‘Civilization 6’ DLC: We Need More Diverse Civilizations

By Apolon Published 01/29/17 EST

Civilization 6 has been out for a good few months now, and we’re settled on it now: the rave reviews are well deserved. But the game’s lifecycle has just begun. We’ve had a few patches so far and a little bit of DLC, but there’s a lot more to come—more DLC and eventually expansions. We don’t have any official word on what’s coming yet, but there’s a huge amount of white space in the roster—Civilization 6 has great gameplay, but a long way to go in terms of the lineup.

Civilization 6 DLC: Let’s Get Out Of Europe, Please

Civilization VI's Gilgamesh, Leader of Sumeria. (c) 2K Games

Among all the many, many good things Civilization 6 did, there is a bit of a problem: The civilizational cast is not terribly diverse. Not counting the pre-order DLC Aztecs, a full 50 percent of the game’s civilizations came from Europe. Major civilizations that have been in every game in the series, like Persia, didn’t make the cut. The free pre-order/time-locked DLC, the Aztecs, helped rectify this, but the Poland DLC only swung the pendulum back toward Europe. Big swaths of the map are still empty, especially in Asia.

It was an interesting choice on Firaxis’s part, but thankfully it’s one that can be rectified with DLC. The company needs to release further civilizations not just to enhance the gameplay experience (which is pretty top-notch already), but to increase the game’s diversity—in Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. And yes, even Europe. The Polish didn’t necessarily need to be the first DLC, but they’re still a welcome addition. Poland was a staple of Civilization V, and there’s nothing wrong with them returning. We just need more diversity first.

Firaxis hasn’t announced any concrete plans for future Civilization 6 DLC yet, and they may just keep announcing things a few days before release until the first expansion gets announced. But the company should take note: Europe is over-represented. And that’s not just an issue of diversity, but of content. Civilizations from Asia or South America tend to have very different mechanics than the European civs; the Mongols should be geared around destruction, the Persians around early conquest, a Southeast Asian civ around the jungle or the water. There’s a lot of opportunity for Civ 6 in the future, and hopefully it will make the gameplay even more exciting.