"There's a long history of successful narrative systems in strategy games, particularly when they're tied pretty closely to the game's mechanics," Civ 7's narrative director Cat Manning explained in a panel at the Game Developer's Conference. "So, games like FTL [Faster Than Light] have experimented with this. That was a huge touch point for us. There's also games like Paradox games, Amplitude, Battletech, and Warhammer Chaos. Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate was a huge touch point as we were beginning to talk about what the system could look like."

Manning explains that "the way all of Civ's basic systems run is that the game sends signals to other parts of the game" and "it's just kind of this constant back and forth." "If you purchase, say, a unit with gold, you might immediately get a narrative event tied to that unit," she continued. "And that's because the system is just always in the background listening."

But the decision to throw out Civ 6's Gossip System in favor of something totally new was made because Gossip often cluttered players' screens with redundant information and pop-ups you could just as easily figure out from the rest of the game.

As mixed Steam reviews pile up, Civilization 7 devs say updates are on the way as they hold themselves "to a high standard and always strive to create the best game possible"

During a Teamfight Tactics panel at GDC 2025 attended by GamesRadar+, Whalen admitted that most games hit players "with mechanics like daily quests, progression loops, and deep meta systems" in combination with events and limited-time content in order to "improve engagement frequency and reduce churn," but over time this causes the overall audience to shrink, "coalescing around their most core players."

"But what if we wanted a game that lasted forever?" he posited. "We can't rely solely on acquisition, or we'll run out of players. We have to realistically assume that players are going to churn – there are only so many hours in the day for them to engage. So that only really leaves one option, which naturally leads to the question, what if we went all-in on reacquisition?

"And that's the heart of cyclical reengagement. It's a strategy around planning for players to churn, and going all in on creating big moments for them to come back."

Churn it down (and up)

Saying that is fine and dandy, but actually designing around this philosophy isn't particularly simple. There still needs to be big moments, and players need "to have a great time" upon return. It also requires that the team "be in lockstep with publishing" because "it doesn't matter if you've got the best content in the world if nobody knows about it."

Actually accomplishing this "means avoiding the sigh of relief," according to Whalen, because "you need your players to leave happy." He pointed to the kinds of games that prioritized retention, which we’ve all played, that felt like a weight off our chests when they were finally deleted.

"Finally, your players have to have fun when they come back," he added. The game needs to be both familiar and novel – "it's a tricky line to walk, and at least for us, it's something that we think about constantly."

It needs to feel fair with a level playing field across play skill and progression while avoiding regret.

"Players can't feel bad about the time that they missed," Whalen continued. "It means that their account can't be behind, and there can't be cool, limited-time content that they'll never be able to get."

But there's a reason why so many of these design choices are popular. Retention is good, right? And all of this serves to improve monetization, right? That's all still true, but, at least for Teamfight Tactics, short-term metrics do not appear to be the end all, be all.

"Short battle passes, limited daily quests, all cut into how much you can keep players in your ecosystem in the short term, but it can pay off a lot in the long-term," said Whalen.

"For one, it's just more player-focused, and people notice that. It aligns with your incentives really well – as a dev, you want people in it for the long haul, and that means making choices that build player trust, rather than spending it."

If you're not currently playing Teamfight Tactics or are simply looking for something similar, be sure to check out our ranking of the best strategy games.

For context, Square Enix tried to revive its somewhat dormant mecha-strategy series when it announced Front Mission 2089 in collaboration with developer BlackJack Studios. That project was scrapped that same year, but BlackJack instead made another mech-based strategy game called Mecharashi, which came out in some markets last year and was due to be released worldwide sometime soon.

Square Enix then recently filed a lawsuit against both the developer and publisher of Mecharashi, claiming that BlackJack used assets from Front Mission 2089's production in the new game. Essentially, even though BlackJack might have made all the mechs and maps and textures in Mecharashi, Square argued that they're still stolen because they were made under the publisher's contract while working on an IP under its ownership.

Mecharashi publisher HK Ten Tree has now addressed the lawsuit, explaining it wants to "resolve this matter amicably" and is sorry "for any concern and inconvenience caused to our users." (Good spot, Automaton.)

Some Redditors even spotted that some of Mecarashi's allegedly copyrighted assets have also been updated, as several icons and textures have been redesigned. That said, Square Enix reportedly supplied 11 pages worth of comparative screenshots to US courts, so Mecharashi might need some more dramatic changes before the Final Fantasy publisher is satisfied.

On Steam, Mecharashi is still listed as 'Coming Soon' and the developer was promoting it via online blogs as recently as March 17.

Here are some of the best strategy games you can play while you wait for the legal kerfuffle to end.

Square Enix had been trying to revive its mech-stuffed series for years when it announced Front Mission 2089: Borderscape in collaboration with BlackJack Studio in 2022, months before cancelling the project for unknown reasons. Years later, in October 2024, that same studio released Mecharashi in China and Japan, a very similar sounding turn-based tactics game featuring - you guessed it - lots of mechs.

Square Enix is now claiming that Mecharashi was developed using copyrighted materials BlackJack Studio had already made for the now-cancelled Front Mission 2089, while on Square Enix's payroll, in a lawsuit filed earlier this month in the US. The Final Fantasy publisher is now pushing for the courts to stop the game from releasing in the US until it removes all "protected content" attached to Front Mission, which is allegedly most of it, in addition to $150,000 per copyright infringement. (Good spot, Polygon.)

The lawsuit also includes 11 whole pages full of screenshots comparing Front Mission 2089's trailer to stills from Mecharashi. Squeenix managed to find similarities in everything from cutscenes and mech designs to generic top-down, grid-based gameplay.

BlackJack itself didn't shy away from comparisons while hyping up its game, either. "The game adopts a Front Mission-style combat system where you can assemble mechas however you want, equip a wide selection of weapons, and choose your favorite pilots to engage in battle," Mecharashi's Steam page boasts, alongside a vague 'Coming Soon' release date.

Mecharashi might not release until all the legal dust settles, so why not check out some other new games releasing in 2025 and beyond.

Speaking to Edge Magazine in its latest issue, out now, game director Paul Fisch reveals the team "did have a giant cyborg" at one point in development, "like a titan unit" that would "march around and move soldiers out of the way." But after playing around with the idea, "we discovered that was too much. It was immersion breaking. Ultimately, it broke the fantasy."

At its heart, Kingmakers is actually a strategy game. Sure, you can zoom in and give your medieval enemies a taste of the future first-hand, but you can just as easily zoom out and command the battlefield top-down. "It's like a hybrid strategy game," Fisch explains. "If you give a guy an assault rifle, when he starts fighting thousands of people, he's surrounded and shut down. You actually need to build a town and cultivate an army and have generals."

Interestingly, over time, your foes will begin to recognize and react to your unfamiliar tech: "The people in the past start counter-balancing. You're this force on the battlefield that they recognise, and they start fielding things to try to stop you."

Kingmakers is scheduled to enter early access on Steam sometime this year.

For now, check out some other upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond that are worth keeping an eye on.

Version 51.06 went live this week, and among other things, it "decreased prepared food item value." In other words, the meals created by dwarven chefs no longer fetch quite as much money as they used to. "We also apologize for destroying your food-based economies in this update," publisher Kitfox Games, which helped bring the graphical version of Dwarf Fortress to Steam, says on Bluesky. "Didn't realize so many of you were living that way."

There are a few people disappointed with the newly cheapened food in the Steam comments on the patch notes, but broadly it seems the community thinks this is a good change. The value of a prepared meal is based on the value of the individual ingredients and the quality of its preparation, and these factors can compound into some genuinely ridiculous food prices. The Dwarf Fortress subreddit is filled with anecdotes about things like a pile of roasted vegetables accounting for 10% of an entire fortress's wealth, or a single crocodile egg roast worth a king's ransom.

Some players have been calling for nerfs to meal prices for some time. Many hardcore Dwarf Fortress fans had sworn off selling meals altogether, considering a game-breaking exploit that ruins the challenge of earning money. The long-term ramifications of this nerf remain to be seen, but hopefully, it'll get entrepreneurial dwarves back where they belong: in the mines, not the kitchens.

These are the best strategy games you can play in 2025.

Without Curran's contributions, the turn-based strategy Civilization games would not be able to offer these kinds of irresistible daydreams – visions of divine justice, in my case, or just the feeling that you can change the world. It was kismet that Curran got the opportunity to work on Civ, too. He was doing sound design in theater when a friend began working at Firaxis, giving him the opportunity to do a three-month contract for Civilization 3: Conquests – the game's second expansion, released in 2003. After his contract expired, Curran was hired.

"That's how I got in," Curran says. "I knew a guy."

Rome wasn't built in a day

"The company culture was great," Curran says about his early days at Firaxis. "We were an independent studio. I think I was the 40th employee." When 2k Games bought the Civ developer and its IP, Curran says the tone of working there "changed a bit," but he was soon able to move to a lead position, allowing him to write "a lot" of music for Civilization 5 and work on its sound design.

When composing for turn-based strategy games, Curran recognizes that "music kind of acts as background," but also that "there's a lot of music required for these games, because people play for hours and hours and hours, game after game."

Ultimately, the goal is to feature enough musical variation that a player doesn't decide to cut the sound and listen to bulldozers outside their window instead. Civilization 5 – which some fans still consider to have one of the greatest soundtracks in the 34-year old franchise's history – uses live orchestra to help captivate their attention. In fact, Civilization 5 is the first Firaxis game to use live orchestra in its soundtrack, a mission Curran spearheaded.

Though Curran "didn't really expect" 2k to allow for a live orchestra, the publisher's AAA budget and experience in recording live music helped make it happen. Now, live recordings are industry standard across both major and indie studios. That musical shift was largely independent of Civilization 5, but the series has continued to dominate the realm of turn-based strategy. "Everybody's in competition with Civ," Curran says.

"Civilization has such a fan base," he adds. "There's forums, websites, Civ fanatics, and it's amazing what they will come up with. They're very smart. And I guess they have a lot of time on their hands, because they find out things that you're like… 'God, how do you have time to know all this?'"

Curran eventually left developer Firaxis to join former employees' studio Oxide Games, where he acted as audio director and composed the music for 4x title Ara: History Untold before being impacted by layoffs under Xbox.

After the fall

Curran knows firsthand that, like any empire, the gaming industry is "volatile."

"I think more now than it has been," he says. "I've been in it for like, 23 years, and there are layoffs. They happen pretty frequently. I've only been with three companies since I started in video games, so I consider myself fortunate."

"It seems like these big budget games are getting harder and harder to make," Curran continues, "especially with new IP." Even Civilization 7, which launched recently to middling reviews from fans, experienced the knife-twist of the unfriendly, contemporary gaming industry. (We appreciated the game's innovations in our own Civilization 7 review).

Curran acknowledges Ara's lackluster debut, too, though he hopes the 2024 title will find its own group of passionate fans eventually. Either way, Curran stands by the fact that he tried making its music as revolutionary as possible.

"We wanted to be about the player," Curran says about composing for Ara, "so we made themes that supported the player's experience." The physicality of a player's experience during a 4x, turn-based strategy game is relatively limited – instead of doing backflips or punching goddesses in the head, you're clicking, zooming in and out, and so on. But that didn't stop Curran from making Ara's music dynamic; as in-game societies inevitably changed, so did their sounds. Different music plays if you're "doing really well," locked in a bitter war, or enjoying peace.

"The thing that made it unique," Curran says, is how "we used the game notification system to apply weights to a particular theme. In turn-based strategy games, you end a turn or start a new turn, and all kinds of things pop up as notifications that [something] happened" Which of the game's 11 themes play rely on what notifications you receive, for example, and which of 12 music variations you hear depend on what period of history you're in.

"I think we made, for the genre, pretty huge advances," Curran says about Ara. But that's always his goal in composing for turn-based strategy. "Every time I do a new one of these games, I'm like, 'Well, what can I do that I haven't done before?'"

This self-assured need to grow – to conquer! – seems to call all the way back to Curran's work on Civ 5, 15 years ago. "We had a lot of faith in what we were doing," Curran recalls. "There was always a waiting audience for the next Civilization."

Civilization 7 launched with 3 new Ages, but data miners think we could be getting a fourth.

How to heal units in Civ 7

There are two ways to heal units in Civ 7, and luckily both methods don’t really require you to do anything. If you find any of your military or civilian units are low on health, you can heal them with the Skip Turn or Heal options.

