in what can only be described as a “big fucking deal”, 2k games and fir­axis have announced that devel­op­ment of civil­iz­a­tion v is underway and is sched­uled to be released some­time in the fall. and if my spidey senses are cor­rect, it will prob­ably be some­where between late october and early november to cap­it­alize on the christmas shop­ping boom.

Civil­iz­a­tion V takes this defin­itive strategy game series in new dir­ec­tions with the intro­duc­tion of hexagon tiles allowing for deeper strategy, more real­istic game­play and stun­ning organic land­scapes for players to explore as they expand their empire. The brand new engine orches­trates a spec­tac­ular visual exper­i­ence that brings players closer to the Civ exper­i­ence than ever, fea­turing fully anim­ated leaders inter­acting with players from a screen-​filling dip­lo­matic scene and speaking in their native lan­guage for the first time. Wars between empires feel massive as armies dom­inate the land­scape, and combat is more exciting and intense than ever before. The addi­tion of ranged bom­bard­ment allows players to fire weapons from behind the front lines, chal­len­ging players to develop clever new strategies to guar­antee vic­tory on the bat­tle­field. In addi­tion to the new game­play fea­tures deb­uting in Civil­iz­a­tion V, an extensive suite of com­munity, mod­ding and mul­ti­player ele­ments will also make an appearance.

2K Games Announces Sid Meier’s Civil­iz­a­tion V in Development

from the screen­shots released and details released, this iter­a­tion of civil­iz­a­tion should prove to be the most visu­ally stun­ning and immersive exper­i­ence ever… not that civil­iz­a­tion hasn’t already built a repu­ta­tion for being easily the most addictive game fran­chise in the his­tory of the universe.

we’re excited. you should be too. if you have never played civil­iz­a­tion before, you should def­in­itely get your hands on a copy of civil­iz­a­tion iv (and the expan­sion pack, beyond the sword) to see what the big deal is.

and if you don’t feel like playing, give freeciv a try — its a free ver­sion of civil­iz­a­tion made by hard­core fans.