Civilization 7's situation on Steam remains bad as rivals stay active. One received „divine” expansion, and the other gets features, missing from Firaxis new strategy
Humankind, Old World and Ara: History Untold are unlikely to knock Civilization off the 4X strategy throne (even together). Nonetheless, the recent changes and new features in these titles have won praise from players.
While the developers of Sid Meier's Civilization 7 are fighting to regain the trust of fans, the competing Old World received the announced "divine" expansion, and diplomatic (and nuclear) content will soon be added to Ara: History Untold.
Old World hasn't held a candle to the sixth Civilization, at least in terms of the number of players and their opinions. Even Civilization 7, which is also far behind the sixth installment, attracts more people simultaneously on Steam, although the daily number of users in the game has been steadily declining since its release (not to mention the only half-positive reviews on Valve's platform).
The first major expansion for Old World didn't change this situation, as can be seen by the small number of reviews on Steam (mostly positive). Nonetheless, a glance at the Steam data (via SteamDB) shows that the launch of Wrath of the Gods attracted players to Old World, doubling (or even tripling) the peak number of people simultaneously playing the Mohawk Games studio game to 2,428 users.
It's still significantly less than the record of Civilization 7 or even OW, but it brings the game closer to the results of Humankind. Not to mention that the creation of Mohawk Games studio has far better reviews on Steam.
Explosive diplomacy
New features are also heading to Ara: History Untold - in the form of update 1.3, with Gandhi's favorite "diplomatic" option in Civilization - the atomic bomb (via PC Gamer).
As we read in the announcement from the developers published on Steam, The Diplomacy Update is intended to expand the options for interaction with other nations, not necessarily in the form of nuclear greetings. Military support, tributes, and bribes will enable better influence over the actions of other leaders. Moreover, options will become available that provide players with a better understanding of the situation of the remaining civilizations.
This will be supplemented by an overview of the history of relations, as well as new events and artificial intelligence behavior patterns, all of which are related to diplomacy. The whole thing will be complemented with fixes and improvements (including displaying the difficulty level in saved game states and the option for automatic world exploration by naval units).
We will get more information about patch 1.3 next week. Perhaps thanks to it, the title will finally break through to the "blue" reviews on Steam. These have been becoming increasingly positive for some time, but for now the game still has "mixed" overall reviews (67% thumbs up).
Influx of players and "positives" didn't threaten Civ 7
The same applies to the previously mentioned Humankind, which received the Achilles Update in mid-February. This patch not only introduced big improvements (including the previously announced options related to war support - or rather its lack), but also new historical characters (Napoleon and Sun Tzu) and enhancements based on fan feedback. Effect: 83% positive reviews on Steam in the last 30 days.
The discussed updates are unlikely to make Humankind, Old World, or Ara: History Untold suddenly dethrone Civilization from the 4X strategy throne. Many say that even after harsh criticism and the resulting drop in the number of players in Civilization 7, there are still more people playing it at the same time than in these 3 titles combined. Nevertheless, it's clear that fans of the genre are willing to give these games a chance. The question is whether it's solely due to the well-received updates and DLCs, or also because of the disappointment with Civilization 7.
- First DLC for Civilization 7 is almost here. We know details for Crossroads of the World DLC
- With planned changes, Civilization 7 has a chance to become the kind of game it should be at launch
- Civilization 7 received major 1.1.0 update and its first DLC. However, players aren't returning to the new strategy
