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Firaxis Announces Full-Scale Civilization V For PC
by Chris Remo [PC, Console/PC]
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February 18, 2010
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Facebook won't be the only place for more Civilization -- today 2K Games announced developer Firaxis Games is working on the next main entry in the long-running alternate-history strategy series, Sid Meier's Civilization V.
Due out this fall for PC, Civilization V will come roughly half a decade after the release of its predecessor, the highly-acclaimed fourth entry in the seminal series.
Last October, Firaxis founder and development director Sid Meier said the studio was going to "develop a unique new way to play Civilization," in the form of Civilization Network for Facebook, leading some series fans to question whether a new mainline PC entry was in the works.
Screenshots on the official site indicate a high level of unit and environment detail, as well as the surprising inclusion of hexagonal tiles, a first for the series. The logotype and graphic design treatment on the site suggests an Art Deco theme -- the predominant style of another successful 2K franchise, BioShock.
The newly-announced game is headed up by designer/programmer Jon Schafer, who joined Firaxis out of college as a long-time modder. He worked on Civ IV and was a lead designer on its well-received expansion pack, Beyond the Sword.
According to 2K, the game is built on a newly-developed engine which will again include multiplayer as well as offer considerable support for the modding community.
Civilization IV's lead designer, Soren Johnson, left Firaxis in 2007 to take a job with Will Wright's Maxis team, where he contributed to Spore and is now developing unannounced projects.
"Each new version of Civilization presents exciting challenges for our team," said Meier in a statement today. "Thankfully, ideas on how to bring new and fun experiences to Civ players never seem to stop flowing. From fully animated leaders and realistic landscapes, new combat tactics, expanded diplomacy and shared mods, we're excited for players to see the new vision our team at Firaxis has brought to the series."
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I'm interested to see what they bring to the table. One of the longest running series' I know that actually does improve with pretty much every installment.
In a way, this makes me think of the controversial "Nintendo Evergreen" analysis published earlier this week on Gamasutra. Never mind Nintendo's sales supposedly causing fewer available dollars for third parties; I start to think about how the most-played PC games (Civilization, WoW, Counterstrike, etc.) suck play time away from all other PC games, thus hurting PC game sales.
I think that the existence of Civilization Network as a totally separate product to Civilization 5 suggests Firaxis doesn't want to dilute the mainline Civ series. It seems like at this point we have the main Civ series, with the full depth of the franchise; Civilization Revolution on consoles, with the same basic structure toned down; and Civilization Network, for a likely more significantly simplified experience.
Thanks :)
I'm glad that they decided to have the console port and Facebook game was separate products, so they don't mess with the heart of the game: the PC series.
A good friend and I have been playing pretty much bi-weekly hotseat matches a night during the week. Great fun! Not to mention: cheap and healthy fun too! Please keep hotseat as a play option Firaxis :)
I also like how they announced the game so far into development. It really spits in the eye of the PC gaming norm these days of announcing a game 2 years prior to release, than delaying the game 3 times after that.
@Mike: did you update to 3.19? I haven't seen any OOS errors in 3.19 (although I usually play multiplayer through LAN or hotseat, not over the Internet).
@Kevin: yeah, announcing a game when it's almost ready is definitely the right way to build positive hype. Announcing a game too early gives good early positive hype, but too many delays make the hype turn negative.
I'm probably close. And now I'm old enough to seriously consider skipping 5 for that reason alone. I have a wife and kids who would like me around. Anyone else have Civ guilt?