• Skip Turn: This unit does not make any moves during this turn, but replenishes a small portion of their health. You can repeat this in the following turns if you still want them to recover more health
• Heal: This unit will rest until they’re fully healed, making it more passive than Skip Turn as you won’t be prompted to give them a new command until they’re fully healed or you cancel the action. Units who are currently healing will be represented by a few tents on the tile they’re currently placed

Both of these options are found in the toolbar on the bottom-right corner of the screen. Skip Turn is found directly below the unit’s name, but you’ll have to select the arrow to reveal some hidden options to find the Heal option. We’ve found that using Heal will bring them to full HP faster, but Skip Turn gives you a bit of extra awareness since the game won’t skip over them on each turn.

While both options have their uses, we recommend using Skip Turn to heal if your units are vulnerable. This means you won’t be caught by surprise if an enemy faction rushes you, and you’ll be able to either fend them off or retreat. Basically, using Heal is only preferable if you’re not expecting to use these units in the next 5 or so turns.

There are also a couple of other factors to consider. Units will heal faster in friendly territory, so be sure to move any units which are low on health within your borders or the border of a City State you own, if you’re close enough. You can also increase the rate at which you heal by grabbing the God of Healing Pantheon, which increases healing for units on rural tiles by +5.

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Once you meet another Civilization 7 leader, you’ll be able to enter the diplomacy screen by selecting the leader portraits in the top right of the screen, which allows you to see everything about your relationship with them. On this pop-up, you’ll find possible actions to take that might improve or damage your relations. You can perform these actions by spending a new type of currency called Influence, so let's take a closer look at diplomacy in Civ 7.

How to use Influence in Civ 7 diplomacy

Influence is a new yield introduced in Civilization 7. Similar to Gold, you gain Influence at the end of each turn, and can use your policies, production, and research to increase the amount of you gain. Influence can then be spent on certain actions in the diplomacy screen. There are four kinds of diplomacy actions you can take:

• Endeavors: Mutually beneficial actions between both nations, such as providing aid or bolstering their armies with support
• Sanctions: Negative actions against the leader’s empire, like denouncing them or reducing happiness among their population
• Treaties: Agreements between both nations, such as opening borders or improving trade relations
• Espionage: Sabotaging another nation with a chance of being caught. If caught, you’ll suffer a small penalty to Influence and damage your relationship with the targeted nation

You’ll need more than just the right amount of Influence points though, because the other nation must accept it if you want it to go ahead. Actioning an Endeavor will give them a chance to respond, either by supporting it, accepting it, or rejecting it. Similarly, Sanctions also have the option to Accept or Reject. Supporting a diplomatic action results in major benefits for both nations at the cost of Influence. Choosing Accept is free but results in smaller benefits. If the target nation chooses Reject, they must spend Influence to cancel it.

Because of how dramatically Influence can change your relationships with other nations, we recommend not using your Influence all at once. You’ll want to keep some banked in case you need it unexpectedly. For example, Influence is incredibly useful for War Support, so you’ll be better off having a lot of Influence saved up just before you go to war.

How to use Espionage in Civ 7 diplomacy

Espionage works a little differently to the other diplomatic actions, with the action taking a random number of turns to complete at the cost of Influence. At the end, you’ll receive a reward if the mission was completed successfully. Once you’ve initiated an Espionage action, the target nation isn’t informed. However, there is a chance that your Espionage actions can be revealed to them later on. In this case, you’ll receive a penalty to the amount of Influence you receive per turn, and your relationship with this empire will be damaged.

Every player also has the ability to use the Counterspy against another leader. This will cause the average time for their Espionage actions to triple, and decrease how successful the mission is for them. Of course, if engaging in Espionage, keep your eye carefully on your own Influence. If the number appears to be dropping rapidly, it could mean another player is using Counterspy.

How to befriend Independent Powers in Civ 7 diplomacy

While each Civ 7 game has you playing diplomacy with other major leaders, there are also several smaller nations for you to befriend or defeat called Independent Powers. These powers typically consist of one City State and several units wandering the map. Independent Powers can either be Friendly or Hostile to you, but you can take control of their city regardless of their opinion.

To befriend an Independent Power, approach their city and choose the option to “Befriend Independent”. This will require spending Influence to kickstart the process. Once this process begins, you’ll need to wait a number of turns until you become a Suzerain of that City State and can gain benefits from it. For example, you’ll be able to set up a Civ 7 trade route between this City State and your empire.

Beware of other civs that may also want to befriend an Independent Power. A City State can have multiple players claiming suzerain at the same time, but only one nation can gain the title. You can spend Influence to speed up the process if you want to outpace other leaders.

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How to get merchants in Civ 7

Merchants in Civ 7 can be trained after researching a specific civic or technology. Once you reach a new age, you’ll lose the ability to train merchants and will need to unlock them again by researching a different bonus. Here is what you need to unlock in order to train merchants:

• Antiquity Age: Research Mysticism and Discipline in the Civic Tree, then research Code of Laws
• Exploration Age: Research Economics in the Civic Tree
• Modern Age: Research Steam Engine in the Tech Tree

Once you have unlocked merchants, you will be able to train them. Merchants can be trained as part of your city’s production, or bought with gold at any city or town.

How to set up trade routes in Civ 7

We recommend finding another settlement to trade with first, before you train a merchant. You’ll be able to set them up in another leader’s town or city, so take a look around the map and find a suitable place to send them. You can also trade with Independent Powers, however you need to be a suzerain of their city state in order to set up a trade route. Once you’ve discovered a few possible settlements to trade with, select one of your cities or towns and train a merchant.

Once you have a merchant, you’ll notice a toolbar pop up on the side of the screen when you select them, showing all the possible settlements you can trade with and the resources you can get from them. This is handy if you’re unsure where to send them, as you’ll be to click on them to jump to the settlement.

You can’t set up a trade route until the merchant has gone to the city or town, so once you’ve settled on where to send them, move the merchants to the location. It’ll probably take a few turns depending on how far the town or city is from yours. Once they arrive, you’ll get a prompt to allow them to set up a trade route.

How trade works in Civ 7

Once you’ve set up a trade route with another settlement, your merchant will follow a road back to your settlement with a share of their resources. The other leader will receive gold as a result, and can send their own merchants on the same path to you, ensuring a mutually beneficial agreement.

On the next turn after each successful trade, a screen will pop up showing which resources the settlement is offering up for trade. From this screen, you can allocate the resources for your merchant to take back to one of your towns or cities. Resources come in three types: Empire Resources (they go to your whole empire), City Resources (they can only go to a city), and Bonus Resources (they can go to either a City or Town).

The number of trade routes you can have depends heavily on your relationship with the other leader. If you’d like to increase your trading potential, you need to head over to the Civ 7 diplomacy screen and use the action Improve Trade Relations. Both parties will need to agree to this, so if the other leader doesn’t like you enough then they may not agree to these terms. So, it’s best to keep on their good side.

While the Civ 7 trade system is designed to be as low maintenance as possible to reduce micromanaging, it’s still worth keeping an eye on your trade routes. You won’t need to continuously train merchants to keep up the flow, but they can be targeted by enemy forces. Consider moving a few military units along these roads to act as guards, should that happen.

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1. Begin on Scribe difficulty

Civilization 7 dramatically changes up the 4X gameplay formula, to the point that even returning players may not be used to the new systems introduced. As such, we recommend turning the difficulty down to Scribe, the lowest of Civ 7’s six difficulty levels.

This will allow you to learn the game from the ground up at a leisurely pace. With the Scribe difficulty active, other leaders are less likely to stomp all over you, and you’ll be able to learn each of these new and returning systems without the fear of that looming over your head.

Once you’ve got to grips with how the game works and the best ways to progress through a standard game, you’ll be better off moving up to higher difficulties for added challenge.

2. Start by building scouts

As early as the first 10 turns, you should prioritize training a few scout units to explore the surrounding terrain. Building a scout will allow them to get the lay of the land and help you find good resource tiles along with other factions while you’re still setting up your main city.

Scouts can move two tiles per turn, and have a higher field of view when compared to other units you can create at this point. Therefore, they’re incredibly useful for exploring the world map and finding areas you’ll want to expand into.

The main thing to beware of is that scouts aren’t fighters, so if a hostile enemy decides to attack your scout unit, you’ll risk losing them altogether.

3. Be aware of surrounding terrain

When using your scouts to explore the terrain around your city, now’s a good time to take note of what resource tiles are available to you and plan accordingly. When it comes to expanding your starting city (or building new towns), it’s important to pick up technologies that take advantage of the resources available to you.

For example, if your first city is located near a lot of food tiles, research technologies that will improve your yield from food. This will help your city grow massively in the early game, allowing you to expand quickly.

The same goes for other types of resources. So, if you’re settled near a lot of production tiles, prioritize technologies that will take advantage of that.

4. Expand early and quickly

Being aware of nearby resources is important, but you know what else is important? Being aware of what isn’t near your city. If there’s a specific resource you need which isn’t as readily available, you’ll have to expand by creating towns.

The best thing about having towns is that they’re a major boon to resource stockpiles. Ideally, you’ll want to settle at least two additional towns by the time you reach around Turn 50. We recommend placing them on the same continent as your city, but on opposing coasts. This comes in handy during the Exploration Age later on, when you need to venture further outside of the starting area.

There’s no downside to settling more towns, as long as you make sure you stay under the settlement limit. If you go over by settling too many towns, you’ll receive a penalty.

5. Choose a Legacy Path early

Civ 7’s Legacy Paths are the conditions you need to follow in order to achieve victory. There are four routes to victory: Economy, Military, Culture, and Science. However, this is not just a case of following one route from the first turn to the final turn, as each age has its own conditions to achieve.

There are three distinct ages a Civ 7 game will play through: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Legacy Paths will give you a set of objectives to achieve in each age, and accomplishing them will influence your play in the following age.

Sometimes it’s best to stick to one Legacy Path throughout all three ages, but depending on your leader and civilization, it may also be beneficial to switch them up mid-game. We recommend experimenting with the best leader and civilization combinations and how they influence the Legacy Paths.

6. Use your Influence points

As you meet other leaders, you’ll gain Influence points which allow you to strengthen or weaken how favorably other civilizations think of you. If you’re aiming for a more diplomatic victory, it’s wise to use your Influence points to keep these leaders happy. We’ve found that using Influence for Civ 7 diplomacy that’s mutually beneficial for both civs is the best route to avoiding conflict.

Similarly, you’ll also encounter independent factions as your scouts move around the map. Spending influence points will allow you to befriend them and become part of your civilization. This brings new bonuses and will help you grow your empire.

7. Military is important, even for peaceful players

Generally speaking, the AI in Civilization 7 is quite aggressive in our experience. Even if you’re pursuing a peaceful playthrough, it’s wise to amass a large army if only for self-defence. Particularly in the Antiquity Age, you’ll certainly run into some hostile independent cities that can become a problem for you if you don’t have a strong military presence.

Commanders, a new addition to Civ 7, are also great to have. You can use them to stack multiple units on one tile, allowing them to move as a group. It’ll also make them much stronger when it comes to fighting with a hostile enemy.

8. Be prepared for disasters

It helps to be prepared when faced with a crisis. This could mean an ally potentially turning on you, or a natural disaster destroying a portion of your settlements and units. At any time, your city could be upturned by a blizzard, a volcanic eruption, a flood, or something else entirely. Should this happen, you’ll need to use your resources to rebuild any tiles affected by the disaster.

On the other hand, once the Age progresses to around 60%, every leader will be hit with a crisis to deal with. This will appear in the Government screen, where you’ll be required to pick up a social policy which brings some kind of debuff to your progress. As the age continues to edge towards completion, this crisis will worsen, so make sure you’re prepared to deal with it.

And those are the best Civ 7 tips we can offer to help you start out.

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In Civilization 7, a new system has replaced the previous Eras of the game. In Civilization 6, there was both a World Era and an Individual Era, with the former being the median of all civilizations in play.

Now, instead of everyone progressing at their own pace by researching technology and civics, when one Age is completed, all players and opponents level up to the next one at the same time. Currently, you can play through three Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern, and then the game ends just before the Cold War properly kicks off. The game currently has mixed reviews on Steam, and the devs have said they'll keep working to improve it.

