Civilization 7 Has A Fix For Cross-Play On PC, But It Comes With A Major Catch
After receiving a large amount of feedback on Civilization VII's recent announcement to temporarily disable cross-play, Firaxis has come up with a solution that allows people to still enjoy playing with friends across different platforms even while updates to the game are being made. During the Advanced Access period for Civ 7, just prior to its full launch, players were disappointed with several major problems they encountered in the game. These included a variety of complaints covering everything from game crashes, problems with the UI, balance with AI-controlled civs, and more.
Civ 7 developers worked to correct as many of these problems as they could before the launch of Civ 7, but that meant that cross-play was temporarily made unavailable as updates happened on PC that were not yet available for console players. This understandably frustrated many people who had hoped to play with their friends who might have the game on other systems. As a workaround for the time being, Civ 7's Steam page released the news that players can now opt in to an older version of the game on Steam in order to enjoy cross-play.
Civilization 7 Cross-Play Branch Is Now Active
Allowing Players On All Platforms To Play Multiplayer, With A Catch
Developers state they are "actively working to bring the most recent PC updates for Sid Meier's Civilization VII to the console versions of the game. Our goal is to do so in early March" but until that happens, PC and console versions of the game are out of sync with each other. As many players were unhappy with the temporary disabling of cross-play, devs created a way that Steam players can still play with console players through loading an older version of the game on a separate Steam branch.
The method for doing this takes a bit more work than just loading the game, and players must understand that the game will not include the latest PC updates, and saved games from the current version will not work. To switch to this version on Steam, players need to do the following steps:
- In the Steam library, right-click on Civ 7 and select Properties, then click the Betas tab.
- Click on "console-compatible" through the dropdown for Beta Participation.
- The title of the game in the Steam library should now say "Sid Meier's Civilization VII [console-compatible]".
To return to the current version of the game, do the same steps but click on "None" in the Beta Participation menu. As updates happen on consoles, this "console-compatible" build will be maintained to continue working, although there is a note included that there may be a delay for Nintendo Switch.
More Updates Are Coming To Civilization 7, Devs State
Roadmap For Expected Changes Is Coming Soon
Firaxis included the news on a Reddit post, as the company has been frequently reaching out to the community to keep them informed on things that are happening with Civ 7. While there has been a rollercoaster of feelings from players frustrated with the situation, many of the responses from players, such as this one from Reddit user Hallgaar, appreciate the communication.
Developers at Firaxis clearly have their hands full at the moment, but they are working on a development roadmap which will outline more of the major updates coming to the game, especially those related to critical features such as game crashes and improvements to UI. This roadmap is expected in the coming weeks, along with more updates to further improve Civilization 7.
Source: Civilization VII/Steam, sar-firaxis/Reddit, Hallgaar/Reddit
Sid Meier's Civilization VII
OpenCritic Reviews- Released
- February 11, 2025
- ESRB
- Everyone 10+ // Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Mild Language, Mild Violence, Suggestive Themes
- Developer(s)
- Firaxis Games
- Publisher(s)
- 2K
- Engine
- Gamebryo Engine
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