Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick insists that civilization’s “lifelong value” 7’s prediction is “very consistent with our initial expectations of the title, albeit “slowly starting”

We've been half a year since the launch of the trouble Civilization 7Steam players are fewer than both Civilization 6 There is also a 15-year-old child Civilization 5. However, according to Take-Two's boss, CIV 7 is expected to meet the initial internal expectations of the company's life.

Civilization 7 launched a tough launch on Steam, and players on Valve’s platform have been struggling for players since its launch in February. According to Steam user reviews, the reaction is “mixed”. Of course, the Steam performance of CIV 7 does not draw the entire picture. The strategy game also launches on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch (Nintendo Switch 2 version and recently launched VR version). But civilized bread and butter are PCs, where Civ 7 is obviously struggling.

In an interview with IGN, CEO Strauss Zelnick admitted in a discussion of Take-Two’s latest 2025 quarterly huge positive financial results that Civ 7 has made a “slow start”, but he insists that the company’s internal forecast for what he calls “lifelong value” 7 still matches its initial expectations.

“This is definitely improving,” Zelnick said of Civ 7 (Two hasn't announced the game's sales figures yet).

“I think the key is that Civ has been a slow burn. It has been a title – I’m not a strong belief in the long-term tail theory of the entertainment business – but CIV is an example of that theory. Now our predictions about the lifetime value of the title are very consistent with our initial expectations of the title.

“So when we started slowly, even though we had to change – and there were more changes – I feel that consumers are getting better and better, and we feel really good about the title. I think over time it will be replaced in its pantheon of civilization in a very successful, credible way.”

Ranking every civilization game

Ranking every civilization game

When CIV 7 was launched, players highlighted the problems with the user interface, lacked the diversity of maps, and expressed a sense that the game launched the game without having to get the many features of the franchise. However, some experienced CIV fans are also unhappy with the developers' huge changes in the game's Firaxis.

The full movement in Civilization 7 is the experience of all three eras: ancient, exploration and modern. After age ends, all players (and any AI opponents) experience age transition at the same time. During the age transition, three things happened: you choose a new civilization from the new era to represent your empire, choose the legacy to be preserved in the new era, and the development of the game world.

Civilization games have never had such a system and proved to be split. However, since its launch, Firaxis has introduced many key updates to CIV 7, most recently patch 1.2.3, which has improved the age transition.

The question now is, can Firaxis shift civilization 7 sentiment from current “hybrid” user review evaluation Steam and get more people to jump to the latest effort from past CIV games?

Wesley is IGN's news director. Find him on Twitter via @wyp100. You can reach Wesley via [email protected] or secretly visit [email protected].