As spotted by IGN, a redditor supposedly discovered that a fourth age is on the way: Atomic. The devs themselves have also teased more Ages, so this could be legitimate. In an interview with IGN, Civilization 7 executive producer Dennis Shirk says: "You can imagine the possibilities with this, honestly. The way that the design team set it up so that each age is chockfull of systems, visuals, units, Civs, all specific to that age, and what you could do with that and where you could take it… we can't talk about the specifics. We can just talk about it in generalities. We're excited for where this is going to go."

An Atomic age would likely go from the Cold War all the way to the current day, but it could go even further and throw in some sci-fi such as space travel or strange new nuclear weapons. The possibilities are endless, and it opens the game up for future Ages that speculate on what the years to come could hold.

While you wait, check out all the other best strategy games you can try right now.

Project Arc is now called PUBG: Blindspot, a name which was chosen to reference the shooter's "core gameplay elements" as well as design philosophy. Namely, players use "real-time shared vision" with their teammates, so what you can (and can't) see will play a large part in your strategies.

The Steam demo is set to go live on February 20 at 8pm PT (that's 11pm ET, or February 21 at 4am GMT), allowing us to get our hands on 10 different playable characters – each complete with unique weapons and "special tools" at their disposal. In total, there'll be seven different maps to try out – three of those are team deathmatch maps, while the other four are demolition mission maps. You can take a look at a demolition mission in action in the latest trailer below to get a flavor of what's to come.

GamesRadar+'s Andrew Brown had the chance to go hands-on with PUBG: Blindspot last year (when it was still known as Project Arc), and had some very positive things to say about it, although noted that the deathmatch mode was "absolute carnage," and didn't leave quite as good an impression as the Rainbow Six Siege-like standard mode. "Its top-down perspective emphasizes the strategic thinking that draws me to games like Counter-Strike in the first place, with less weight on quick reaction speeds and accuracy," he wrote about the latter.

It's not long now until everyone is able to try PUBG: Blindspot out for themselves, anyway. There's still no word on the full game's release date, so be sure to make the most of the upcoming demo.

For more games that'll give your brain a workout, be sure to check out our roundup of the best strategy games.

Acknowledging the game's mixed feedback on Steam in a new announcement, Firaxis says players' voices aren't going unheard. "Over the last few days, the team has been poring over your feedback, including our most recent Steam reviews during the Early Access period," writes the studio. "As stewards of the Civilization franchise, we hold ourselves to a high standard and always strive to create the best game possible."

The devs continue, stating that "Civ would not have come this far without you, and your opinions matter greatly to us." In response to fans' recent feedback, Firaxis reveals it has "identified three key areas that we're prioritizing work against as quickly as possible." The team is also working on a roadmap, but the "three key areas" described seem to cover most Steam users' complaints – from the UI to better multiplayer.

UI improvements are Firaxis' "top priority," with the studio assuring fans it's "committed to getting this right." Current fixes addressing UI problems include "making UI interactions more intuitive, improving map readability, fixing areas of polish like formatting, and more." The devs are also looking into "implementing community-requested features" elsewhere, namely in multiplayer with co-op teams and hotseat support.

Alongside these tweaks, a wider variety of map types, quality-of-life changes, and better customization are coming, with Firaxis saying work is "already well underway on Patch 1.1.0" – an update set to drop sometime in March. Hopefully, updates help see the game's full potential shine through its quirks, as it's certainly there. Our own Civilization 7 review dubs the title "a revolutionary strategy game that cements the series' legendary status."

Civilization 7 director tweaked diplomacy because the entire design team "ganged up" on him in multiplayer

Yes, there are also complaints about features and gameplay system changes - the exact same kinds of things fans get upset about with every new entry in the Civ series. But I'm not sure I've ever seen a AAA game get beaten down so vociferously and angrily for poor user interface design.

The issues with the UI won't be immediately apparent if you just spend a few seconds looking at screenshots, but this appears to be a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation. Necessary information is difficult to access. Menu buttons are placed in awkward locations. There's not enough good feedback when you're making a selection. Crucial readouts sometimes overlap each other. There aren't as many hotkeys as there used to be. Text is sometimes misaligned. The lines through the tech tree jut out at awkward angles. The list goes on and on and on, so say thousands of players.

This tweet, which drew an explanatory response from the devs on Twitter, might be one of the more egregious examples I've seen. "Denounce: accept or reject?" You can certainly draw some context clues from the numbers to guess what this does in-game, but that's a nonsense question that's impossible to parse at a glance. Apparently, in this situation the player is being denounced, but can choose to reject that action. Even in Civ, where the machinations of global politics are being abstracted into a set of numbers, it'd be nice to have a more concrete sense of what's happening.

Civilization 7 currently has 3,231 reviews on Steam, and even many of the positive reviews note that while the core game might be enjoyable, the interface is a capital-P Problem. The devs at Firaxis have directly responded to some of those reviews, noting that "we are aware of and looking into feedback on the game's UI."

Here's hoping that if the devs have fixes in mind they come in soon, so we can start judging the game on its strategic merits. In our Civilization 7 review, Andy notes that "though some tweaks around diplomacy and Ages fall short, a host of small reinventions – along with Firaxis' biggest gamble in tackling the tedium of long-running campaigns – pays off superbly."

Civilization 7 director tweaked diplomacy because the entire design team "ganged up" on him in multiplayer.

Civilization 7 brings a lot to the table, and not all of it requires abandoning your morality to play with. Fans of the series will find a map that's livelier than ever, city management that won't overload your brain, and one of the most engaging endgames ever devised. While predecessor Civilization 6 crammed in similar depth without quite managing to convey all of it clearly, Civilization 7 feels like a cohesive next step for the franchise – and when a few quirks are ironed out, this will be the series' best modern iteration to date.

Next turn

Whether you're a returning fan or stepping into Firaxis' iconic 4X (exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination) strategy series for the first time, Civilization's core premise remains largely the same. Starting with one settlement, you'll grow your empire across a randomly-generated world with the goal of seizing victory through scientific, cultural, militaristic, or economic means. It's a tried-and-true formula, but Civilization 7 takes a couple of big risks that shake it up creatively.

The first thing you'll notice is that you no longer pick a Civilization and get to work. Instead you choose a leader – who remains with you through an entire campaign – while your Civilization choice changes at several points based on your playstyle and leader's historical background. Rolling with Confucius, for example, opens up Ming China as an option, due to his real-world background, but with multiple iron mines in the bag, I could also go Norman.

I was worried this feature would dilute the identity of factions, but that's not the case. Rather than picking a civilization with a unique unit that's obsolete 50 turns in (or one that doesn't turn up for another 200) you now get to pick a total of three civs that are relevant for their entire duration, all with the nifty perks and special units you would expect from past Civ games.

Likewise, I've been dreading how Ages would work since Civilization 7's reveal. Since the '90s, Civilization's whole deal has been unleashing players in a sandbox and letting them do their thing (see: war crimes) uninterrupted. Now, each match is divided into three segments – the opening Antiquity Age, followed by Exploration, and finally Modern.

It's not always a smooth transition, as each Age has a hard stop that resets the board a little. This is particularly frustrating if you're in the middle of something important. In one match, I was closing in on the end of a particularly bloody war and within reach of my mortal enemy Amina's capital when the Age shifted from Exploration to Modern, ending our war and warping my soldiers back to my own distant territories. The rancid cherry on top? Some of the no-name civs who were trailing on the leaderboard got a major science boost through the interim, meaning my empire was promptly invaded by landships while its citizens were still marveling at the wonders of the wooden wheel.

That's not an indictment, though. Since then, I've realized that it takes time to learn how Ages work. In previous entries you'd slowly build strength through the course of each game – conquering capital cities, hurtling towards space flight, or hoarding cultural wonders like a well-read toddler – until it all came to a head. In Civilization 7 victory is more measured, and to carry your momentum through to the next Age you need to complete Legacy Paths: a series of win conditions for each individual age, rewarding permanent bonuses. If you want to win through science, for instance, you'll start by rushing to build libraries and academies in Antiquity, prioritize housing specialists in your cities through Exploration, and finally try to be the first civ in space during Modern. Doing so lets you carry powerful perks across Ages, whilst neglecting them is a surefire way to fall behind.

I've got mixed feelings. Legacy Paths and Ages make the early and mid-game feel a lot more dynamic, and freshen up a campaign's later stages. But at times it feels like you're being railroaded into one path – a little jarring, given the freedom of Civ's sandbox approach up to this point. Although I'd like to see more objective varieties or pathways through these Legacy Paths, I do think that Ages (even if they're a little heavy-handed) are an improvement to the formula, if only because the endgame is no longer ticking boxes until you reach a surefire win.

I'll stay right here

When all of that clicks, Civilization 7 is a thrill. Outside of the big gambles, the core Civilization experience is lightyears ahead of anything we've seen from the series before. Moving from one turn to the next is near-instantaneous, and besides the world looking sublime with its visual glow-up and warmer palette, it feels livelier than ever. Volcanic eruptions change surrounding tiles, rivers flood, and powerful storms can wreak havoc. I nearly missed out on colonizing a new continent (boo-hoo, I know) because a huge hurricane kicked up as my army was crossing the ocean, gaining on their ships as I furiously fear-hammered movement commands to reach the coast.

That liveliness extends to combat's impressive fluidity. Army commanders allow you to stack units and transport them around in-sync, and can order simultaneous attacks that are worth utilizing – having every archer in range fire at once gives each unit involved more combat strength, for example, but you can also command mass pillaging or have everyone construct makeshift fortifications on their tiles.

During my first campaign as Xerxes, a three-way war with my continental neighbors Machiavelli and Himiko drew the attention of meddling outsiders Ben Franklin and Ashoka, World Renouncer. The latter two factions had no settlements in the continent, but decided to wade in anyway, landing masses of tanks and gun-toting infantry on our shores and transforming the countryside into a fiery wreck until I turned the sea into a killing field of my own with a blockade of battleships. I've sunk hundreds of hours into Civilization, but that single conflict is the most fun I've ever had with combat.

All's fair

Commodifying diplomacy is an interesting choice (see Strong Influence). Firaxis has long tried to play around the fact that AI motivations can be inscrutable, and reducing it to a resource is an inelegant but mostly effective solution. Besides using it to push trade, scientific, and commercial agreements with other civs, Influence can boost your support for a war back home – whichever side of the battle has lower support takes some pretty harsh penalties in combat, so it's important to keep the troops happy. But it's also a step back in some ways, as gold can no longer be used to tantalize other civs into settling wars, and you can't buy or sell settlements.

This is particularly frustrating because razing settlements in war permanently penalizes your war support for every future conflict, which means that since you also can't milk your rival for gold during peace negotiations, you sometimes have to absorb rubbish settlements rather than burn them to the ground. That in itself is another can of worms, as Civilization 7 goes big on expansion. Settlements are now divided into towns and cities, with the former acting as lower-maintenance support hubs for your cities.

All of that, paired simpler iteration of Civilization 6's district system, means juggling your empire is far less of a headache. Because there are fewer penalties to expanding, you (and AI factions) tend to manage significantly more settlements. Finding unclaimed land is now genuinely scrappy, and racing to plant my flag in undeveloped continents has been the highlight of my time in Civilization 7. I've admittedly found myself engaging with the cultural side of Civ less because of it, though, and AI has an irritating habit of squeezing a town right outside of your established borders.

I had no idea what to expect from Civilization 7. Firaxis has a habit of scaring fans by announcing wild choices (hello, Marvel's Midnight Suns) then pulling them off so slickly you forget there was ever any doubt. Civilization 7 isn't quite so slick – with its heavy-handed Ages diplomacy rework – but it's certainly a huge stride forward for the legendary strategy series, joining the clarity of Civilization 5 with the added depth of Civilization 6.

Ages will be more divisive – I personally think the system does wonders for the usual tedium of late-stage campaigns – while other features, like pairing Leaders with evolving civs, should be a staple going forward. Civilization 7 already feels like the best entry point yet, and with Firaxis' habit of saving the real polish for expansions, I think this is going to become a grand strategy titan. Just keep an eye on that Ben Franklin fella – and don't believe a word he says about any "war crimes".

