Category: IGN

At the time I’m writing this, I’ve put about seven hours into World of Warcraft: The War Within – basically every moment between when it unlocked and when I could no longer keep my eyes open. And that’s very early to say anything definitive. But… I have a very good feeling about this one, you guys. From the story, to the environments, to the new features, this is World of Warcraft firing on all cylinders. I’m not utterly blown away or anything that hyperbolic, but compared to the last three expansions’ launches, the warm glow of new adventure is hitting different this time.

I’ve been taking my sweet time – relatively speaking – so while some bedlamites had already hit 80 inside of a couple hours, I logged off for the night at level 73. That pace allowed me to collect three of my new Hero Talents for my Marksmanship Hunter, and I chose to go with the night elf-themed Sentinel over the tortured soul, Sylvanas-inspired Dark Ranger. I’m not super thrilled with these talents yet; we’ll see how it feels at 80, but I’m not getting the sense of a significant change in my power or my playstyle with each level like I’d hoped.

I do like that The War Within doesn’t add a bunch of new buttons to my hotbar, though. Part of why I picked Sentinel over Dark Ranger is that the latter makes you incorporate a new attack into your rotation, and I like that I have the option not to have to worry about that.

Setting the Stage

If you missed the big announcement last BlizzCon, The War Within is intended as the first part of a trilogy of expansions that aim to tell a larger, complete story. This is something WoW has never done before, and I’m pretty excited about it. Without spoiling too much, the first hour of the story definitely feels like we’re going full speed ahead into something sweeping and epic. Some major sacred cows in the lore are actually on the chopping block (not literally – Baine is fine, don’t worry). And Xal’atath is a compelling new nemesis – not just because she’s a hot goth mommy.

I mean, it’s partly that. But it’s not just that.

I’ve only seen the first of The War Within’s zones, the verdant and picturesque Isle of Dorn, which exists on the surface just above where the other 80 percent takes place. It feels very familiar to a long-time WoW player in a lot of the same ways the Dragon Isles did, and basically all of the best features from Dragonflight are back. You get Dynamic Flying (what used to be called Dragonriding) almost immediately, which I’m still conflicted about just because I think exploring new zones for the first time on the ground gives you more of a sense of place and grandeur. But I’m not conflicted at all about the return of thrilling aerial race courses and the expanded profession system.

Dornogal, the capital of the Earthen who protect Azeroth’s depths, is one of the coolest hub cities we’ve ever gotten thanks to its majestic Titan architecture and an interesting political storyline to unravel. It’s also quite a bit more organized and easier to navigate than the sometimes disorienting vertical layout of Valdrakken.

And the music! I can easily say the Isle of Dorn has some of my favorite music in WoW since, dang, Wrath of the Lich King maybe? Since Blizzard’s composers always kill it with their orchestral excellence, it’s really something when they release this many tracks that stand out even by their high standards.

The Long Road Ahead

Just like Dragonflight, the smaller zone quests are often memorable and touching. I think the one everybody’s going to be talking about this time involves one of the semi-immortal Earthen realizing that his mind is starting to deteriorate, and asking you to help him set his affairs in order as he plans to end his own life in the traditional fashion of his people. I never get tired of being reminded that, for all the world-shaking, high-fantasy shenanigans driving World of Warcraft at the plot level, these kinds of heartfelt and relatable tales are what actually make it special.

I’m also quite optimistic about Delves, the new solo content that’s meant to be something of an alternative to raids and Mythic+ in the endgame, for people like me who don’t like to interact with randos and don’t have any friends left who still play this game from the group I started out with in 2004. They feature the same kinds of silly and ridiculous temporary power-ups I adored from Torghast, including one that gives you a double jump and another that greatly increases your damage as long as you never fall below half health. If Torghast has only one fan, it is me. If Torghast has no fans, then I am gone from this Earth. So it’s great to see some of the things that worked about it coming back.

One delve I played has what are effectively the jump mushrooms from Sonic the Hedgehog, allowing you to explore vertically in a new way, and another features wall-mounted ledges you can zip up to with a grappling hook. The only thing hurting my excitement about these is that they seem really, really short so far – less than 15 minutes in some cases. Part of it is that I haven’t unlocked the higher difficulties yet, so I can basically Arcane Shot-spam my way through the entire thing without looking at my health bar. And I’ve only seen the first three. But I was hoping for something closer to the length of a five-person dungeon experience.

