Firaxis is adding an Atomic Age to Civilization 7, extending the strategy game past the roughly 1950 point where its timeline currently stops. Destructoid reported on September 6 that the age will arrive in a free update, and that the update is not expected before 2027. The report frames the addition as overdue, coming roughly two years after the game's release.
The new age covers the period from the 1950s to the middle of the 21st century. Two additions are named in the report: players will see their civilizations in their modern-day appearances, and they will get fuller use of nuclear weapons, a franchise staple the report says currently arrives too late in a match to carry much weight.
Nuclear weapons are already in Civilization 7, but their placement has limited them. They sit in the Modern Age, near the end of a match, and the game's cut-off around 1950 leaves players without high-speed or precise payload delivery methods. The practical result, Destructoid writes, is that nukes turn up very late and carry little weight in how a game plays out.
An atomic age has been a fixture of the series for decades; Destructoid notes that every previous Civilization game included one from the outset. The outlet also points to an earlier reversal by Firaxis, which walked back the sequel's signature mechanic of shifting civilizations between ages and now lets players keep a single civilization for an entire playthrough. Destructoid recalls that the atomic age was so entrenched early in the series that Gandhi became an ironic mascot of nuclear warfare among players, yet Firaxis left it out of Civilization 7 at launch.
Destructoid reports only that the update will not arrive before 2027, and does not detail what else it contains.