Whether you prefer turn-based or real-time map-painters, here are the best strategy games you should check out

The tidbit comes via PC Gamer Magazine's 405 issue where Civilization 7 director Ed Beach breaks down some of the sweeping changes coming to the diplomacy system. In past games, diplomacy between civilizations didn't feel as 'grand' as you might expect - it essentially boiled down to trading resources in exchange for other stuff. In the iconic strategy series' seventh mainline game, things are changing, though. You can sign treaties, join other civs on mutually beneficial initiatives, and spend 'Influence' to move the game in more dynamic ways than before.

"It is a little trickier to stay on the fringes now than it used to be," Beach explains. "And I credit that pretty much to the new mechanical approach and rethink we've had on diplomacy. It used to be diplomacy and multiplayer was sort of a non-event at all. It was just what you could do in terms of inner-talk between the players to try to convince them to help you. But now there's actually levers you can pull using the influence system that actually are actual, true game mechanics that are influencing how a multiplayer game is unfolding."

"I've had multiplayer games where everyone decided that the war weariness system was overtuned," Beach says about the match that saw his own developers turn on him. "And so as soon as I got into war, my whole design team all ganged up on me and put support to the other player in the way so that I would be crippled by how bad the war weariness was. And yes, I approved some changes to the balance of that afterwards." Well, you've gotta make sure that can't happen again, right?

Civilization 7’s director also made some based comments about how each sequel is a massive overhaul because graphical improvements are “not worthy of another chapter.” 

Right now, you can get hold of it for half price, that's just $40 on Amazon, against the usual $80 for this comprehensive strategy game. Having released just last year, the game hasn't seen that many drops in price yet. So this is a great opportunity to nab it for a deep discount.

If you're a fellow UK-based caveperson, you can also grab it for just under £20 off at Zatu games, so there's no reason for us to miss out on the fun overseas. Appropriately, that's sort of what Doggerland is all about: exploring the the stretch of land that once connected the British Isles to the rest of Europe, back in the days of wooly mammoths and cave paintings.

Should you buy Doggerland?

There's a lot to love about this game that dives deep into the lives of Prehistoric folk, not least the fact that every game of Doggerland is different. With procedural tiles laid out to be explored, and various goals that change every time you play, there are countless combinations that'll have you pulling Doggerland out of the cupboard time and time again.

The game sees players accumulating points through the seasons by strategising around the limited resources on the map. You grow your clan, migrate across the map hunting wild animals, and uh *checks notes* create megoliths and invoke twin births with the help of your Shaman. Okay, so it's not entirely historically accurate, but a mystical twist never hurt, did it?

As you play, you add to your fresco paintings with great deeds, create tools, as well as statues and necklaces that all add to your point score depending on the current goals. It's a deep and ever-changing game, Doggerland, and one that I can't wait to get hold of for review myself.

For more discounts, be sure to check out the latest the top board game deals for January 2025. As for last-minute present ideas, why not drop by our gifts for gamers guide?

In a statement over the weekend, Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner acknowledged that the card game had become totally unplayable in the U.S., noting that the outage was "a surprise to us and wasn't planned," but the team was "actively working on getting the game up as soon as possible." While it wasn't confirmed at the time, it seemed likely that the game could have been affected due to the fact that it's published by Nuverse, which is owned by ByteDance – also the parent company of TikTok. Despite the TikTok ban being overturned in a matter of hours, however, Marvel Snap remained down for longer, but it's finally back, coming full circle on what feels like a very apt Avengers homage.

"Marvel Snap is back online in the U.S.," a new tweet from Second Dinner reads. "But to make sure this NEVER happens again, we're working to bring more services in-house and partner with a new publisher. This is the start of a new era for Marvel Snap."

The developer acknowledges that "this probably leaves you with even more questions than answers," but promises to "update with more information as soon as possible!" For now, it appears that in-app purchases still aren't working, although Second Dinner says, "the team is working on it," and web shop purchases are still fully functional. 

If you're a dedicated Marvel Snap player, the good news is that even before the game came back online, Second Dinner promised that it was "committed to ensuring that all players are compensated for their lost time" when it comes to the "time-based content, rewards, and Missions" they couldn't access. It's not yet clear how the devs plan to make it up to anyone affected, but rest assured that it's definitely happening in some form or another. 

While you're here, be sure to check out our roundup of new games releasing this year and beyond.

By choosing which of Jan's major life choices to alter, these clones bring him face to face with a smorgasbord of Jans he could have been – the good, the bad, and the ugly. The what if's. He also needs to ensure they cooperate. "Our focus was on crafting fully realized characters for players to gradually uncover – learning why each Jan became the person he is. This journey of discovery and relationship-building unfolds throughout the entire game."

Alternate perspectives

The Alters is underpinned by its choice based narrative, feeding directly into its survival and base-building elements. Maintaining these relationships with Jan's Alters won't be a simple affair, with each one carrying their own baggage and idiosyncrasies. "Sometimes, understanding a character means making difficult choices or even going against your instincts. There are moments when you think, 'I know who this guy is,' but as events progress and the bond deepens, you uncover layers you didn't anticipate." You'll encounter roughly "10 unique Alters", but Tomasz teases "some surprises" that he doesn't want to spoil just yet. Which Alters you see and how much you learn will also vary between playthroughs. "It was crucial for us to design the game so that [...] players could meet different Alters or gain fresh insights about the ones they thought they already knew."

One of the biggest challenges for 11 Bit Studios was to "uncover the unique 'voice' of each Alter" and "ensuring [they] stood out distinctly, so players could immediately recognize which one they were interacting with, all while keeping the performances subtle and authentic," Tomasz explains. "After all, these are different versions of the same person [...] we couldn't let their voices blur into one another – but we also wanted to avoid exaggeration or caricature." Working with a single performer for the role, Alex Jordan (Rook, Dragon Age: The Veilguard), and voice directors, Damien Goodwin and Kate Saxon, they dedicated significant time to preparation before recording. "We dove deep into the Alters' backstories, exploring how their lives and experiences diverged and how those differences might shape their voices. For example, could an early move abroad influence one Alter's accent? Could another's years of battling alcoholism leave an imprint on their vocal cords?"

From the creators of Frostpunk, 11 Bit Studios is well versed in exploring sci-fi narratives from fresh angles. "Our vision leans more toward the works of Stanisław Lem than flashy, high-octane sci-fi spectacles. Aesthetically, we found inspiration in films like Interstellar, where alien worlds are compelling due to their rawness, mystery, and unfamiliar physicality, rather than explosions or intergalactic warfare," explains Tomasz. "Ultimately, this is a deeply personal story, and that human element remains at the heart of our narrative."

There's no shortage of multiversal shenanigans in pop culture, from Marvel to Everything Everywhere all at Once, but The Alters sets itself apart by honing in on its core high-concept theme of 'What if?' "I think what makes our approach distinct is how these alternate versions of oneself coexist in a single reality. Players are at the center of this experience, choosing which versions of themselves to create and uncover, and deciding how to navigate the consequences. It's this player agency that makes video games the perfect medium for telling such a story – offering an empirical exploration of these themes."

Aside from confronting one of life's biggest philosophical questions, Jan is always on the move in his roving hamster wheel-like base to escape the pesky sun. "This led to the idea of a base design that can move between locations, making it feel dynamic and alive. There's something thrilling about customizing your base, expanding it, and operating within this enormous, tangible structure. Then stepping outside to witness the massive treads of your colossal wheel firsthand!"

Switching between third-person exploration and a dollhouse-like view of the base (reminiscent of the perspective in This War of Mine and Fallout Shelter), there's a seamless transition while maintaining its visual identity. "The key lies in creating a strong sense of scale and ensuring everything feels physical and grounded," says Tomasz. " We didn't want the base to feel like some abstract, disconnected entity where you just teleport in and out. Instead, we envisioned it as an integral part of the world – a portable home rooted in the environment you explore."

The Alters looks set to be another highly stylized game from 11 Bit Studios, with a deep psychological twist. Pulling at the threads of multiple genres, this high-concept sci-fi is certainly ambitious, but is grounded in a very human perspective that has me intrigued. The idea of fighting to survive while managing various aspects of yourself is a philosophical can of worms I'm looking forward to opening.

The Alters feels like a perfect mix of sci-fi survival with the multiversal chaos of Everything Everywhere All At Once

Now I'll admit, some of Civilization 7's proposed shake-ups scare me. The new Ages system – which will essentially break campaigns into three stages rather than the series' traditionally less-impactful historical eras – could make the empire-building experience feel more fragmented, and I don't know whether the mix-and-match approach to leaders and factions will add unimaginable customization or dull the personality we've had from Civilization 5 and 6's civs.

Yes, change is scary, and I've seen a lot of the series' long-time fans eyeing Civilization 7 with uncertainty. But it's clear that these changes are a shot – and a bold one, at that – at fixing a problem that's plagued sandbox strategies for a long time: they get really, really boring.

Ancient ruins

Empire management games walk a perilous tightrope. You need to feel the satisfaction of raising a faction from ramshackle town to global superpower, which means campaigns inherently run on the long side. But at a certain point on that journey, the scales tip. Suddenly, rather than fighting for survival as a plucky underdog, you're the biggest faction on the map. Conquering whoever else is left becomes a checklist to tick through, and even if they're strong enough to put up a fight, at that point any pushback is more of a frustrating setback – a delaying of the inevitable – than a serious challenge. You have, effectively, solved the game before it's over.

This isn't an issue squared solely with Civilization – I've spent over 2000 hours in Total War: Warhammer, and the amount of campaigns that have stalled out vastly outweigh those I've finished. Paradox found a pretty neat solution in Stellaris, with end-game crises posing genuine threats capable of wiping your empire out, but even these often boil down to clearing repetitive stacks of enemies once you understand how combat works. Fighting this problem on its own turf is perhaps a hopeless battle. In truth, there's very little that isn't going to be steamrolled by the sheer amount of time that fans are going to replay these games for.

I get the sense that Firaxis knows this. Rather than spice up Civilization 7's later stages with monstrously-detailed nuclear war mechanics (don't give Gandhi any ideas) or Giant-er Death Robots, the studio has essentially taken the concept of an "endgame" out back and shot it. By breaking campaigns into three distinct Ages, Civilization 7 minimizes the risk of a playthrough devolving into one long slog or burying players in the chores that accumulate with managing sprawls of cities or moving tens of military units around.

"The number one issue that the Ages system solves for us is it helps you to get towards the end of a game," Civilization 7 director Ed Beach told Edge, pointing to players who feel "overwhelmed" by the sprawl of decisions that late-game Civilization turns require. But you can't understate just how bold a solution this is. It's a foundational change to the longest-running working formula in the strategy genre, and according to Beach, there were even people within Firaxis who weren't sure if Ages would work.

As a result, Civilization 7 will likely be this year's biggest gamble in gaming. Firaxis is staking the strategy genre's longest winning formula on being able to fix a problem that no other developer has managed to solve, and if that doesn't take courage, I don't know what does. Whichever way the developer's bet swings, one thing is for certain: when Civilization 7 launches on February 11, I'll be first in line to hit that sweet, sweet next turn button.

Adventure Mode essentially turns Dwarf Fortress into an open-world roguelike RPG, letting you explore the same sorts of worlds generated in the main strategic management game - potentially one you've even built a fortress in yourself - as a party of adventurers. You can explore, undertake quests, and delve into dungeons as part of a much more traditional, er, adventure. This mode has been part of the game since its initial public launch way back in 2006, but it's only now hitting the Steam version.

After a beta stretching back through 2024, Adventure Mode properly hits the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress on January 23. "The mode has come a long way since it first launching in beta, and we couldn't have done it without your help," the devs say in a Steam news post. "We are excited to shift focus back to Fortress Mode very soon, but this is also not the end of Adventure Mode development. Many updates in the future will be applied to both modes, and there's still more to add to Adventure Mode in the future. As with everything in Dwarf Fortress development, it will all come in due time. More details about the next steps soon."

Dwarf Fortress is often referred to as a "story generator," and Adventure Mode has much the same appeal - the focus is just on individual characters rather than entire colonies. You might see a sweet-hearted adventurer turn into a murder-obsessed necromancer in the space of a week, or you might see your quests come to an end because you choked on some beer. The possibilities are genuinely endless.

Dwarf Fortress publisher isn't bothered about the cult classic hitting its 120,000 player peak again: "We're not here to make as much money as possible."

As well as speaking about TFT's position in the games industry, Teamfight Tactics game designer Julien Camaraza described in an interview with GamesRadar+ what it was like to see Arcane season 2 in development as part of developing their own Into the Arcane crossover.