There’s way, way more of The War Within I haven’t seen at this point than what I have, but I’m thoroughly enjoying myself so far, and that’s just about the highest praise one can give an expansion at launch. Check back next week for the first big update on my progress, and for a final verdict some time after Season 1 and the first raid unlock on September 10.

Release Update – August 23, 2024:

After spending 15 hours with Concord during its misleadingly named “Early Access” period, nearly all of my impressions from the beta (which you can read in full further down) remain relevant. That’s both good and bad, because while I still enjoy how Concord generally nails its team-based competitive combat, the little that’s been added doesn’t do much to alleviate the concerns I had. There are some new maps, a couple new game modes that, as is the case with all the modes, already exist in many other games, and so far that’s about it – there isn’t even a single new cutscene aside from the two that were in the beta. It feels rather light on content at present, though as a live-service game, developer Firewalk Studios has already laid out an ambitious roadmap to hopefully fill in those gaps. I still want to sink some more hours into Concord before I put a final score on this review, but right now I’m doing so quite happily – this may only feel like a solid foundation at the moment, but I’m starting to think it’s one that has a shot at growing into something special.

Though more lore-soaked cutscenes are set to arrive in the coming weeks, so far the main drops of worldbuilding you’ll get come in the form of the Galactic Guide, a map filled with nodes where you can read about Concord’s locations and characters. I’ve spent a fair bit of time scrolling through this sizable library of short descriptions, and though much of it is well-written, it’s a woefully poor substitute for in-game storytelling that I worry won’t come often enough to keep me invested. Great characters squandered by a complete lack of narrative is basically a hallmark of the hero shooter genre at this point, but it definitely doesn’t get any easier to swallow that especially bitter pill.

The gameplay stuff we didn’t already see in the beta includes two game modes” Signal Hunt and Area Control. These are serviceable king of the hill and zone control modes, respectively, that do exactly what you’d expect, but once again lack any sort of novelty. The new maps, however, fare a lot better – with very few exceptions, Concord’s arenas are extremely high quality, allowing for tons of strategy and pairing perfectly with the equally impressive combat. Really my only nitpick is that some levels are a bit too large, and it can be a real pain to spend 20 seconds running back to the king of the hill control point after each respawn, especially when the enemy is allowed to gain quite a few points in your absence. Thankfully, maps with that issue are pretty few and far between.

One thing that was absent before Concord’s wider “release” today is a cosmetic store where, as per usual, you’ll be asked to spend real human currency on skins and assorted digital baubles, which seems pretty much par for the course. As always, the question is how much love it will show players who would rather earn cosmetics by playing, since many live-service games lock the vast majority of their cosmetics behind a paywall and starve those unwilling to cough up the dough. I’ll be putting an eye toward that balance this weekend.

I look forward to seeing how Concord evolves now that it’s fully out So far I’m still having a lot of fun, while also being a bit disappointed that there’s not much for us to chew on overall. But with such a strong cornerstone to build off of thanks to its satisfying FPS action and best-in-class arenas (which you can read more about in my beta impressions below), the future looks pretty bright.

Original Beta Impressions – July 15, 2024:

Grab a copy of Overwatch off some dusty GameStop shelf and rub it under the musky armpit of the Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill and you might have something close to the feeling of Concord. As competitive hero shooters go, this sci-fi contender from Sony plays it quite safe, complete with immediately charming characters immaculately rendered in gobsmackingly beautiful cutscenes and ability-based PvP combat that never addresses why those characters are fighting one another when they’re clearly allies in said cutscenes. But just because it doesn’t offer much in the way of innovation doesn’t mean Concord isn’t extremely fun to play. I still have lots more to see when it launches properly next month, but with 16 characters and four familiar game modes available in its preorder beta this past weekend, the vast majority of the 10+ hours I’ve spent with it so far have been a sweaty, gun-toting good time.

You and your squad will form a five-person team of super-powered characters, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities, and then bring them to bear against an opposing team in a variety of formulaic game modes. Those include a standard deathmatch mode, a “Kill Confirmed” mode called Trophy Hunt, an attack-and-defend mode called Cargo Run, and a zone control mode called Clash Point – none of which possess even the slightest hint of novelty. But being overly familiar isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’ve got best-in-class gunplay and awesome characters with compelling powers to back it up, and boy, Concord has got both of those down pat.

