Celebrate Labor Day by playing Civilization 7 for free
The Labor Day weekend is upon us (in Canada and the US, anyway, and we'll be sure to spare a thought for our UK colleagues who will be working on Monday) and holy cow, it is about time. If you find yourself in need of something to do, here's a thought: Play Civilization 7, because it's free to play on Steam until Septe...
The Labor Day weekend is upon us (in Canada and the US, anyway, and we'll be sure to spare a thought for our UK colleagues who will be working on Monday) and holy cow, it is about time. If you find yourself in need of something to do, here's a thought: Play Civilization 7, because it's free to play on Steam until September 10.
Civ 7's had kind of a rough go of things since it launched in early 2025. It made some big changes to the formula that didn't go over well with a significant portion of the fan base, the UI was almost universally unpopular, and performance was dodgy.
Firaxis has been banging away on it ever since, to mixed results: A major update released in May brought a big bump in player numbers on Steam, but the reactions expressed via Steam reviews were almost literally split down the middle. Civ 7's Steam rating remains "mixed," with only 48% positive user reviews, while concurrent player numbers on the platform are still running neck-and-neck with the 16-year-old Civilization 5.
Civ 5 is much beloved but I imagine Firaxis and Take-Two would like to see people move on.
Ah, but here's the counterpoint: It's free. Just go around to Steam and click the "Play Game" button, and after some requisite amount of downloading, you're playing Civ 7 without spending a penny. It's hard to go wrong, really.
If the past year-and-a-half of updates have got Civilization 7 to a point where you think to yourself, 'Yes, I would like to play this game all the time,' you can also pick up the standard and deluxe editions for half price until September 17: That's $35/£30/€35 for the former, and $50/£45/€50 for the latter.
The Civ 7 development team (a small part of it, anyway) will also be discussing what comes next during a livestream from PAX on September 5—you can catch that on YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook.
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Original reporting appears on the publisher’s site.
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