"We got the script for Arcane season 2 around two years ago," he begins, "but I would really say the set was entering active development until right after Remix Rumble finished, Set 10. The day that ended, we were like 'great, time to work on Into the Arcane'."

By the time Camaraza and the TFT team got to look, the episodes were already coming together but were still far from complete. "We got to watch really unfinished versions of the episodes, whatever they just had lying around at Fortiche. Some of the shots were just drawings, some of them had no audio. It was really fun. There was a lot of shots that looked almost complete, but the hair hadn't been rendered yet, so all the characters were just bald." he explains.

"And they have us those episodes fairly quickly. They were pretty protective, which totally makes sense. They didn't want spoilers to leak. So the first three episodes were fairly easy to get. The second three and the last three, really you had to have a reason to use them."

For Camaraza, the most difficult aspect of the show's development was keeping everything under wraps, explaining "As for how hard it was to keep a secret? Probably the hardest part of the set's development." In a bit to keep everything as hush-hush as possible, codenames were introduced, which unintentionally made things even more difficult. "Every character had a codename internally - we were not allowed to call them by their real names out loud when speaking to each other, and that can get pretty confusing."

Thankfully, the entire operation went off without a hitch, and not a spoiler was leaked, something Camaraza is desperately grateful for. "Oh my god, if we spoiled Arcane, it would have been heartbreaking. That's just a line I did not want to cross. And so it was very, very stressful. But I'm glad we didn't do it."

If you're after more tactical games like Teamfight Tactics, check out our list of the very best strategy games.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, TFT game designer Julien Camaraza spoke about the game's position in the wider gaming landscape and the role of the game for many of its players. "Right now, the last time I've checked, a majority of our player base do play both League and TFT," he begins, "We often strive to be everyone's second-favorite game, the game you play when you're not playing your main game. And I think that's a great place to be. Most people play more than one game."

A major contributor to the game's success, for Camaraza, is how interlinked it is with League of Legends. "League of Legends and TFT share a client, if you have a bad game of League, you can jump to TFT so easily," he explains. "You don't even need to open a new .exe, and that's great. That's a really great relationship to have with that team. So I think we're in a really good, healthy place for us right now."

On whether or not the TFT team has hopes of one day overtaking their sister game, Camaraza insists that it isn't something they will ever actively aim for. "I don't think we're ever going to try to be bigger than League of Legends, I don't think that's one of our aspirations right now. But I think we are doing really well."

If you're after some more tactical gameplay, check out our list of the very best strategy games.

Satisfactory starts like every other survival game. You land on a planet, decide to exploit it mercilessly, and start pulling resources out of the ground. Then it veers in a different direction. An industrial direction. See, while you can technically craft just about everything in Satisfactory with your own two hands, making stuff yourself is ridiculous. Real engineers build machines to do all of that assembling for them.

This feels intimidating, but Satisfactory's onboarding is some of the best out there. From your first miner all the way to installing power lines, setting up a drone factory or even just straight up adopting nuclear power, Satisfactory slowly guides you through the process.

Thinking with pulleys

20 hours after landing, I'm installing six huge batteries as an off-site power backup just in case the wrong wire is cut and my power fails. These batteries will give me 30 minutes of spare power in case of emergency. After this, I'm going to start making AI limiters, after that I need to refill my supply of explosive Nobelisk charges.

There's always something big that needs to be done in Satisfactory, and because I'm a fairly chaotic person, my work is imperfect, ready to be tweaked, refined and optimized again and again. Outside of the horrifying spiders, the scariest enemy you'll face in this factory building craft-'em-up is an empty stretch of conveyor belt or an efficiency meter floating around the 50 per cent mark.

This is the real meat of Satisfactory, and in addition to the scores of hours I've spent prodding and pulling at conveyor belts and production lines, I've spent more hours than I can count doodling factory designs down on waste paper in the hope of finally making the perfect factory design. I haven't cracked it yet, so often when something goes wrong I venture down into the conveyor belts to see what's gone wrong.

But that's not the reason that Satisfactory is my favorite game this year, in a year filled with bombastic AAA games, breakout hit Helldivers 2, and even interesting indie shooters like I Am Your Beast, Echo Point Nova and Straftat. No, the reason Satisfactory is my favorite game is how much joy is infused into every part of the game. Even just moving is wonderful: movement feels similar to Apex Legends, except you're bouncing around the factory you and your friends have built.

The perfect example of this is the slide: there's no reason for Satisfactory to have a slide that feels this good, and despite the fact there's no mechanical purpose, you can feel the craftsmanship. People who have thought a whole lot about first-person kinesthetics are behind this slide. It makes you slightly faster if you time it right, but the best part is that if you build your conveyor belts at the normal height, when you slide you'll go cleanly under them.

Later, emboldened by Blade Runners – a new pair of shoes that increase your running speed by 50 percent and double your jumping height (while also mitigating a lot of fall damage) – I started to think of my factory as a 3D space rather than a series of buildings. A door here, a wall-mounted conveyor belt there and suddenly I could get from end to end of my factory without touching the ground. Later abilities let me ride my powerlines like a zipline, and then you can even build little sucky transport tubes like in Futurama to get around, but there's an elegance to getting around that meant I always wanted to go manual – whether it's the bodge-job watchtowers chained together to scale a nearby cliff, or the giant gel-filled pad I built to shield myself when I tumbled from the nearby mountain.

As technology gets more and more advanced, stomping around instead of using the technological shortcuts to get about feels more and more like a hipster that bores people at parties by patiently but intensely explaining vinyl is better than listening to people on Spotify. But I don't care.

Of course, while J.R.R Tolkien once suggested that not all who wander are lost, there's an important caveat: those who wander around for long enough are sure to get just a tiny bit confused about their location, at least. Which is how I've ended up here. Ostensibly I'm trying to fix an efficiency problem, but really, I'm just here for the journey. Considering I like clear structure and defined goals, that seems like Satisfactory's biggest achievement. If I were Coffee Stain, I'd rename the game Exceptional - puns be damned.

See where Satisfactory ranked on our best games of 2024

Ed Beach has been at Civ developer Firaxis Games for 17 years, working on Civ 5, 6, and now 7. But before helping to develop the legendary strategy franchise, he spent a decade as a contractor at NASA, working on, among other things, the Hubble Space Telescope. In an interview in Edge issue 405, Beach discusses how this influenced his work on Civ 5 and the hoopla he inadvertently caused at NASA.

"When we got to Brave New World in Civilization 5, we needed a wonder that was going to help you towards the science victory", Breach explains. "I was like 'let's put the Hubble Space Telescope in the game'." Both the Firaxis studio and Telescope Space Institute, which operates Hubble, are located in Baltimore, Maryland, not too far from one another, making it an ideal local inclusion for the Civ 5 team.

In a rather predictable turn of events, there's quite a big overlap between NASA employees and Civ players, with Breach later learning that the Telescope's inclusion has proven especially popular. "We connected with them later and found out that the day that they saw that Hubble was going into Civilization, there was a roar across the building because so many of them play it."

Sadly for them, the Hubble Space Telescope did not make its way into Civ 6. But with Civ 7 just over the horizon, there's hope yet for NASA's iconic bit of kit to reclaim its place among the game's wonders.

While you wait for Civ 7, be sure to check out the best strategy games around.

Slavic Magic decided to spread a little holiday joy by sharing a preview of Manor Lords' upcoming and undated update. The biggest new additions are easily the two new playable maps, Swiss Valley and Winding River, which are coming alongside a map selection feature. Swiss Valley seems to be a slightly colder affair with patches of snow littered around, while Winding River has, well, a big ole river running through it.

But I can already hear your cries, dear reader. How are my drunkard villagers supposed to navigate water, of all things? Well, the update is also adding a bridge-building feature to the game. It seemingly works in the same way as the existing Road Tool, letting you drag bridges and connect them to walking paths. You can see the feature, plus the two new maps, in the developer's most recent Steam blog post.

Other, smaller changes include the ability to reorder unit cards in your hand by dragging and dropping them, just in case the lack of organization was haunting you. Some reworked animations also mean that miners will soon actually mine. Like, you'll be able to zoom in and watch them head into the depths before bringing whatever materials back up, rather than slacking off on the surface until their genre-mandated timer is up.

"To keep supply smoother in larger settlements, workers will now bring extra resources preemptively—almost as if additional Burgage Plots were consuming them," is the final, handy change we know of. "For example, tavern workers may 'overstock' when they sense a resource like ale is about to run out, ensuring a steady flow and reducing supply disruptions. This change helps minimize fluctuations in resource delivery caused by logistics, particularly in large towns where managing supply chains can become challenging."

After 2.5 million in sales, Manor Lords publisher says it “would almost be arrogant” to not be surprised by its success - but “you cannot count on it to repeat.”

"BREAKING," developer Firaxis posted on Twitter. "Prospector hits the Griddy in Sid Meier's Civilization 7." An accompanying clip shows a prospector, a unique civilian unit capable of improving land resources, triumphantly kicking all around next to his donkey. He could be indeed hitting the victorious griddy, like an NFL player, or like a child who dropped their Robux gift card into their ice cream cone, but successfully picked it up with their booger finger. 

More likely, though, the prospector is demonstrating his ankle flexibility with the classic guy-in-the-wilderness jig. This jig has been around for decades to communicate just guy stuff, like finding gold nuggets in Oregon and other things like that. The romp fits perfectly into Civ 7's aim to communicate the majesty of the way civilizations, in some ways, shapeshift over centuries, and, in other ways, stay the same, like in letting people jig up and down.

But Civilization players – undoubtedly jealous that the Civ 7 prospector seems to have much stronger shins than they do – aren't having it. On Twitter, in response to Firaxis' clip, many fans cry out against the old man and demand he quit his mesmerizing dance. 

"Please permanently remove this from the game before launch, thank you," says one no-nonsense commenter. 

"Remove this," commands another. 

I dream of a civilization where we can all jig in peace.

Civ 7 director thought the new Ages system might not work, but says it does fix the "number-one issue" - players not getting to the end of their games.

Warhammer 3's latest addition, Omens of Destruction, makes it harder than ever to put down. Ogres now feel like a real mercenary faction, the Greenskins get "tactician" orc Gorbad Ironclaw at the helm, and Khorne fans get Skulltaker – whose goal is to hunt down important characters to take their, er, skulls for a cape he's making. Sigh. Like a stubborn fish, I'm hooked again.

Big thinkin'

It's been a fantastic year for Warhammer 3 – but a year ago, the trilogy was at its lowest-ever point. Its 2023 DLC Shadows of Change was heavily criticized for its pricing and contents – it essentially asked for more while giving less, a rare miss even for me – and there were concerns that core bugs and issues weren't being addressed. The debacle led to an apology from Creative Assembly, along with promises to shape up going forward.

To the studio's credit, it's spent the entirety of 2024 delivering on that promise. Besides Omens of Destruction there have been frequent hotfixes for balance issues and bugs before they have a chance to fester, and its last DLC – Thrones of Decay – remains one of my all-time favorite additions to the game. It's been a fantastic shift, and even parent company Sega praised the game's critical and financial turnaround in its latest financial results. When I catch up with game director Rich Aldridge ahead of Omens of Destruction's launch, he's open about the progress Creative Assembly has made in 2024.

"We make this game for people to enjoy, and we just wanted to go out there and do that," says Aldridge. "It's a continuing journey. We know the job is not done. It's really lovely that people welcomed us back into those conversations, and we're able to do things like blogs and video diaries [...] that's been a really good moment in this year for us."

"But we don't rest on our laurels," he adds. "We know that there's still a lot more to do. There's still a lot more to fix and improve upon. There's many fan favorites out there, which we haven't managed to bring to life yet. But, yeah, we're all passionate about the project and about the IP, so we just want to do good, continue this journey, and keep working hard for everyone.

Speaking of fan favorites, the game's largest omission for most players is iconic necromancer Nagash, also known as Bone Daddy. Just look at Reddit user zaneprotoss, who's been drawing fanart for 181 days and counting – with no plans to stop until Nagash is added. "We've seen that," laughs Aldridge. But while the director has found the artwork "really fun," the path to actually adding Nagash – who is considerably stronger in the lore than most existing characters – is still unclear. "We know that he's well-loved, and he's definitely someone that we've considered, but he's on a completely different power level," he explains. "That's something we'll have to think about, if and when we get to that."

