From Civilization Rocky: Latest Updates and Analysis

Civilization 7 is off to a rocky start as it receives 'Mixed' Steam reviews from its premium backers: 'Comparing this unfinished mess to the Civ 6 release is night and day'

Civilization 7's full launch is still a few days away, but the strategy sequel unlocked earlier today for players who purchased its Founders edition. We've been especially intrigued by how this latest entry would be received by fans due to its radical shakeup of the formula. Sadly, the general response so far has been one of disappointment, albeit not for the reasons you might expect.

The game currently sits at a 'Mixed' rating on Steam, with just 40% of around 1,700 reviews giving it a thumbs up. This is at least an improvement over the earliest user reviews, which branded it as 'Mostly Negative'. We anticipated Civ 7 might have its detractors due to its new Age transitions, where players are forced to change their Civilization in each of a game's three acts. But the reviews generally seem very happy with these changes, even the negative ones. "The game's new mechanics are pretty interesting", writes Steam user WillNever, who gives the game a thumbs down, while similarly negative reviewer Con states that "Mechanics are fine and change is necessary and will always divide the community at the start."

Instead, the community's main gripe with Civ 7 appears to be the UI. WillNever writes that "The UI looks and feels like it was created in the alpha stages of development and was never refined". While user Lathium states the interface is "unfortunately very poor here and feels ported over from console in the worst way possible." Other problems the community point to include a limited map selection, the maximum map size being 'Standard', and the lack of quick move and quick combat functionality.

There are a couple of caveats worth mentioning here. These reviews are all from a specific pool of players who paid £120/$130 to play the game, and so their standards are likely to be higher than those who buy the standard edition (though at £60/$70, this still isn't exactly cheap.) We'll have to wait for the game to unlock fully for the full range of opinions to flood in.

That expressed, this isn't the reception Firaxis would want from its most dedicated fans. Moreover, the negative reviews seem reasonable and clear-eyed compared to how Steam reviews can sometimes be. There are some stronger opinions, such as user Cool CGI Dog's assertion that ''Comparing this unfinished mess to the Civ 6 release is night and day." But broadly, this isn't a bunch of people moaning that Civilization 7 isn't the game they know and love, or overreacting to some hyper-specific feature they don't like. If anything, its bolder swings are what they like about it the most.

We'll have a more effective sense of how the community feels about Civilization 7 when the game launches properly on February 11. Our own reviewer Robert Zak found it to be a mostly successful evolution of the series, praising its Age transitions and Firaxis' broader attempts to improve the game's pacing, though he noted that "there's a little too much that's been stripped away for veterans like myself to call this meaningful progress".

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Rooster Teeth returns from the dead, under the ownership of one of its original founders

It was a loss of a genuine online institution when Warner Bros. revealed in 2024 that it was closing Rooster Teeth, the online production firm that got its start in 2003 with the Halo-based comedy machinima Red vs. Blue. But less than a year later, original co-founder Burnie Burns says he's acquired the rights to the brand "and much of its remaining assets," and he's bringing it back.

"Almost one year ago, we were all saddened to learn that Rooster Teeth would be shutting its doors," Burns wrote in a message that's now up on the Rooster Teeth website. "Today, I am very happy to say that I have completed an acquisition of the Rooster Teeth brand and many of its remaining properties."

Burns mentioned the details of the deal are too much for "a letter of a website," and so urged readers to check out the February 5 episode of the Morning Somewhere podcast. In it, he emphasized that he has acquired "very specifically the Rooster Teeth brand," and that some demonstrates and properties associated with it, some of which went back to their creators when Rooster Teeth was closed last year, are not part of the deal.

"Our focus in this acquisition was the Rooster Teeth channels, meaning the website, the YouTube channel, all the social media accounts, and then all the shows therein," Burns said during the podcast. A list of those shows will be provided at some point in the future, and a Q&A for supporters of the Morning Somewhere Patreon will be held this weekend, and then . The resurrected Rooster Teeth will feature the return of some old shows as well as "new stuff," with production up and running by this summer.