Concord sagely keeps its weapon selection very slim, with just two options given to each character by default and no way to customize that – but the upshot there is that every single weapon feels incredibly responsive and finely tuned, and no two characters have weapons that feel at all similar. The arena-controlling old lady, Duchess, wields a submachine gun that’s devastating at close range, while the sneaky and tactical Vale mostly relies on a long-range sniper rifle to take out enemies from afar. Not everything seems perfectly balanced – I, for one, think most things should probably die when they take a sniper rifle shot to the head, and it’s a bit weird that the character that uses a slow-loading missile launcher as her main weapon doesn’t do more damage with it – but they all feel really good to use, and that means I’ve been having fun even when it feels like something needs tweaking here and there.

Similarly, the abilities that complement those weapons are fantastic, diverse, have very generous cooldowns, completely changing the way combat plays out depending on which character you’re playing as. The floating, fireball-chucking Haymar can blind opponents for a period of time and make them pay for standing in the same spot too long, while the rampaging ogre, Star Child, can close distances quickly with his charging attack and smash the ground to do heavy damage around him. Not all characters feel quite as original, like how Teo is the world’s most generic soldier and comes equipped with a smoke grenade and cluster grenade as his two powers, but those bland options are few and far between. Learning each character, using their abilities to counter the team comp of your opponents, and juggling the madness on the battlefield with top-notch gunplay was just as fun in my first match as it was in my 30th, and I certainly can’t say I’ve felt that way about most hero shooters I spend time with.

One of the few novel twists Concord brings to the genre is the way its competitive playlist works. Unlike the casual playlist where you can play whichever character you please (so long as someone else hasn’t already selected it), in competitive you cleverly aren’t allowed to select the same character again if you win a round while using them. Since matches go to best of seven rounds, that means winning one will push you to get outside of your comfort zone and use a minimum of four different characters. Not only is this a neat way to force people to master more than just one or two options, it also encourages communication with your team between rounds to ensure you’ve got proper coverage to play out whatever strategy you’re trying to pull off as your options get slimmer.

The other interesting wrinkle Concord adds to the formula is character variants: Slightly different versions of existing characters that come with a unique perk and an altered appearance, and which can be unlocked by completing specific objectives during matches. For example, the gunslinger Lennox can normally reload his weapon by dodging, while the variant you can unlock for him loses that ability, but gets more ammo for all his weapons instead. The five variants available for each character so far offer mostly minor changes like this, but they definitely add a meaningful thing to chase that provides more options in combat. Perhaps more importantly, they also give you the opportunity to fudge the numbers a bit in the competitive playlist, since variants count as separate characters on your crew, and therefore, let you play as the same characters in multiple rounds.

I also just love that Concord is chock full of goofy terms in its “How To Play” tutorial section, like how it tells you if certain game modes are likely to be sweaty by assigning them a “Sweatstrum” rating, or how it explains you can recharge your abilities with “Sloops,” AKA “Skill Loops.” There might not be much of a story yet, but this game’s got charm coming out of its Martian ears.

There’s still more I haven’t been able to play in this early beta version, like the two game modes that remain locked for now, but Concord is already shaping up to be a heavyweight hero shooter I could easily see competing with the genre’s giants. It doesn’t seem like it will bring much new to the table, and that’s a bit of a bummer considering we’ve already played great games very similar to this one before, but I’m heartened by what I’ve seen so far and am looking forward to playing a whole lot more when it launches next month.

Inzoi, The Sims competitor from PUBG developer Krafton, is expected to release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S eventually.

Krafton has captured the attention of The Sims fans with a free Inzoi character creator demo available to download on Steam until August 25 at 9pm Pacific, but many are wondering if, like The Sims, it will ever move beyond PC and come to console too.

Fans will be relieved to hear a console release is likely, as a Frequently Asked Questions segment of Inzoi’s Discord, operated by Krafton itself, states the game “is currently on PC (Steam) and is later expected to be on consoles like PS5 and Xbox.”

Krafton announced Inzoi in November 2023 and the release of the character creator indicates development is progressing smoothly, but a late 2024 release window is currently the only indication of a full launch. It also seems a console release won’t happen alongside the PC launch, so those on PS5 and Xbox will likely be waiting even longer.

