. Much of the decisions would have come from studio execs.

I expect Firaxis was under pressure to develop the first expansion within a certain timeframe.

I mean just look at how NFP fixed many of R&F systems.

Dramatic Ages fixed loyalty.
Secret Societies fixed governors.
Etc.

Another reason for leaving a company is not fitting in with the corporate culture. I hear that's why Jon Schaefer left after designing the legendary Civ V. (Peak Civ).

IDK if that applies to Anton.

 

[Thormodr]

I agree with you, R&F was poorly designed. Half baked IMO.

But I wouldn't blame the lead designer. I know what it's like working in the tech industry. Much of the decisions would have come from studio execs.

I expect Firaxis was under pressure to develop the first expansion within a certain timeframe.

I mean just look at how NFP fixed many of R&F systems.

Dramatic Ages fixed loyalty.
Secret Societies fixed governors.
Etc.

Another reason for leaving a company is not fitting in with the corporate culture. I hear that's why Jon Schaefer left after designing the legendary Civ V. (Peak Civ).

IDK if that applies to Anton.

Jon Shafer left because he designed a half baked game and left Firaxis in a terrible bind.
He obviously was terrible at time management and organizational skills. (You can see that in the game (At the Gates) he designed after that. It was 4 years late and was still a sloppy mess.

Thankfully, Ed Beach stepped up as well as the community and salvaged that turkey.

Peak civ? Weak civ is more like it.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i enjoyed and played civ6 a lot. I would like to thank Anton for his part and wish him the very best in his future endeavours.
I dont see any future content at this point. Surely firaxis would have already started the hype campaign if something was in the works that would be delivered in 2022. Anything for 2023 or later would be a direct rival to the sales of civ7 so i dont see that happening.

 

[kaspergm]

I’m sure that he’s a friendly man, but is it really a loss? NFP and R&F were poorly designed.

I agree with you, R&F was poorly designed. Half baked IMO.

But I wouldn't blame the lead designer. I know what it's like working in the tech industry. Much of the decisions would have come from studio execs.

I expect Firaxis was under pressure to develop the first expansion within a certain timeframe.

I mean just look at how NFP fixed many of R&F systems.

Dramatic Ages fixed loyalty.
Secret Societies fixed governors.
Etc.

Not saying this to throw trash on Anton, but I have to agree that NFP was really poorly designed, although I don’t know who was responsible for the modular design and non-balance approach. If Dramatic Ages and Secret Societies fixed anything, they introduced even more problems in their own right imo. Of course this doesn’t mean Anton might not have designed a great Civ7, we all make mistakes and can learn from them. But he would not be my first pick for lead designer.

 

[Zenstrive]

Well Civ 6 ends up very good IMHO after the last two expansions and end up a colorful and fun game to play.
Now I don't know where to have 4X fix since Civ 6 has gone quite stale for me and Humankind even got stale faster.