Strauss Zelnick Pleased with Civilization 7's Momentum

Civilization 7 has faced a challenging debut on Steam—this much is evident. Since its release in February, the strategic sequel has struggled to maintain a strong player base on Valve's platform. Steam user reviews reflect a 'mixed' reception. Despite numerous patches from developer Firaxis aimed at improving player sentiment, Civilization 7 now finds itself in an unfortunate position: it has fewer concurrent players on Steam than both Civilization 6 and the decade-and-a-half-old Civilization 5.

Of course, Steam metrics don't tell the whole story. The game also launched on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch—with a Nintendo Switch 2 version leveraging new Joy-Con mouse controls coming soon. Still, the Civilization series has always been a PC-centric franchise, and on that front, Civilization 7 is clearly facing difficulties.

Given these challenges, one might assume Firaxis' parent company, Take-Two, would be disappointed. However, in an interview with IGN ahead of the company’s latest earnings report, CEO Strauss Zelnick said he is actually "thrilled" with Civilization 7's performance so far.

“I'm thrilled with Civ 7 so far,” Zelnick stated. “While there were some initial issues, our team at Firaxis has done an excellent job tackling them. There's still more work ahead, but I'm confident we'll meet player expectations and deliver a highly successful title.”

He also pointed to the Civilization franchise’s history of long sales cycles—especially compared to other major games—and expressed confidence that Civilization 7 will follow this pattern.

“With every Civilization release, certain changes initially spark concern among our dedicated fans because they care so deeply about the series,” he explained.

“Over time, however, players come to see that these adjustments are genuine improvements. As a result, the games tend to perform well over an extended sales period. I expect the same will happen here.

“That said, we did encounter some early issues. We’ve already made progress in resolving them and will continue to do so.”

At launch, players pointed to several issues: an unintuitive user interface, limited map variety, and a perceived lack of expected franchise features.

Zelnick’s comment about hardcore fans feeling uneasy at launch likely refers to some of the more significant changes Firaxis introduced in this installment.

A full playthrough of Civilization 7 spans three distinct eras: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. When an era concludes, every player—and AI opponent—enters an Age Transition simultaneously. During this phase, you select a new civilization for the upcoming era, choose which Legacies to carry forward, and watch the game world transform. This system marks a departure from previous Civilization titles, and Zelnick believes players will eventually embrace it.

Take-Two has not yet released specific sales figures for Civilization 7, but in its financial report the company mentioned it is "exploring ways to grow the audience." This includes the recent launch of Civilization 7 VR for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, as well as the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 version.