Inzoi is “a life simulation game where players become gods within the game, allowing them to change everything as they wish and experience endless new stories in various forms of life.” This was enough to capture the attention of disgruntled The Sims fans, with many claiming they’ll switch to Inzoi for good once it’s fully released.

The incredibly detailed and realistic character creator has already been used to recreate some real-life figures and pop culture characters, including Taylor Swift, Harry Potter, Wario, Abraham Lincoln, and more.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

gamescom 2024 has come and gone, and as the annual event ends, now comes the time for awards to games that appeared this year. With categories, such as best visuals and audio to more platform-specific ones (excluding Nintendo this year), like best Xbox games, this list provides every gamescom 2024 award and this year’s recipient.

Of this year’s recipients, Capcom’s upcoming project, Monster Hunter Wilds, won the most awards, winning in every single category it was nominated in, such as Most Entertaining and Most Epic. Supermassive Games and Bandai Namco’s upcoming project, Little Nightmares 3, also won multiple accolades, winning three out of the four categories it was nominated for, such as Best Visuals and Best Audio.

If you want to know more, check out the biggest announcements at this year’s gamescom. If you want to know what was specifically unveiled at Opening Night Live earlier this week, check out our roundup.

The full list of winners for the gamescom 2023 awards are as follows:

gamescom Awards 2024 Winners:

Best Trailer

• Monster Hunter Wilds [Winner]

Best of Show Floor

• WINNER: Microsoft / Xbox / Bethesda / Blizzard

Visuals

• WINNER: Little Nightmares 3
• Crimson Desert
• Dune: Awakening
• Empire of the Ants
• Star Wars Outlaws

Audio

• WINNER: Little Nightmares 3
• Dune: Awakening
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
• Nine Sols
• Star Wars Outlaws

Gameplay

• WINNER: Frostpunk 2
• Blue Prince
• Empire of the Ants
• PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant
• The Alters

Most Entertaining

• WINNER: Monster Hunter Wilds
• inZoi
• Palworld
• PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant
• Star Wars Outlaws

Most Epic

• WINNER: Monster Hunter Wilds
• Crimson Desert
• Dune: Awakening
• Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
• Star Wars Outlaws

Most Wholesome

• WINNER: Tavern Talk
• Creatures of Ava
• Tiny Bookshop
• Urban Jungle
• Woodo

Games for Impact

• WINNER: Creatures of Ava
• GreenGuardiansVR
• Out & About
• REKA
• Tiny Bookshop

Best Xbox Game

• WINNER: Little Nightmares 3
• Age of Mythology: Retold
• Creatures of Ava
• Star Wars Outlaws
• The Alters

Best PC Game

• WINNER: Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
• Dune Awakening
• Empire of the Ants
• Frostpunk 2
• The Alters

Best PlayStation Game

• WINNER: Monster Hunter Wilds
• Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero
• Little Nightmares 3
• The First Berserker: Khazan
• Unknown 9: Awakening

Best Mobile Game

• WINNER: Genshin Impact
• Digital Animals Game
• Dungeons of Dreadlock 2 – The Dead King’s Secret
• Monster Hunter Now
• Zenless Zone Zero

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Star Wars fans beware: Spoilers for Ubisoft’s upcoming open world game Star Wars Outlaws have leaked online.

As reported by VGC, a user on live streaming platform Kick has been streaming Star Wars Outlaws a full four days before its release date, though it’s unclear how they came to acquire a copy. Footage from the stream has naturally spread far and wide across the internet, potentially spoiling the highly anticipated game for many.

Star Wars Outlaws launches August 27, 2024 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC for those willing to spend $109.99 on the Gold Edition, $129.99 on the Ultimate Edition, or $17.99 a month for the Ubisoft Plus subscription service. The $69.99 Standard Edition arrives three days later on August 30.

Falling more in line with the Star Wars Jedi series compared to the likes of Star Wars Battlefront or Star Wars Squadrons, Star Wars Outlaws is a solely single player experience that puts players in the shoes of wannabe scoundrel Kay Vess as she looks to make her mark on the galaxy far, far away.

Players can explore five different planets from Star Wars lore new and old, including Tatooine, a Toshara moon, Akiva, Kijimi, and Cantonica. All open worlds of their own, these are around the size of two or three zones in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and some can be crossed in four or five minutes on a speeder.