On my end, I've dreamed about playing Warhammer's calcium-in-chief since learning of his existence in the second game. But in his absence, Immortal Empires – a sandbox campaign that stitches all three games' maps into one cohesive whole – has steadily become full-to-bursting with playable factions. It leaves players spoiled for choice, but makes fitting in new characters a challenge – a problem that Aldridge could never have foreseen when Total War: Warhammer launched in 2016. "Whoever thought the world would become too small?"

Though it speaks to how long Creative Assembly has stuck with its trilogy, it also raises the question of whether there's an end in sight. "I think we've come a long way," says Aldridge. "We found our feet. We've learned a lot from our players – what works, what doesn't. We've got a big playground in Immortal empires available to us, and I think that's what we set out to do."

"We know there's lots of characters, lots of creatures and bits and pieces [still missing]," he continues. "Obviously, if we could do it all, we would do it all, but realistically, we'll try and do as much as we can. There's some big, interesting things still out there, which hopefully we'll get the opportunity to do at some point in time. But we've been thoroughly enjoying all the content we've been working on in recent times."

Hopefully Nagash (who is both big and interesting) falls into those plans somewhere, if only for the sake of zaneprotoss. Regardless of what comes next, though, Total War: Warhammer's future looks far brighter than it did a year ago. We are, as the kids and Bone Daddy's freshly-raised zombies say, so back.

Here are the best PC games to keep you busy until Nagash arrives

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is a turn-based beat-em-up featuring the titular reptiles being developed by Strange Scaffold, an indie team behind the release of several recent gems like El Paso, Elsewhere and I Am Your Beast. In a video posted to Twitter, the game's creative director Xalavier Nelson Jr. excitedly spoke about the game, and more specifically, about what would happen to Splinter and Shredder.

"Not only is Strange Scaffold making a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, not only am I the creative director of that TMNT game, but they let me kill Splinter and Shredder," Nelson gleefully explains, "and then tell the story of what might have happened next for one version of the turtles as they go towards adulthood."

Following this, we're treated to some footage of the game—a grid-based strategy game reminiscent of the likes of Into the Breach, but with a colourful, comic book style to bring a bit of that requisite TMNT flair to the game. Alas, while the game has been announced, there's no news yet on the release date, so if you were hoping for some tactical TMNT action any time soon, you're sadly out of luck.

In the meantime, why not bide your time with some of the best strategy games you can play right now?

Speaking during the PC Gaming Show Most Wanted, where Civilization 7 was named the most anticipated game of next year, creative director Ed Beach explained that "for us, it's very important that a new chapter in the Civilization franchise has to be just as epic as the game is. We can't just iterate a teeny little bit in certain areas, polish up the graphics. That's not worthy of another chapter in the Civilization story."

"If you look back over the whole course of the franchise," he continues, "[what] has been a constant is that each major new version does innovate, and does take a few things that maybe were standard and were established, and goes ahead and uproots those in the service of getting to the net major milestone for the series."

In Civilization 7, the greatest overhaul is being made in the service of what Beach says is the number-one issue that the Civ games struggle with - players not finishing their games. "We had a lot of data that people would play Civilization games, and they would never get all the way to the end," he says. "They just wouldn't finish them. So we wanted to do whatever we could, whether it was reducing micromanagement, restructuring the game, to really address the problem directly. There are a lot of little systemic refinements that we've gone through, and by and large most of them thoughtfully look at where the player was investing their time, and think  about whether there's a better way to make that a little bit more streamlined."

The biggest change in Civilization 7, of course, is the introduction of Ages, which will encourage you to change up your Civ twice during the course of the game, ensuring that you're always dealing with a Civ at the height of its power during the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern eras. Beach says that "that Civ, moment to moment, one more turn gameplay, we've made sure we've got plenty of that still baked in there," but it does seem as though Civilization 7 will be significantly overhauling the series once it launches in February.

Civilization 7 is "one of the biggest changes" and also "one of the scariest" in the 34-year history of the strategy series.

Announced during the PC Gaming Show Most Wanted, Tactical Takedown puts the turtles in a series of close-quarters fights. Borrowing a toybox style that turns Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo into tabletop-style miniatures, the game doesn't give your turtles much room to maneuver in its grid-based environments, but that has a couple of benefits.

The first is that our heroes' various iconic weapons have plenty of heavy lifting to do, each one with its own attack patterns to help dispel your enemies. The second is that there's a lot of the push-and-shove that's come to represent possibly my favorite part of the turn-based strategy genre. There's a lot of 2018's Into the Breach in this design, and the design excellence of that game has since inspired the likes of Fights in Tight Spaces and one of my personal favorite strategy games of the year, Tactical Breach Wizards.

I'm not a huge Turtles fan, but the combo of tabletop style and defenestrative gameplay does have me quite excited for Tactical Takedown, especially since it comes from Strange Scaffold, developers of the well-received I am Your Beast and El Paso, Elsewhere. Unfortunately, there's no release date for this world premiere just yet, but it's available to wishlist on Steam right now, so keep your eyes peeled.

Kill some of that time with our list of the best strategy games.

Developed by Square Enix and Artdink, Triangle Strategy is another glowing example of a gorgeous HD-2D game like Octopath Traveler, but complete with a satisfying turn-based strategic combat system and a spectacular OST (seriously, please listen to the final battle theme if you're not familiar). It was, in my opinion, one of 2022's most underrated gems, but it's now disappeared from the Switch eShop without warning – at least for the time being.

"Triangle Strategy is temporarily unavailable to purchase on Nintendo Switch eShop. Those who have already bought the game will be able to download it," Square Enix says. "We are working on this and will update when the game is able to be purchased again."

Square Enix hasn't offered any explanation as to why this has happened – the game is still available to purchase on both Steam and the Meta Store for certain Meta Quest devices (it only just launched on the latter at the end of October, for that matter). However, fans have a theory that the strategy RPG could be about to spread its wings further based on a similar situation that's happened before.

"They could be doing this to change the publisher from Nintendo to Square Enix which is what happened to Octopath Traveler. It's possible it could be released on even more platforms as a result," one Twitter user suggests.  

"This happened to Octopath Traveler just before it came to other consoles, which means this game is coming to other consoles," another theorizes. 

Right now, Square Enix hasn't said anything to confirm that this is the case, nor has it given any indication of when the strategy RPG will return to the Switch eShop, but at least we know it won't be gone forever. Hopefully, it'll return in an even bigger way.

For more games like Triangle Strategy, be sure to check out our roundups of the best strategy games and best RPGs you can play now.

If you haven't checked it out, Tactical Breach Wizards is one of this year's best indie gems; a turn-based strategy puzzler where you clear various levels with what is essentially a wizard SWAT team. For developer Tom Francis, the game's success this year has put him in a position that many other developers haven't been so lucky to find, and he hasn't shied away from acknowledging it. 

"I'm just in the luckiest possible position in the games industry, and that's getting rarer and rarer", he says in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel. "I see all the job losses and the failures and the hardships around me, and you just feel ridiculous for having any kind of issues going on."

Despite the success of Tactical Breach Wizards, Francis is open about some of the struggles he's faced in the time since the game's launch. "There's always a lot of mental distortion around launch," he explains. "a lot of extra stress and tension leading up to it. Things get distorted and seem bigger than they are, and then afterwards sometimes a numbness."

The stress surrounding Tactical Breach Wizards' launch is something that Francis has struggled to get over, stating that in comparison to other game launches, he's "never had to take this long to recover from anything."

Francis remains jovial, however, and is keen to make it clear that he's "not in a bad place", joking that part of his stress comes from the fact that he's well aware of how lucky he is to be in his position and career, but is unable to enjoy it fully, "Feeling like I'm not enjoying it enough is stressful in itself and I'm trying to snap out of that", he chuckles. 

Not content to rest on his laurels, Francis also discusses his potential ideas for his next game, with one potential idea being an information-driven Outer Wilds-like game, something that we're already very excited about, just as long as he gets some well-deserved R&R before he gets started on it.

You'll find Tactical Breach Wizards alongside some other gems in our best strategy games list. 

While games of Civ aren't as long as they are in some other strategy titles, one game will likely set you back several hours to complete, with many players tiring out before reaching the end. According to Civ 7 director Ed Beach in an interview in Edge issue 405, data had long shown that players not finishing their campaigns was one of the game's major issues and something that the new Ages system seeks to fix.

"The number-one issue that the Ages system solves for us is it helps you to get towards the end of a game," Beach explains, "and not feel like you're overwhelmed with too many things to manage, too many decisions to make to get through each turn."

In Civ 6, players would move between various eras throughout the game (ancient, renaissance, modern, etc.), but Civ 7's campaign will instead be divided into three ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Rather than a marker of how far the game has progressed, the start of each age will instead provide players with a selection of new civilisations to choose from, reminiscent of a similar system in Civ-like Humankind. 

While Beach and the team at developer Firaxis Games were not initially sure that the new system would work, he insisted that it was worth trying, and reports from the design and QA teams are promising. "I'm getting so many more reports of people playing all the way to finishing a game, and having an interesting conclusion." 

You'll find Civ 6 and more on our list of the best strategy games you can play right now.

I was a massive fan of Plague Inc. I played it on Miniclip, which really shows my age, and then got it on my phone once it went mobile. According to an interview with game designer James Vaughan on Game File, it was the 11th most-downloaded paid mobile game, with some 190 million players.

Naturally, I had to try After Inc for myself during my lunch break, and it's just as moreish as its predecessor, maybe even moreso. I promise I'm not playing it during work like Oscar does with Balatro, honest. Rather than controlling a virus, you take charge of settlements as they leave underground bunkers and try to rebuild society after the necroa virus turned most people into shambling zombies. It's easy to learn and fiendishly difficult, which seems to be developer Ndemic Creations' style.

"I have had quite a lot of people worry that our games tend to predict the future," Vaughan says to Game File. "I've tried to make a more happy and optimistic game this time." It's certainly a pretty game, and there is hope to be found, but it's also incredibly stressful. Zombies can attack you suddenly, accidents happen that require resources to fix, and if your settlers lose too much morale, it's game over.

"After Inc. crunches a whole load of different things together and we end up with a pretty unique game which lets you build up a settlement in 20 minutes and improve your overall civilization at the same time for future games," Vaughan explains. Every time you win a mission with a specific settlement, you can unlock a new bonus that you carry through in all future playthroughs. Things like pigeon breeding for meat, or more efficient storage of toilets.

You get a decent amount for $2, especially when most mobile games are free-to-play. When asked if he was confident in the pricing, Vaughan says, "Nope - absolutely not - its a huge gamble! The only reason we can even consider releasing a premium game is because we have our existing juggernauts of Plague Inc. and Rebel Inc. which will help players find our games - and also show that there is still an appetite for intelligent, sophisticated strategy games on mobile. If we didn't have Plague Inc. to help - I think any game, no matter how good it is, would really struggle to get noticed."

You should know, however, that while you can get the base game for just $2, if you want the expansions that add more settlements and technology, you'll need to pay more. I'm in the UK, and since I'm a huge fan of Plague Inc I bought the DLC that unlocks the current expansion and promises access to all future ones at no extra cost. It cost me £14.99, around $19.01. At the moment, that gets you 18 missions and eight difficulty modes.

I'm fairly happy with that purchase, especially as it was discounted from a whopping £59.99, or $76.06. There's no mention of an end date, so I'm not sure how long the discount will apply for. The App store is showing it cheaper, so if you've got an Apple tablet maybe buy it there instead.

If you're a fan of the original Plague Inc I'd highly recommend checking this out, especially while the discount is still on offer. It's got some teething issues at the moment, like resource menus not displaying uniformly – the amount of times I've clicked scavenge instead of expand storage is already too high – but the devs have already been implementing fixes, so things should be improving soon.

If you're not much of a strategy fan, why not check out our list of the best android games instead?

In a report from Game File (paywalled), designer James Vaughan looked back on the unexpected success of Ndemic Creation's previous strategy games during chaotic times, what led to his newest game — After Inc. — and its optimistic view of rebuilding the Earth after tragedy.

"I have had quite a lot of people worry that our games tend to predict the future," said Vaughan to Game File.