"I learned about the term 'enshittification'—I know it's been around for a while," Burns expressed. "But if you listen to the podcast, you know that my son taught me about this term. And boy, it really hit for me last year because of everything that was going on with AI, everything from generative content all the way to AI influencers and just not being able to tell what's going on on the internet, and constantly feeling every single day that the internet is getting worse. And so our plan for 2025 is to de-shittify our little corner of the internet, and this is one of the first steps we're making in order to do that."

It's still early in the process—Burns expressed in the podcast that the reconstituted Rooster Teeth currently only has two employees, himself and Ashley Burns—and it remains to be seen how it all shakes out. But while Rooster Teeth may not have the cultural cachet it held back in its glory days, there's a lot of enthusiasm for its return. As something of an online elder myself, it's great to see the old dog get new life—and a little bit of "de-shittification" sounds like a pretty great idea to me too.

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'No lotteries, and no onerous upkeep': World of Warcraft takes a cheeky potshot at Final Fantasy 14's egregious housing system as it readies up to unleash its own

It only took two decades, but Blizzard is finally adding player housing to World of Warcraft, which'll be coming with the Midnight expansion. That's still a ways away, but that hasn't stopped Blizzard from doing a big ol' blog post diving into the developer's core principles for the process, with enough word count to throw shade at one of its biggest MMO competitors.

The post goes over loads of stuff, which I'll get to, but as a primary Final Fantasy 14 gamer I couldn't help but have a chuckle at the segment titled A Home for Everyone. "As part of our focus on wide adoption, we wanted to ensure that Housing is available to everyone," the post read. "If you want a house, you can have a house. No exorbitant requirements or high purchase costs, no lotteries, and no onerous upkeep (and if your subscription lapses, don't worry, your house won't get repossessed!)"

If you ask me, that's a clear stab at Square Enix's, quite frankly, atrocious housing system. It's taken many forms over the years, but its one consistency is that it's largely terrible. Years ago, houses would be priced based on server economy, which was changed to a flat rate per plot once cross-server travel happened. They're pretty expensive, too, ranging from 3 million gil for a fifth-class small plot, all the way to an eye-watering 50 million gil for a large house in a prime location.

I struggle to think of another MMO that maintains this system—I mean, why would they, it's terrible for everyone—and with Final Fantasy 14 arguably being WoW's biggest competition in the MMO space, it makes sense that Blizzard would want to make a cheeky statement at Square Enix's expense.

Honestly, reading the blog post and I really like the sound of what Blizzard is doing with its player housing, and I wish Square Enix would take a leaf out of its book. There'll be two housing zones at launch—one for Alliance, inspired by Elwynn Forest, Westfall, and Duskwood, and one for Horde with touches of Durotar and Azshara—with the developer admitting that "zones are a lot of work" and that focusing on two high-quality ones was more crucial than fragmenting into lots of mediocre ones.

The separation doesn't mean that you can't hang out with your friends (or alts) on the other side, though. "Your houses are also shared amongst your Warband with your different characters being able to come and go as you see fit (so your Orc character can hang out in your Alliance house without a problem)," the blog post reads, adding that housing rewards are also shared.

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"Furthermore, it’s not just Warbands that cross factional lines but friendships as well, so you’ll be able to live in or visit your friends’ or guildmates’ houses and their neighborhoods with minimal restrictions regarding faction. For example, while it’s not possible for your Human character to buy a house in the Horde zone, your Troll character in the same Warband can, and then your Human can use it as if it were their own."

Cheeky jabs aside, something that really caught my eye is neighbourhoods, something Blizzard teases at the end of its blog post. "Houses are organised into roughly fifty plot Neighborhoods, letting players live next to each other, work together, and share in the rewards of being part of the Neighborhood. Neighborhoods are instanced but crucially also persistent so your neighbors can be your neighbors for years to come (or until one of you moves)."

There'll be public neighbourhoods, which'll let you live among strangers, but you'll also have the ability to create private ones too for friends or guilds to share. I absolutely love the sound of that, especially as someone who always fancied the idea of trying to snag housing plots next to my pals in Final Fantasy 14.

Being able to customise and progress with your best buds by your side really plays into Blizzard's emphasis on housing being a player-first mechanic and I gotta say, it's the most tempted I've been to give WoW another try in years. Maybe Midnights will be the expansion to finally draw me back in.

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