It’s not the first time Star Wars Outlaws has suffered from leaks, as a 13 minute string of gameplay hit the internet in July 2024. Those looking forward to the game may want to take precautions while scrolling social media in the coming days.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Whatever happened to Helldivers 2’s review bomb cape? This unique in-game item was inspired by the review bomb campaign Helldivers 2 suffered on Steam after publisher Sony made PlayStation Network accounts mandatory for PC gamers on Valve’s platform. Developer Arrowhead decided to turn the user review history graph into a cape, which is ready for launch but has yet to release.

pic.twitter.com/cA8uMpzqTz

— Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) May 11, 2024

Nearly four months since Sony’s dramatic U-turn on Helldivers 2’s PSN account requirement, the review bomb cape is still M.I.A. So, what’s the problem? As part of an impromptu AMA on the Helldivers 2 Discord, Arrowhead creative chief Johan Pilestedt said the delay has to do with a lack of clarity on Helldivers 2’s sales status in those countries in which PSN is not live and therefore remains unavailable, even now, effectively de-listed from Valve’s platform.

“We don’t want to release it until we get more clarity on the country issue,” Pilestedt said, responding to questions about the review bomb cape.

“Basically review cape is waiting for region conclusion,” he added. Then, explaining what that means, Pilestedt said: “The final decision if it will be sold in more countries.”

Since Helldivers 2’s explosive launch across PC and PlayStation 5 earlier this year (it’s the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time with an incredible 12 million copies sold in 12 weeks), Arrowhead and Sony have butted heads on numerous occasions.

Developers at the studio have admitted that the furore around the PSN account issue caused internal stress to such a degree that it slowed development. And even now, there’s still a question mark over whether Helldivers 2 will ever be sold on Steam in the countries that lack PSN, even though the PSN account requirement was ditched. Clearly, Arrowhead has that same question.

Arrowhead has also struggled with Helldivers 2 and its fanbase since the game’s massive launch, and has had to adjust the way it works to help create post-launch content in a sustainable fashion. Still, recent updates were criticized by the game’s community, and in the AMA Pilestedt touched on the impact of that feedback.

“It’s hard,” he said. “It’s a tricky situation. The criticism is valid, but it causes low morale, and low morale causes slow development speed. Talk about a negative spiral.”

Then: “I think it’s important for us to reiterate to the team that criticism happens because people care. The worst thing would have been if we fucked up and no one cared.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Avowed will run at a “baseline” of 30 frames per second across Xbox Series X and S, developer Obsidian has confirmed.

Speaking on the Iron Lords Podcast, art director Matt Hansen said Obsidian is “targeting a baseline of 30fps” for the first-person fantasy RPG. 60fps sounds unlikely, however, even on the more powerful Xbox Series X.

Explaining, Hansen said Obsidian decided to go for 30fps in order to facilitate fancier visuals, and that because Avowed is a first-person, single-player game, “you don’t necessarily need that 60 frames.”

“We are targeting 30 frames per second, bare minimum,” Hansen said. “That’s the expectation.

“It’s a first-person, single-player game, you don’t necessarily need that 60 frames. And that allows us to get a lot juicier with VFX and lighting and all this other stuff.

“It’s a trade-off we opted to make relatively early, and we’re really happy with that. The game’s running pretty smooth for how visually dense it is, and that was always our goal.”

But, Obsidian is still figuring out the nitty gritty of performance: “It’s one of the last things you do,” Hansen said.

Avowed is due out in February 2025 on PC and Xbox Series X and S, and joins a list of Xbox Series X and S games that launched at 30fps in recent years. That list includes Bethesda’s Starfield (which now runs at 60fps following a post-launch update), Arkane Austin’s Redfall (which also now runs at 60fps following a post-launch update), and Ninja Theory’s Hellblade 2, which has yet to receive a 60fps update.

Indeed, Obsidian’s reasoning for targeting 30fps echoes comments made by Bethesda development chief Todd Howard in explaining why last year’s Starfield launched at 30fps on both Xbox Series X and S.

“I think it’ll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for,” Howard said at the time. “Always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we do want to do that. It’s 4K in the X. It’s 1440 on the S. We do lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don’t want to sacrifice any of it.

“Fortunately in this one, we’ve got it running great. It’s often running way above that. Sometimes it’s 60. But on the consoles, we do lock it because we prefer the consistency, where you’re not even thinking about it.

