Next Civ game most likely will be a fantasy game

And it's the reason why 4/6 of the the Season Pass mods were fantasy stuff instead of stuff most people asked for. It was Firaxis method to tenderize Civ6 players into the idea:

*Apocalypse mode with disaster calling soothsayers.
*SS mode with vampires, mages, illuminati and Cthulhu cultists.
*Legendary mythological heroes.
*Zombie mode.

On top of that the Atlantis hint in the TSL Earth map along the elephants in the last season pass video.

 

See this report on Sid's canceled CivRev2 (not the released game of the same name). Firaxis had been trying to use fantastic themes to expand the palette of Civ gameplay for years. The NFP modes finally gave them a canvas to bring these experiments to shippable form.

Whether they can make a full game out of these ideas, that depends on how successful they find these experiments in game design & in business.

 

If they are doing a fantasy game next, I hope they break away enough from the framework of Civ 6's civs and leaders that they can allow for an avatar creator like Humankind's going to have. If we're playing with vampires and zombies and mythological heroes and Atlantis, then I'd hope that's far enough removed from history that we can have whoever we want leading our faction. I just wanna be able to play as an enby character, without concern for whether or not it's historical. That's the only concern I'd have for a new non-history-based game.

 

Why don't they contact Ubisoft and try to buy the rights for the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise, if they are so set for creating a fantasy game? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind fantasy games, in fact HoMaM is my second most computer game series ever (after Civ), I just don't think all the fantasy stuff has a place in Civ.

With that rant off my chest, I don't agree with OP's theory. I see NFP's fantasy elements as something that was only created because they were in the special modes. While I fear we may see something similar in future iterations of Civ (albeit I certainly hope this was a one-off experiment), I find it extremely unlikely to be something that takes a core place in the game.

 

That would be catastrophic mistake ... would open space for others historical based (like Humankind) games to take market ....

I remember when my favourite RTS game Rise of Nations went fantasy, that was the end of it.

 

But, by this logic we should have seen a steampunk game after Civ V, no?

 

If 2K+Firaxis are going to buy the rights to any game it should be for SMAC from EA.

SMAC2 will be a guaranteed hit

 

Considering the timing of this thread (and Laurana just kindly directing me, a brand-newbie, to the instructions for Legacy so that I can still attempt to run the just-now-defunct JT Warhammer mod -- thanks again Laurana! I'm about to find out what happens...) I'd vote for them to license Warhammer (presumably impossible due to WH's agreement with Total War, I'd imagine). WH's dark fantasy tropes (and map) are close enough to "earth prime" that populating them alongside actual civs seems rather less intrusive and incongruous than, say, Inferno Town of HoMM. (Not that I wouldn't also enjoy that in a different mood, although a rarer one.) On a more serious note, though, if they are going in this direction, I'd rather see them go further into the vein of historical mythology and secret societies (but perhaps in a more serious and less cartoonish way than the current secret societies and heroes have been done, not to mention the bizarre lightheartedness of the doomsaying soothsayers) and instead use things like lost/speculative civilizations, more historically grounded secret societies, actual esoteric, occult, and magical worldviews, etc. Or perhaps the occasional religious "miracle".
But also the shuffled techtree could similarly be a gentle precursor to technological alts; I'd love to see their version of [insert]punk and other technoroads not taken. Especially if all said modes were slidable/togglable, recombinable with the base game and each other, and so forth. And customizable leaders would certainly be appealing as AriaLyric has mentioned.

 

There was a steampunk scenario in Civ V, which is what I referred to. If the next game is going to be a fantasy game because a few elements of Civ VI can be attributed to fantasy, then it stands to reason you could argue the same for Civ V. We didn't get a Steampunk game, so I don't see much more signs to say we're going to see a fantasy game.

 

I agree with the OP, but my reasoning is that the devs obviously like fantasy things and a fantasy follow-up would give their imagination free reign. Erion the Elf-Lord leads the Elf people, Thorgund Mightyhammer rules the Dwarfs, and so on.

 

In case it wasn't clear, i'm obviously talking about the next game being an spin-off, not CIVILIZATION 7. I just feel like the Season Pass was a testing ground.

We did have a scifi game... That being said, i'd argue that more than half the content of the last "expansion" + some possible hints in the last dev video >>>> one scenario in the first xpack

I feel like they're gonna try to do "Civ: but magical". So Transylvania gets Dracula, Amazons Hippolyta, Japan Himiko... Etc etc etc. I don't see FXS making a char creator and one of CivBE great mistakes was making the leaders too much of blank slates

 

Anything is possible but this is quite speculative to say “most likely”

 

Not sure, not going to speculate until definitive news comes out.

 

The other thing is fantasy modes are not the only thing tested out in the NFP phase. Some of the new modes may also pave the way to future main entry mechanics, especially the new barbarians.

 

So has anyone figured out what that meant? Or is it just merely a Easter egg?

 

I also don't care for any of the fantasy/sci-fi stuff in Civ6, and I don't like 'giant death robots' either. But these things are obviously helping to sell more copies and expand Civ's appeal.

 

I'm confused, why is the next game "most likely" to be fantasy? Because some optional modes are fantastical? This thread feels like clickbait

 

But i think they will sell waaay less with fantasy or sci-fi .... I first will not buy that sort of Civ game, and there is a looot of fantasy/sci-fi games already out it will be really difficult for FX to make money on that market.

I dont want it, and I think it would be complete failure. It would probably sell 50% less than normal Civ7.

 

I think I'll just wait for the next classic Civilization game. Fantasy spin-offs are not for me.