2012's Plague Inc., as the name implies, is when you take control of a global pandemic, where you make the moment-to-moment decisions on how a catastrophic disease plays across in the world. Much like an increase in viewership for the 2011 film Contagion, Plague Inc. ended up seeing a massive surge in popularity in 2020 for those with a morbid interest in playing a game about viruses while in lockdown from an actual global pandemic.

After Plague Inc., Vaughan released Rebel Inc., a grand strategy game about the political choices made with growing insurgencies across the world. It also found success and a lot of common ground as unrest grows in the present day. But for his next game, After Inc., the creator wanted to make something less bleak and more about building a better world following the end of a zombie apocalypse — which is out now.

"The world is lush and beautiful. The survivors have endured hardships but they are alive and able to rebuild," said Vaughan. "[The] only downside is the zombies, but that's nothing that can't be solved with some nails stuck in a cricket bat!"

Currently, the game is out on mobile devices for $2, which Vaughan stated in the Game File report is "a huge gamble" for the studio – even stating further that's he's not at all confident that it will work out in the end for them. The only way for the game to be released in this way was due to the success of both Plague Inc. and Rebel Inc. 

But much like those games, the developers plan to support the game for years to come post-launch, believing that the "long tail" will keep the game active. Currently, as of the time of this posting, After Inc. is the #10  best sellers for paid games on the Apple Store. 

If you're looking for suggestions more civilization and city-building games, check out our roundup of the 15 best titles in the genre you can play right now.

2K explains on its support page that on November 18, the 2K launcher was removed from every game that used it on Steam and Epic, and a second update went out on November 25 to ensure that it was truly removed on Steam. And yes, that includes special beta launchers like the one you got for Civilization 5.

"We've done the heavy lifting, but to take it all the way home there might be one step left for you," the publisher explains. "First thing is to try closing and reopening Steam - that means completely closing and not just using the X to minimize the platform. Rebooting your PC is a good way to be sure it happened. For Epic, just make sure you've downloaded the most recent update for the game."

As a result of the changes, Bioshock games and the likes of Marvel's Midnight Suns and The Quarry can just be booted up from Steam or Epic. You can do the same in XCOM games but have additional options to open a new or old mod launcher. Mafia: Definitive Edition Trilogy, meanwhile, can also be booted up without a launcher if you fancy it, though you have the option to bring that one back.

The move is welcome, though perhaps one we've seen coming for a while. Just last August, we learned that the 2K Launcher was being removed from Civ 6 and wouldn't feature in Civilization 7. And now, it just won't feature at all – an early Christmas present for PC gamers, as a treat.

Civilization 7 is "one of the biggest changes" and also "one of the scariest" in the 34-year history of the strategy series.

Knowing Tactical Breach Wizards, that's about to mean a chaotic array of moves, including but not limited to; ricocheting a bolt of lightning around half a dozen goons at once; summoning a clone to eat up some of the incoming enemy fire; and conjuring a portal to an alternative dimension to dispatch a shoved opponent through. If that's starting to sound a little out-there, that's firmly by design - while its inspirations might be intense strategy campaigns filled with impossible decisions, TBZ is a far more whimsical playground filled with those same genre-leading ideas.

Deja vu 

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly-heating fictional cold war, Zan Wesker is a 'Navy Seer'. His powers of foresight are usually limited to a single second – just enough to make him very useful in a close-quarters firefight (and power that useful rewind skill) – but have recently started showing him glimpses of an apocalyptic future that he feels duty-bound to undo. Joining him on his journey are Jen, a storm witch currently struggling to make rent as a freelance P.I., Banks, a 'necromedic' who unlocked their powers of resurrection during a particularly bad shift as a surgeon, and Dall, a rebel priest fighting with both censer and riot shield.

Zan's mission takes the team across TBZ's fictional world, fighting off magical traffic cops and ineffectual pyromancers amid hordes of generic goons. Perhaps that might seem glib, given the backdrop of the apocalyptic war that you're trying to prevent, but Tactical Breach Wizards' humor is a huge part of its appeal. Almost everyone in its world is a bit of a joke, and Zan's visions offer a touch of existential dread that's very much in keeping with the disastrous lives being led by the rest of the cast.

Deja vu 

The laughs tend to take a back seat during combat, but their absence allows the realities of this world to shine once fighting starts. Applying a breach charge to a door, Zan's foresight means you always get the first move, and can undo any number of moves you make until you lock in and let the situation play out. You might, for example, discover that you would have benefitted by leading with a different character, and decide to jump right back to the start of your turn. You might also, however, realize that you actually made an error halfway through the turn, and jump back to the point just before you made that choice instead.

It's a system that could feel a little cheap to hardcore, veteran strategy game players. If you run forward with abandon in XCOM and get one of your best soldiers cut down in their prime, that's a mistake you have to live with. It's also the aspect of XCOM 2 that caused me to bounce off it, hard, multiple times. But Tactical Breach Wizards neatly ripostes any potential criticism with optional objectives, a gentle encouragement towards speed and efficiency, and a toolbox that makes you want to work to get the most out of it.

Each character has some nifty tricks, but a limited ability to use them. Movement is at a premium, and some of the strongest skills in the game involve the chance to get around after you've repositioned. In even the smallest arenas, Dall's ability to swap places with any other unit, or Jen's broomstick, which lets her leap out of one window before reappearing through another, are invaluable. Most characters only have a single action per turn, and while they can use mana to cast more powerful spells, you're still mostly limited to one empowered cast per fight, meaning that every spell has to punch above its weight to be as effective as possible.

That's where I've started to find Tactical Breach Wizards the most satisfying. Getting the most out of a given spell is tricky, but the ability to use some trial and error can make for an excellent payoff. I might shuffle a group of enemies around the room with an empowered lightning strike, only to find that I could have insta-killed a major threat with it if I'd maneuvered them a touch closer to the window first. Maybe that's frustrating, but with TBZ often encouraging you to both complete missions in few turns and push many enemies out of windows, the ability to jump backwards to optimize each spell is far more empowering than annoying. It's not exactly the same kind of strategic depth offered by the likes of obvious inspirations like XCOM and Into the Breach, but it's a rewarding alternative to those same ideas, with a narrative package around it that finalizes the push into a slightly different space and makes Tactical Breach Wizards a quiet contender for this year's best strategy game.

Tactical Breach Wizards is out now on PC. For more recommendations, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series.

Revealed today during the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, the 2025 roadmap for Hearthstone is set to kick off with the Heroes of StarCraft mini set (basically, supplemental cards), which'll add the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss to the strategy card game. 

It's admittedly probably not what RTS fans had in mind for StarCraft, but it's still a fun collaboration, and hopefully bodes well for the franchise's future, too, even if we're now seven years on from its most recent release, the remaster of the first game, and somehow 14 years past StarCraft 2.

StarCraft aside, the Hearthstone team has also revealed 2025's major updates, with Into the Emerald Dream serving as the first major expansion of the year. After that, it's into The Shrouded City, before wrapping things up with an alternate-reality journey in The Heroes of Time. 

Back in September, it was reported by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that "StarCraft is not dead at Blizzard," as the studio apparently had another StarCraft shooter in the incubation station at the time. It was claimed that former Far Cry lead Dan Hay is at the helm for the game, but little else was said about it. Either way, if that's true, fans of the RTS could have more to look forward to than just this small Hearthstone crossover, as long as it doesn't follow the same path as StarCraft: Ghost and end up being canceled. 

StarCraft 2 veteran would want a sequel go open world, or just "try something radically new."

But Gears Tactics was surprisingly great (as our Gears Tactics review attests), so I went into this cautiously optimistic. You're given three soldiers which you take on missions like "kill all the enemies" or "protect this unarmed fool as they run across the map". Action is played out on an isometric grid that'll look familiar to veterans of the excellent Into the Breach. Each of your units has a poxy main weapon, a far more effective secondary weapon that has finite ammo, and several passive and active skills. A character's turn ends after they fire, so naturally you'll want to move them into the optimum position first before pulling the trigger.

In fact, moving these soldiers properly is critical for seeing them at their best. The more tiles you move across on a turn, the more "dodge" and "adrenaline" you gain. Adrenaline can be spent on triggering special skills, whereas dodge is, well, exactly what it sounds like. The more dodge points you have, the less damage you'll take from attacks, possibly even no damage at all (because after a long tiring run we're supposed to be better at dodging hits?)

Dubious logic aside, it stops battles from descending into slow, tedious crawls through enemy territory. Instead, they've successfully encouraged the always-keep-moving approach of Metal Slug proper. Cover has also been pleasingly simplified. If you're standing next to cover, you're shielded, regardless of what side of it the enemy shoots you from. That makes about as much sense as a washing machine made out of mud, but it works well with the game's desire to keep you constantly on the move. 

If you shoot an enemy who's also within combat range of one of your allies, they'll also fire upon them with a "sync attack", essentially a free extra shot. Naturally, you want to try and sync up all three of your units as much as possible. The game becomes a fun juggling act of trying to cover as much ground with your units as you can to get dodge/adrenaline up, while also getting next to some defensive cover, and also in a position where all their attacks sync together. Gradually mastering spinning those three plates simultaneously is marvelous when it eventually clicks.

Power up

As you level up your soldiers, their special abilities go from being nice bonuses to absolutely essential. Eri's core grenade is powerful, but her Grenade Juggler ability, wherein a second grenade can be tossed a few tiles away from wherever you threw the first, is absurdly lethal in the right hands. Fio's Nudge can teleport friends and foes around the map. I never got tired of plucking an enemy soldier into the sky and dropping them into harm's way. A few level ups later, Fio's nudge had far more range and it restored 2HP to whoever I nudged and it restored some of Fio's HP too. Once you start syncing up your trios attacks and their powers, you'll start enjoying lots of air-punchingly satisfying victories.

But good lord does the game make you work for them. Metal Slug Tactics has a barebones tutorial, then ships you off to war with plenty unexplained. Hover over some terminology while out in the field and the World's Smallest Text Box will pop-up to give you more info. It feels like an inelegant solution, and a few more tutorials or somewhere to practice with the powers without committing to a run would have helped a lot.

I'll concede a Metal Slug game that constantly kills you is faithful to the main series, but dying because crucial info was tucked away in a three-text-box-deep explainer infuriates. Tactics borrows a lot from the aforementioned Into the Breach. I wish it had also helped itself to its crystal clear UI.

I'd be more willing to meet this game halfway and blame personal stupidity here if it didn't feel like Tactics is missing a crucial round of polish. I spent one frustrating boss battle squinting at text boxes, trying to figure out why I could no longer shoot at the boss, before finally realizing it was a glitch when the game crashed. Again.

Enemies that turn you into cursed mummies made me laugh. That laughter was replaced with cursing on my part when my soldier perished in mummy form, but when the curse wore off, they appeared to be alive again. Hooray! Except, no, they were actually still dead, and by the time I realized the game had given me false information and simply loaded the wrong sprite, the strategy I'd already committed to was doomed. So I'd definitely advise waiting for a patch or two before buying. Once it is hopefully fixed up and ready for active deployment, there's a good little tactics game to enjoy here. 

Looking to keep thinking tactically? Our list of the best RTS games is worth pondering.

In a Reddit thread, user TCF518 shared a discovery made by the Chinese Stellaris community on forum site Tieba in which "you can now capture ships with the new Boarding Cables component unlocked by Treasure Hunters origin." TCF518 clarified that this seemingly applies to "any ships" and listed all of the ships that have been taken over so far, as well as the ones yet to be confirmed.

Anyway, it seems like Stellaris players are having a lot of fun using a bug to do the thing they haven't been able to do since launch, and game director Stephen Muray is equally amused.

"This is by far the funniest bug of the cycle," he said in a Reddit reply. "Props to the Chinese Community to finding it."

Muray also confirmed he's "not gonna fix it until [version] 3.14.1592 so they can catch them all. I want to see someone catch an incoming asteroid."

I can link to a whole bunch of comments replying to Muray, or I can just leave you with this popular meme to sum up the collective reaction:

But that would be lazy, so I'll provide some specific responses.

"Love this lmao," said one Redditor with 267 upvotes at the time of writing. "Based as fuck," said another.

"The perfect attitude for a director," said another. "Fun > everything else."

Others have asked Muray to leave an option for modders to "unfix" the bug so that, even after it's patched out, players have an option to still capture ships. 