“And we don’t ever want to sacrifice that experience that makes our games feel really, really special. So it feels great. We’re really happy with how it feels even in the heat of battle. And we need that headroom because in our games, really anything can happen.”

As was the case with recent Xbox games, Avowed may end up with a 60fps performance mode post-launch. There are also questions about Avowed eventually launching on PlayStation 5, following Obsidian’s Pentiment and Grounded jumping to the rival console this year, and Microsoft’s confirmed plans to release Id Software’s Doom: The Dark Ages and MachineGames’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5 next year.

Avowed was delayed to February “to give players’ backlogs some breathing room,” Microsoft has said. It was due out later in 2024. IGN recently went hands-on with Avowed and we came away impressed.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Warning! Black Myth: Wukong spoilers follow.

If you’re playing through Black Myth: Wukong right now, you’ll be familiar with the action RPG’s boss fights. The game is packed full of them, and some offer a significant challenge. But what if you could gain a helping hand from one boss as you fight another?

That’s exactly what’s possible in Black Myth: Wukong via a super cool secret IGN unearthed while playing this week. It turns out that in Chapter Two, you can summon a hidden boss to defeat a required boss — if you find a bunch of items first.

The boss fight in question is the Stone Vanguard, which is found in the Fright Cliff area. You might have encountered this boss already, or even defeated it. But did you notice the large rock on the left as you entered the arena?

After a week full of seeing new and upcoming games in Germany, Cardy, Matt, and Alex are here to report back on everything they’ve seen. There’s Dying Light: The Beast, Avowed, Indiana Jones, Crimson Desert, Atomfall, and much, much more.

Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you’re enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 762: The Best of gamescom 2024

• IGN UK Podcast 761: Space Marine 2 Might Be the Warhammer Game We’ve Always Wanted
• IGN UK Podcast 760: Is Thank Goodness You’re Here the Funniest Game Ever?
• IGN UK Podcast 759: If You Like Cameos, You’ll Love Deadpool & Wolverine
• IGN UK Podcast 758: We Build Our Dream Sci-Fi Games
• IGN UK Podcast 757: Star Wars Outlaws, Trying and… It’s Coming Home?

We finally got our first glimpse of Civilization VII’s gameplay during gamescom 2024, and it’s already looking much different than anything we’ve ever seen from the legendary series. That includes a huge shakeup to the way that Civilization VII progresses thanks to its new “ages” system, which is designed to break its progression into something like chapters.

We already checked out Civilization VII in first preview, which left us with a pretty positive outlook on the anticipated sequel. Still, we had plenty of questions for creative director Ed Beach, who sat down with us for an interview at gamescom. Read on for his thoughts on Civilization VII’s new structure, whether it will incorporate elements from the previous game’s Gathering Storm expansion, and much more. And for everything else announced during gamescom 2024, go here.

Civilization VII will release on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Switch on February 11, 2025.

I was telling you off-screen that I just got into Civ VI and now I have to relearn Civ VII, but I think that’s fine.

Ed Beach, Creative Director, Firaxis: We’re trying to make it so the barrier of entry is a little bit lower than before. Civ VI could get a little dense in places. If you jumped in at the end with all the expansions and all the content there, that’s actually not the easiest place to start. So I think Civ VII might be just the move you want to make.

Yeah, I’m really excited. So you’re leading me into my next question. So you’ve been consistently updating Civ VI and there’s a lot of mod support. So why is now the best time for Civ VII?

Beach: Well, we’ve been thinking about Civ VII for quite a while. We started working on the game before the pandemic, so it is been in development quite a while. The design team had ideas that worked really well in Civ VI, but had some side effects in terms of the game takes a really long time to play. By the time you get late in the game, there’s an awful lot of cities and units and so forth to manage, and we wanted to think about that and come up with a different approach so that we could make the game more manageable, more approachable, and actually just get players all the way to the finish line more often than had been happening in previous Civ games.

Yeah, I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve stayed up till 3am playing just one more round. It’s got me. So Gathering Storm and its global warming and mechanics offer such a dynamic change for the core gameplay. Is that something that’s going to be implemented in Civ VII?

