Firaxis Games needed to move on from Civilization 6 because, its developers explain, ‘it was getting too big for its britches’ It’s been eight years since Civilization 6 – the most recent in a very long-running strategy game series that sees you take a nation from the prehistoric settlement of their first town through centuries of development until they reach the space age. Since 2016 it has amassed an abundance of expansions, scenario packs, new nations, modes and systems for players to master – but series producer Dennis Shirk at Firaxis Games feels that enough it enough. “It was getting too big for its britches,” he says. “It was time to make something new.” “It’s tough to even get through the whole game,” designer Ed Beach says, singling out the key problem that Firaxis aims to solve with the forthcoming Civilization 7. While the early turns of a campaign in Civilization 6 can be swift, when you’re only deciding the actions for the population of a single town, “the number of systems, units, and entities you must manage explodes after a while,” Beach says. From turn one to victory, a single campaign can take more than 20 hours, and if you start falling behind other nations, it can be tempting to restart long before you see the endgame. Civilization 7 will be released on PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation 4/5 and Nintendo Switch on 11 February 2025. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: This autumn may not deliver its usual raft of franchise mega-titles, so use this time to embrace the weird, wonderful and original instead • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Earlier this week, the culture desk asked me to recommend four games for our annual autumn arts preview. Reader: I struggled. The period between September and November is usually stacked with AAA releases as publishers jostle for space in the historically lucrative run-up to Christmas. Even in this era of “live service” games such as Fortnite, Destiny and Genshin Impact (which ignore external sales patterns in favour of their own ever-updating season passes) you’re usually guaranteed an autumnal belch of major gaming releases. But this year … not so much. September is mostly about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (below). October is the Silent Hill 2 reboot, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and at a stretch Sonic X Shadow Generations. We have to wait until November for a truly busy blockbuster lineup with Slitterhead, Football Manager 2025, Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl all lining up for our wintery delectation. The long anticipated role-playing game Avowed has been delayed until 2025, while Indiana Jones and the Great Circle still hasn’t been given a release date beyond “2024”, which doesn’t seem promising. Continue reading...

Our video games writers get their children to play the games they loved as kids – and get to grips with the ones they adore now. Will they be bored, baffled – or hooked? Keza MacDonald plays Pokémon Shield Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch; Nintendo As ever, Mario’s brother is a scream, but this remaster is haunted by the spectre of its much better sequel – and the price might spook you My favourite thing about the Luigi’s Mansion games is the detail. The way Mario’s cowardly brother nervously hums along to the music as he bumbles through spooky stately homes. The slapstick animations when he falls through a fireplace or gets catapulted into a secret room by a fold-down bed. The cackles and goofy expressions of the ghosts as they get up to their hijinks. As you use Luigi’s trusty ghost-capturing vacuum cleaner to pull back rugs and expose secret trapdoors (or secret spiders), and suck up the banknotes and golden coins that are hidden everywhere, you can’t help but notice how each little sound, scene and secret has been carefully arranged to give you a small dose of delight. This ghost-busting puzzle game was such a delightful surprise sequel in 2013, when it was released for the Nintendo 3DS. Its diorama-like mini-mansions and peepholes gave Nintendo’s artists ample opportunity to show off that console’s stereoscopic 3D effects, activated with a little slider at the side of the screen. But now it’s out on the Switch, 11 years later, and two things have changed. Firstly, the 3D effect that it was designed around is no longer a thing. And secondly, Luigi’s Mansion 3 now exists, and it’s significantly better. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is available now for £49.99 Continue reading...