While most fans will be waiting until February 11th for Civilization 7, those who paid extra for early access got their hands on it early. Shortly after the Advanced Access period began, the game jumped to a Mostly Negative review rating on Steam as players noted a few core issues. While that has smoothed out to “mixed” as more players settled into the game, most reviews cite one major, overarching quality of life issue – the User Interface. In response, developer Firaxis Games has issued a statement promising to fix the most glaring issues.
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The most commonly cited issue in negative reviews of Civilization 7 in Early Access is the UI. This is a pretty big issue, since UI effects everything about the player experience in game. If it doesn’t work well, it’s pretty difficult to enjoy a game. Early Access players note the “UI is terrible” and makes it difficult to find key gameplay information. Others call it “clunky” and suggest it feels like an early version that was never revised. This isn’t helped by the game’s $70 price tag, which many players feel isn’t warranted by the quality of the game as it stands.
While these early reviews aren’t exactly promising for fans eager to dive into Civilization 7, the developer response is somewhat reassuring. In a recent post, Firaxis Games shared that they’ve been “poring over your feedback” and that fan’s “opinions matter greatly to us.” Along with these words, they outlined their key priorities for improving the game going forward.
UI Improvements for Civilization 7 are a High Priority
The first order of business is addressing the most common concern – the UI. According to Firaxis, improving the UI is their top priority. While they state they “need some time to digest all of [player] feedback,” the team has already outlined key fixes. These includes making the UI more intuitive, improving map readability, and making it feel more polished. If Firaxis can indeed improve on these issues, it’s likely that players will be much happier with Civilization 7. After all, even most of the negative reviews suggest there’s plenty of promise in the game, once the core issues are ironed out.
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In addition to the UI complaints, many players were sad to see certain features from previous Civilization games disappear with Civilization 7. Firaxis plans to address these concerns as well, noting that they do intend to add community-requested features including big changes to the multiplayer experience and a wider variety of map types. Players are also hoping to see other Quality of Life features from prior games, like a quick save or restart option, return to Civilization 7 as well, but Firaxis has not confirmed these changes.
These promised updates, as well as other fixes and adjustments, will be released with Patch 1.1.0, which is set to come sometime in March. While that is a little ways away, hopefully the extra time will mean that Firaxis is able to massively overhaul the “rough” UI and truly improve the player experience so Civilization 7 can deliver for fans.
What do you think of the early reviews for Civilization 7? Will they impact your choice to pick up the game? Let us know in the comments!