Beach: So we’re not talking a lot yet about what comes after the exploration age after the Renaissance. The first age we’re diving all the way into right now and we have demos and so forth of that. We’re not going to forget about climate change, though it was very personally impactful when we got to work on that with Gathering Storm. I was the lead designer of that expansion.

I looked up a lot of things about climate change… I mean, we’re not a simulator type of game, but tried to get some of the things right in terms of how sea level rise works and storms move across the globe and so forth. So we brought a lot of that forward with us and what you can see in the game right now that we’re demoing with the Antiquity Age is there still are floods, there’s still volcanic eruptions. We still have the storms that sweep across the map.

So a lot of that Gathering Storm mechanics, ideas, whatever, that we still have those.

So is that part of the crises that is being implemented into this new system?

Beach: So those are sort of adjacent but similar. We have several different crises. The one that we’re demoing right now is an invasion crisis, sort of imagine you’re the Roman Empire and you’ve gotten too big and everyone wants a little piece of your action. And so those barbarians are at your gate and knocking on down the door. So that’s the one that we’re demoing in the build we have here right now. But we’re working on other types of crises, things like unrest in your population or plagues and some of those systems for crises use the same random event system that we use for the natural disasters.

So why did you switch to the age system?

Beach: So it is part of the trying to get people to have a game that is more manageable. 4X games have the problem in general, that you start with just your first unit, you get one city down, you think, wow, this game’s great. It’s very manageable when I get tens and dozens of cities and so many units to manage. Everything bogs down. And we wanted to break our game up into chapters very much like maybe a long book series or TV series that you might be enjoying breaks itself up into seasons or books.

So we could have big traumatic moments like these crises that you’re talking about, but then also give players a chance to breathe a little bit and reset things and simplify things. And that allows you to pace the player through a long experience in a more satisfying way than just saying, “Oh no, it’s just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and you just got to keep up.”

So it’s a nice new way to tackle that problem and we’re really excited about how it’s playing out.

As a new sort of player I’m very happy to hear that. But for returning players, do you think it’s still challenging enough that they’ll find this new system interesting?

Beach: Well, yeah. The experience is still just as long overall. So we actually do sort of a deeper, more immersive dive into the history of each historical age than before. And some of the gameplay mechanics, we can make deeper changes to them so that they unfold differently maybe in our antiquity age than in our exploration age, like our trade systems are different in all three ages.

So I think there’s plenty for people to dive deep in. We’ve recently demoed the game to a whole bunch of our community veterans. They’re really excited about the possibilities and theory crafting and everything. So there’s going to be plenty for everyone.

What was the best piece of feedback you got back from the community?

Beach: I think one thing we had to be really careful about is now that we’ve broken the game up into ages, we make you really think about who you are, which leader in civilizations are representing you in the game, and you get a chance to a unique historical pathway.

Maybe you start as Rome, and where did Rome evolve? Maybe it evolved into another European Civ and that would get you to a Germany or a Britain or France by the end of your game. And players like that historical storytelling and immersion. And we did allow some wackier combinations, and some of our fans love that because they love the theory crafting, I want to mix this with that and I’m going to be super overpowered in science.

But we also had to think about what those players who wanted the more historical pathway through our game. And so we’ve got the game set up so that that’s the default way that both the human and the AI proceed through the game and then you have to, it’s up to the player to opt into that wackier play style.

Okay. So you’re speaking about being able to change the leaders with each age.

Beach: Yes.

What is the wackiest combination that you’ve seen so far?

Beach: Well, we’re not talking about all the leaders and Civ’s that we have now, but you can do things like, you can have Augustus Caesar lead India, you can have Hatshepsut of Egypt lead Rome. So some of the things do strike you as a little bit wacky, but there are really good reasons and compelling reasons to try those things out… leaders that don’t normally go together might have bonuses in the same part of the game and you just want to explore, wow, what if I get really powerful in culture or in my military strategies?

And so those combinations are really compelling. Our quality assurance department who’s playing the game all the time is like, “Oh, you got to try this one with that one, because that’s amazing.” So it’s great to hear that kind of stuff.

Okay, great. I’m definitely more military forward… So I think I will try one of those combinations that sounds very compelling to me… Well, thank you so much for speaking with me about this. I’m very excited to start a lot of wars in Civ VII that I can’t finish.

Ed Beach: All right, well hopefully it just draws you in and you just stick with it because you want to see how it all ends and get all the way through.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.