Sid Meier's Civilization VII

Sid Meier's Civilization VII launched on Nintendo Switch 2 among the console's launch titles, bringing to the console a genre that has historically struggled to gel with a standard controller. The core remains: you found cities, research technologies, build wonders of the world, forge alliances, and wage wars, all in a turn-based mode where a single decision can affect the next several hundred turns. The biggest change from its predecessors is splitting a match into separate historical ages. At each turning point you choose which civilization your society adopts next, while the leader stays the same. The result is something like a cultural rebirth that prevents the late game from becoming mere mop-up of a match decided long ago.

The second major change concerns how cities work. They start as small settlements and only become full-fledged centers through a player's decision, forcing you to think about where development is actually needed and where the existing infrastructure is enough. Diplomacy has been simplified into a system where relations with other leaders are governed by concrete actions rather than a confusing list of modifiers. Military units can be merged into formations under a commander, simplifying movement across an entire continent and cutting down on the sluggishness of late-game turns that players had long complained about.

On Switch 2, controls are crucial. The game supports the touchscreen as well as the Joy-Con's mouse mode, by far the most comfortable ways to navigate the hexagonal map, and in handheld mode the game turns into something very close to a tablet version you can put down and pick back up at any time, exactly where you left off. Reception of the seventh installment was more divided than its predecessors; frequent criticism targeted the user interface at launch and how sharply the age-change system disrupted the habits of longtime players. Even so, Civilization remains one of the most influential strategy franchises ever, and on Switch 2 it offers the most dangerous sentence in gaming: just one more turn.