Wow 2019 is a thing, huh? How are we all doing? Relieved? Bowling a hangover and a nagging sense of trepidation? Maybe you work in retail and, surprise! You were supposed to be at work half an hour ago. Time loses all meaning post-New Year break, doesn’t it? You’re just sort of adrift in a sea of empty Quality Street wrappers. That’s okay. We’re all there too.

Pretty soon the grim news cycle is going to grind to life again. Only three months until — no! Don’t think about it. We still have a moment here, on the crinkly, brightly coloured waves. Listen to their quiet rustling and think, not about reality, but about games! Yes, lovely, shiny games. We can bury our face right in them. And from that point of view the next 12 months are looking pretty good. Here’s our selection of the games we’re most looking forward to next year.

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It’s easy to forget that human civilisation has only been around for a tiny fraction of Earth’s history, and that mother nature is a stone cold killer. Our planet and how we affect it is the focus of Gathering Storm, the second major expansion for Sid Meier’s Civilization 6. There are natural disasters capable of levelling entire kingdoms, and the constant, looming threat of man-made destruction if the environment gets too damaged through humanity’s reckless ascent. The new expansion launches on February 14th. Check out the announcement trailer below.

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A patch for Civilization VI last night removed Red Shell, a controversial piece of software that track ads for the game which players might have viewed. Considering that a common event in any game of Civ is once-friendly faces turning sour after they discover you’ve been spying on them, you’d think publishers 2K might have just… not. But they did. Red Shell has risen to prominence in recent months for all the wrong reasons, discovered in games from Vermintide 2 to Conan Exiles by players who were none too happy to find it. Many developers have removed Red Shell from their games or pledged to, and here’s Civ doing its part. (more…)

A good spring clean is cathartic after the long and dark winter, and Firaxis will surely feel better after releasing the Spring 2018 Update for Civilization VI later today. Along with improving joint wars, tweaking balance, fixing bug, and making the AI slightly less of a big silly, it adds some new Historic Moments for a fresh breath of springtime air in the Rise And Fall expansion. These include such world-changing moments as the building of the first seaside resort, the founding of the first national park, and the completion of the first totally rad tricked-out water park with a pool, aquarium, Ferris wheel, and all that. Ah, to be stuck indoors on a beautiful day like this… (more…)

Sid [Meier] didn t know he was inventing a genre back in 91 – if he had he might have been a lot more careful. He was just making it up as he went along.

That s how genres begin. By mistake. Somebody creates a set of rules and systems for the needs of a particular game, and then either people adopt and adapt those rules. Soren Johnson, creator of Offworld Trading Company and lead designer of Civilization IV, is working on a new game called Ten Crowns and after spending almost an hour talking with him at GDC, I get the impression he s going to be very careful indeed. Not cautious, because I expect some bold reinvention of 4X strategy fundamentals, but careful in his treatment of a genre that we both agree needs to escape its own past.

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Civilization VI: Rise and Fall wants to solve a problem. That problem is perpetual growth, and it plagues many 4X games. Whether your aim is world conquest or cultural hegemony, victory in Civilization and many of its cohorts depends on domination. However peacefully you try to play, you’re often straight-jacketed into a utilitarian-psychotic view where all resources and people are just raw material to be assimilated, Borg-like, until the whole map is monochrome.

But as the early excitement of exploration and expansion ebbs to late game stagnation, the fun runs out. Historically, stagnating empires tend to fragment and collapse. But in Civilization VI, like many games, you’re the star of the show and there’s nowhere to go but up.

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Civilization is at its worst when you’re winning. Success breeds complacency as you click the end turn button and acknowledge the news of great accomplishments with the practiced apathy of a regent signing papers on behalf of an infant king. There is an inevitability about your empire’s march through history and it’s easy to feel like a passive pawn.

Rise and Fall, the first major expansion for Civ VI, attempts to address this by introducing global crises, dark ages and citizen loyalty. It gets about half of the job spot on; the fall is much better than the rise.

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The beating of a million drumsThe fire of a million gunsThe mother of a million sonsSid Meier’s Civilization

The looping march through history continues today with the launch of Civilization IV: Rise And Fall, the first full expansion for 2016’s turn-based 4X strategy sequel. Rise And Fall rolls with the ebb and flow of history, with different Great Ages bringing new challenges and bonuses, alliances that grow stronger over time, era goals, ’emergency’ pacts uniting civs against powerful opponents, and more. And obvs it also adds new civilisations, units, wonders, and so on.

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The internet is currently aflame with hundreds of takes of varying heat levels based on Nintendo’s cardboard gaming venture, but that doesn’t concern us – unless, of course, some hardware company is working on something that involves stuffing your keyboard into a papercraft robot. This doesn’t mean there aren’t gadgets and games aplenty to salivate over in our little corner of the internet, though.

As always, we’ve gathered a batch of the best PC gaming deals of the week (UK, US and other places too) so far. This week: free Carmageddon, cheap Civ 6, gaming laptops, speedy SSDs and our 2017 GOTY.

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I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down. That’s what I’ll be singing when I play Civilization VI‘s upcoming Rise and Fall expansion. There are loads of new features but the unifying theme is, as the title suggests, success, failure and recovery. That means dark ages that come with hardships but also bring about the possibility of a renaissance into a heroic age. All of that, and much more, is explained in the brand new video below.

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