Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick Insists Projections for the ‘Lifetime Value’ of Civilization 7 Are ‘Very Consistent With Our Initial Expectations for the Title’ — Despite ‘Slow Start’

We’re now half a year since the troubled launch of Civilization 7, which has fewer players on Steam than both Civilization 6 and the 15-year-old Civilization 5. But according to the boss of Take-Two, Civ 7 is projected to meet the company’s initial internal expectations over the course of its lifetime.

Civilization 7 has had a rough launch on Steam and has struggled for players on Valve’s platform ever since its launch in February. Reaction is ‘mixed,’ according to Steam user reviews. Civ 7’s Steam performance does not paint the entire picture, of course. The strategy game also launched on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch (the Nintendo Switch 2 version and a VR version recently launched, too). But Civilization’s bread and butter is PC, and there Civ 7 is clearly struggling.

In an interview with IGN to discuss Take-Two’s hugely positive financial results for the latest 2025 quarter, CEO Strauss Zelnick admitted Civ 7 had got off to a “slow start,” but he insisted that the company’s internal projections for what he called the “lifetime value” of Civ 7 still match its initial expectations.

“It’s definitely improving,” Zelnick said of Civ 7 (Take-Two has yet to announce a sales figure for the game).

“I think the key thing is that Civ has always been a slow burn. It’s always been a title that had — I’m not really a big believer in the long tail theory of the entertainment business — but Civ is an example of that theory. And right now our projections for the lifetime value of the title are very consistent with our initial expectations for the title.

“So while we were off to a slow start and while we have had to make changes — and there are more changes coming — I feel like consumer uptake is better and better and we feel really good about the title. I think over time it’s going to take its place in its civilization pantheon in a very successful, credible way.”

When Civ 7 launched, players highlighted issues with the user interface, a lack of map variety, and expressed a feeling that the game launched without a number of features they’d come to expect from the franchise. But some veteran Civ fans also didn’t get on well with the dramatic changes developer Firaxis made to the game.

A full campaign in Civilization 7 is one that goes through all three Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Once the Age is completed, all players (and any AI opponents) experience an Age Transition simultaneously. During an Age Transition, three things happen: you select a new civilization from the new Age to represent your empire, you choose which Legacies you want to retain in the new Age, and the game world evolves.

The Civilization games have never had such a system, and it has proven divisive. But Firaxis has launched a number of key updates to Civ 7 since launch, most recently patch 1.2.3, which made Age Transition improvements.

The question now is, can Firaxis turn Civilization 7 sentiment around from its current ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, and get more people to make the jump from past Civ games to the latest effort?

We’ve got plenty more from our interview with Strauss Zelnick, including his thoughts on controversial Borderlands developer Randy Pitchford, and his response to recent reports around the troubled BioShock 4.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].