// KOTAKU — GAMING
Civilization 7’s Biggest Free Update Yet Will Finally Take It To The Atomic Age Over Two Years Later
Following its developer panel at PAX West 2026, Firaxis Games revealed the free update that will bring the long-awaited Atomic Age to Civilization 7. It’s called Arc of Tomorrow and will launch in 2017, roughly two years after the game first arrived. The developers are pitching it as the 4X strategy game’s biggest overhaul yet as it struggles to stay above the 50 percent positive rating threshold on Steam.
“Our shared proximity to the recent past makes it a unique and fascinating period of history to explore with Civ,” wrote creative director Ed Beach on Valve’s storefront. “There’s a compelling need to honor the uncertainty and fear present in that history, where proxy warfare became the new norm by which global conflict was conducted and the specter of nuclear war loomed, as it still does today. But there were also moments of light, triumph, and hope. Things once thought impossible, like spaceflight, were challenged and overcome as technology advanced at a rapid pace, while marginalized peoples rallied together to fight for justice and equality.”
Here’s what Arc of Tomorrow is set to contain, though it’s still early in development and things might shift:
Firaxis also revealed the game’s first paid expansion, Civilization 7: Earthrise. It’ll revolve around humanity setting its sights on the stars with space-based objectives for each age, including the eventual launch of extraterrestrial expeditions. The developers are promising new unit abilities, technologies, civil engineering structures, and more. Firaxis will have to get Arc of Tomorrow right first, though.
Originally released in February of 2025, Civilization 7‘s post-launch journey has been bumpy. Despite a steady cadence of fixes and new features, players, including long-time fans of the franchise, have remained extremely mixed on it, with ongoing complaints about its UI and how dumbed-down certain parts of the game feel. The missing Atomic Age is top of the list for many of those underwhelmed players, so delivering on that will be the biggest test yet of whether Civilization 7 can ever fully turn things around.
In the meantime, it’s currently free-to-play until September 10 on Steam. Update 1.5.0 is also just around the corner, with tweaks to diplomacy, resource generation, and the addition of some new maps.
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