After months of constant player dissatisfaction, Firaxis’ embattled Civilization 7 is moving beyond the verdant planes of Mother Earth and into a locale far more vacuous and frigid. They might even meet capitalism-hating Mr. Tim Curry there.
That’s right—a new Civilization 7 expansion will allow players to expand their empires beyond the atmosphere of Earth and into the dark reaches of space.
Comprised of both a major free update titled Arc of Tomorrow and a paid expansion named Earthrise, the DLC package will bring the previously omitted Atomic Age to the chronology of eras players can navigate, along with an onslaught of modern technologies to utilize.
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What’s Included In The Civ VII’s First DLC?
As part of the free update, the Atomic Age will be included for all players, extending the game’s runtime into a fourth era and long beyond its previous end point of 1950. Now, players can continue right through to 2050 and enjoy redesigned nuclear gameplay and the return of fan-favorite leader and nuclear propagator, Mahatma Gandhi.
The paid portion of the package, Earthrise, will introduce off-world mechanics and allow players to found their own space agency to survey nearby moons and planets. Space exploration is key, with players able to launch discovery missions and funnel off-world resources back to Earth as civilizations jostle for supremacy.
Terraforming will also play a vital role, allowing players to alter the yields of specific tiles within their territory and make previously unlivable biomes like tundra or desert survivable for settlers.
As in previous titles, Earthrise will give global warming a starring role: rising global temperatures will cause natural disasters to intensify over time, leading to more brutal and damaging effects on in-game civilizations. However, new tools will allow players to survive devastating weather events and even actively reverse the climate crisis.
Also set to be added are new period-specific civilizations and historical leaders for players to choose from, but Firaxis has not revealed who yet. It plans to reveal more core gameplay systems ahead of the expansion’s launch in 2027.
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Civ VII Disastrous Launch Effects Still Linger
Fan feedback to the DLC announcement has been mixed, with some accusing Firaxis of woefully trying to make a quick profit before they have fully fixed all the issues players have reported since Civilization 7 launched early last year. Despite criticism, the game has continued to sell well and was one of the best-selling games of 2025.
Since its first day on the Steam store, negative reviews racked up in their thousands criticizing Civ 7’s reinvention of core mechanics, such as the linear nature of playing a single civilization all the way to the end of the game. Civ 7 forced players to shift their civilization between ages, which fans found frustrating and unwarranted. Many complained that the hard resets between ages meant progress felt slow and unrewarding.
The game also separated leaders from their historically-accurate civilizations, meaning you could have Benjamin Franklin leading Egypt or Cleopatra leading England. Fans found this notion confusing and felt it seriously undercut the game’s true historical flavor.
Since its first day on the Steam store, negative reviews racked up in their thousands criticizing Civ 7’s reinvention of core mechanics.
One of the biggest criticisms was also the game’s minimalistic UI—a concept which just does not work in a game as deep and detailed as Civ 7. Fans who had long become accustomed to being cognizant of the most minor stats suddenly found they could no longer easily access the ins-and-outs of their civilizations. Despite the negative feedback, Take-Two said they weren’t worried and noted that the Civ franchise has a history of being a “slow burn”.
The long-running 4X franchise has always had to contend with vocal fan pushback between major installments, and faced similar issues when it launched Civilization 6 back in 2016. Fans hated the more cartoonish graphics and core game mechanics locked behind DLC, but eventually it came to be a well-loved entry in the series.
Firaxis has been hard at work fixing Civ 7’s issues, launching a major update called Test of Time in May which finally allowed players to keep playing as the same civ throughout their game. Slowly but steadily, the game’s review score on Steam has risen from Negative to Mixed, and players seem willing to give the game a chance as the fixes stack up.
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