"Let's go even further. Make it so that when you capture something, you can reverse-engineer it and replicate the ship and all of its modules, including those that aren't normally researchable," suggested one player. "That's something I've always wanted this game to have."

As Stellaris is typically patched a few times each month, it's unclear exactly how long this bug will be in the game, and it's even less clear whether Muray and co. will acquiesce to its community's requests that the hotfix allows for mods to unfix it, so I'd suggest going out and capturing as many ships as you possibly can before it's too late.

Otherwise, here are the best strategy games to play right now.

Songs of Conquest, a stunning '90s-inspired strategy game that recently saw the announcement of its upcoming mobile release date, has just unveiled a new launch on consoles - and it's not the only "Songs of" game to have done so yesterday. Songs of Silence, another 4X strategy game, has done the exact same. 

It gets even more wild, though. As if the head-scratchingly similar game genres, titles, and announcement times weren't enough, the console release dates for both fall just a day apart from one another. Songs of Conquest is coming to console platforms on November 12 this year, while Songs of Silence on the other hand is set to arrive on the PS5 and current-gen Xbox systems one short day later on November 13.

A recent thread online highlights the uncanny timing, calling the situation "a bit wild." The poster, Lost in Cult marketing director Ryan T. Brown, jokes that he's "sure" the two development teams are "livid." Comments are just as amusing as the debacle itself, with one person saying the two games "should kiss." It's all reached the developers now, too, with the Songs of Conquest account tagging Songs of Silence in a response: "Sounds like November is going to be awesome? Right?"

The official Songs of Silence account has since shared a meme of its own, saying the solution to the Songs of games arriving around the same time in November on consoles is to hit the metaphorical red button on both and buy them. Honestly, this is one of the funniest things I've personally seen in a very long time, and I love how the devs are handling it. It's certainly my sign to snag the two of them - and back to back, of course. 

If you're in the mood for some turn-based tactics, here are some of the best strategy games to play.

Burggeist quietly stomped onto Steam earlier this month, on October 14, but its central premise should have probably made a lot more noise than it did on release. Just like the influential PS2 classic, Burggeist has you searching for a way to wake up a cursed, slumbering loved one in a scarce, mysterious, sometimes eerily quite open world.

The difference here is that you're not simply fighting massive beasts - you're commanding the titular Burggeist, a great white creature that's hunched over from the weight of an ever growing tower, from a third person perspective. Think Brutal Legend, but there's also a tower defence angle as you'll be reinforcing the beast with new turrets and other devices over time, turning the friendly giant into the ultimate walking weapon.

Surprisingly, the game doesn't skimp on its sick-looking, magical ninja movement either. You have a bunch of magical abilities to help you gain higher ground, so you can more efficiently give Burggeist instructions or rain fire from above. Some of the ways you can chain aerial skills even reminded me of Forspoken's underrated traversal since it has you flinging across the battlefield with quick dashes, double jumps, and even a witch's broomstick. It looks fast and frantic, and you can keep growing your arsenal by exploring the world.

Burggeist hasn't attracted a massive crowd, but the reviews it does have on Steam are basically universally positive. "Jank throwback to the late PS2, early PS3 era," one player wrote. "Wonderful movement tech in a hybrid action RPG tower defence game based around height difference determining damage. Definitely influenced by stuff like Nier/Drakengard and Shadow of the Colossus. Insane that it doesn't have way more people talking about it."

 Check out some other upcoming indie games to not miss a single release. 

In a tweet, Styczeń addresses sparse communication on Manor Lords' development, assuring fans that he's still working on the game, but not on anything particularly interesting. 

"I'm reworking the marketplace / supply and demand system to be less frustrating and also so that taverns and wells can also work with it," he said. "The others are working on UI QoL and consoles, optimization and crashfixes. Nothing 'cool' sadly but still it's hard work that's needed."

Manor Lords may well be the most talked-about city-builder of the year, wracking up an astonishing three million Steam Wishlists before launching in Steam Early Access in April to rave reviews and selling a million copies in a day. It's been very regularly updated in the months since with quality of life updates, balance tweaks, bug fixes, content additions, and just last month, a rollover to Unreal Engine 5.

Things have indeed quieted down somewhat since that update, although the game continues to be a sales behemoth. In response to a player who had thought the market rework was complete, Styczeń clarified, "I thought so too but players were still messaging me that it's bad and needs more work so this is what I had to do." 

While we wait for Manor Lords' next update and eventual 1.0 launch, here are the best city building games to play right now.

Despite having roots in one of the most dynamic arcade games of all time, the 28-year-old Metal Slug franchise has started to rust. It hasn't received a fresh main game since 2008, and its most recent installments (the defunct card game Metal Slug: Commander and middling side-scroller Metal Slug: Awakening) left the IP to fall apart on mobile. 

But Metal Slug Tactics — which will be available on Steam and all consoles — seems to want to bring Metal Slug back to its smooth and simple beginnings. Big gun go boom, and all that. A press release promises a "respectful homage to an all-time classic," and gameplay footage appears to back that up. 

Tactics' sandy pixel-art battlegrounds are reminiscent of the original game's earth-colored environments, and the press release promises 36 different weapons and 176 weapon mods to help players set it on fire. And they may need to. Like they had to in the original Metal Slug games, players will lead the trigger-happy Regular Army in its quest to repel the treasonous Rebel Army, which looks mean among the mummies and undead dogs also present in Tactics. 

"Wield classic Metal Slug weaponry, leveraging skill trees, perks, and a super attack-fueling adrenaline system to outwit and demolish the flanks of the series’ signature villains," the press release continues. "Experience a huge replayability with its die-and-retry roguelite progression." 

Sounds exciting, or, at least, more exciting than what the Metal Slug series has started getting used to. You can investigate it once Metal Slug Tactics releases on November 5. 

Until then, try out one of the best strategy games you can play right now.

Factorio went 1.0 after a lengthy stay in Steam Early Access back in 2020, and at that time the game reached a peak concurrent player count of 34,700, as SteamDB shows. In 2021, developer Wube Software announced its follow-up would be a major expansion pack, and in 2023 it was announced that this expansion would be Space Age, built in part by one of the game's most notable modders.

Today, Space Age finally launched, and it's already hit a concurrent player count of 76,646 - and that number's still rising as I write this. Players who've got a few early hours in - and those with more extensive time in the early betas - have already dropped 1,057 reviews on Steam, which are 98% "overwhelmingly positive." By all accounts, Space Age is indeed a sequel-sized update, and might actually be much, much bigger than the original game.

In Factorio, you've crash-landed on an alien planet and have to start harvesting resources in order to build a rocket to get yourself off of that planet. As the name suggests, Space Age is about what happens afterward, challenging you to find new resources and build new factory chains in space and across a wide variety of new planets with their own biomes. Judging by the response so far and the precedent set by the original game, you can probably expect it to devour hundreds of hours of your free time.

Dig into the best strategy games out there. 

You might already recognize Thronefall for its distinct, high contrast, two-tone art style that swaps out color palettes with each level and helped it become a success during its early access tenure. Developer GrizzlyGames finally reached 1.0 on October 11, shooting the already great game to even greater heights. 

Thronefall initially attracted attention for its gorgeous art and the way it mixed RTS strategy elements with tower defence, all "without the headache" that sometimes accompanies both subgenres. "With Thronefall we tried to strip a classic strategy game from all unnecessary complexity, combining it with some healthy hack and slay. Build up your base during the day, defend it til your last breath at night," the game's Steam page explains.

In case you've dip in then out of the game's slick world, Thronefall's 1.0 launch bought three different biomes along with it, including some misty marshlands, an autumnal fortress, and "a realm shrouded in darkness," as well as new equipment and quality-of-life features like the ability to cycle through color schemes on the go.

Thronefall's lightweight approach to tactical defence, and all the improvements it's seen since dropping, left it with an 'overwhelmingly positive' reception based on over 15,000 Steam user reviews.

"Each 'level' takes around 30 minutes," one player, Mugains, wrote in their review. "Plenty of modifiers to make things more difficult and plenty of unlocks to change the way to play. For the price you get as much variety as you might expect in terms of levels, but what is there is very well designed and lovingly crafted. Units, towers, and building upgrades are plentiful. There are challenges for you to complete in each zone too. Over all if you want a fun and challenging experience but one that isn't stressful or requires you to learn an entire rule book to get good at, this is a great pickup."

And if you'd like to jump in and protect the adorable little kingdoms, Thronefall has a nice introductory discount on Steam that slashes its price by 25% for the next six days.

Otherwise, check out some of the other best strategy games around.

Regardless, Sand remains one of the most popular and wishlisted multiplayer games currently flying the Next Fest flag, and the highest under the "basebuilding" tag at time of writing. The pitch is a strong one: design your own "Trampler," a giant mobile, four-legged steampunk house to march around a desert world, battling other such waddling fortresses for precious resources. In combat it's reminiscent of Sea of Thieves or Guns of Icarus, with four players rushing around above and below deck in a mad panic. Depending on what needs doing you might be driving this behemoth, repairing damage, aiming a giant turret, rushing around with supplies or just navigating with a map in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other.

Alternatively, you could always just try to board the enemy vessel. With several flavours of firearm to pick from, there's merit in boldly swashbuckling your way onto the deck and blasting anybody who objects, or skulking undetected into the hold and making off with several crates of loot before the owners realise what's missing.

Now, Sand's demo is self-confessedly pretty vestigial, effectively testing that the multiplayer component even works before they start filling the world with planned gameplay elements like PVE, NPC quests and more nuanced systems. Consequently cities are unpopulated, so right now those testing the demo are simply getting an abandoned wasteland that serves as an arena for PVP - but hey, that can still give you a strong flavour of what to expect. I've always liked games with a focus on manually steering around some giant contraption, whether it's the futuristic starships of Elite Dangerous or the creaking sailships of Assassin's Creed 4, and Sand does scratch that itch, appropriately enough.

Sand currently has no planned release date, but it's definitely one worth keeping an eye on, as even the basic bones available in the demo seem pretty promising right now - and it gives me a chance to work out the particulars of steering before it's properly out. You can tell which Trampler is mine - it's the one with the red "L" plates hanging off the back.

For something a little more robust while we wait for Sand, here's our list of the best strategy games you can play right now.

Time marched with the same ferocity as a heavy metal album and somehow made Brutal Legend turn 15 years old earlier this month, on October 13, so the studio decided to go down memory lane in a recent 'Brutal Memories' blog that delves into the game's backstory.

Rock iconography everywhere, an unexpected genre mish-mash, Jack Black starring as main man Eddie, Ozzy Osbourne selling you car parts, and a classically Double Fine personality made Brutal Legend endure for more than a decade. People (and Schafer himself) still log online every Rocktober 13, and so it's not unexpected to read that countless fans are always writing into the studio asking, "When is Brutal Legend 2!? When!" Community manager Harper Jay MacIntyre says it's "not in the card now," but "it's certainly a universe many folks here at the studio wonder about returning to."

"People ask about Brutal Legend 2 all the time, and I'm torn about that," director and studio head Tim Schafer says, mainly because of the game's sometimes divisive genre blend. "I know some of them want it with an evolution of the RTS stuff and some of them just want God of War with Eddie Riggs. I understand the logic of making the second option, but I'm much more excited about the first."

The reception to Brutal Legend in 2009 was probably harsher than you might expect for a game that's now beloved, and that's because the parts where you'd hack-and-slash gnarly rock demons soon gave way to bits where Eddie would sprout wings, shoot into the sky, and command armies from above RTS-style. It was RTS GTA, but rock, and it was pretty sick.

"There's so much of a world to explore that could be done in many ways," programmer Chad Dawson says. "It could be an RPG, it could be an RTS. Or even an auto battler!"

Schafer apparently thinks about Brutal Legend's world as a place that can balloon, likening it to Mister Roger's ever-expanding Neighbourhood of Make-Believe. DLC was supposedly considered and shelved, too, and the blog even shows off some scrapped enemies originally intended for a sequel. Who knows, though? The gap between Double Fine's two Psychonauts games was 16 years, so it's never too late for a sequel.

"I think every game we made mattered to somebody," Schafer noted. "They’re all personal, they’re all games we put a distinct spin on. Art is about making connections. You put yourself into this work of art and someone says “I see myself in that!” and that’s a beautiful thing. So it's nice."

Double Fine is now working on several “weird” games that “could never get accepted by a publisher,” although some developers leave the door open for Psychonauts 3.