Civilization VI gets its first expansion in February 2018

Centuries from now, when humanity has withered and the cats have exploited our love for all things fluffy and memetastic, a scant few reminders will exist in our ruined landscapes that detail our glorious civilisation. Personally, I’m hoping that a statue honouring my ability to totally rock a mankini is still standing, leading alien archaeologists to assume that I must have been some kind of hero to my people.

Civilisation is a funny thing innit? And nowhere is that more apparent, than in the actual simulator for human history that is the titular Civilization series and oh crap why is it spelt with a Z I hate everything. Moving on, Civilization VI was released earlier in the year and it was awright. With almost a decade under their belt in Civilization V, fans were hungry for something new, which Civ VI did have plenty of.

The metagame of Districts were apparently a hoot, but there was a definite consensus that areas such as Diplomacy, a dodgy AI and a painful user interface needed some work done on them. Several months later, 2K Games is looking to draw fans back to the latest Civilization with its first expansion: Rise and Fall. Which is also the name of a great Offspring album by the way.

This hefty slice of human history will chuck in eight new civilizations to master, nine new leaders and plenty of tweaks to in-game systems so that you can make it easier for Mahatma Ghandi to lead a hunger missile strike. I think that’s how pacifism works, but my knowledge of history comes from episodes of Clone High.

There’ll also be a few options floating around to make things a tad bit easier in the endgame stages, such as a Loyalty System for cities and Great Ages which offer more bonuses as you navigate through the various ages. “Of course, [Dark Ages give] us another challenge: how do you keep someone from quitting the game because they just reached a Dark Age?” Rise and Fall lead designer Anton Strenger said to GameSpot.

Our answer to that were Heroic Ages. They’re like Advanced Golden Ages, or Triple Golden Ages. They give unique bonuses when you crawl out of a Dark Age. You’ll also get unique policies during Dark Ages, so it’s not always necessarily a bad thing to enter one.

Sounds interesting enough. But will it be able to wrest players from Civilization V’s servers when it arrives on February 8 of 2018?…Oh wait, you wanted an answer to that question? Dude, I don’t know.

Last Updated: November 29, 2017