With 1.2.2 update,Civilization VIItries to win back traditionalists

It has been just over 130 days since Civilization VII launched to mostly positive reviews—but quite a bit of disappointment for series traditionalists. At first, developer Firaxis was releasing primarily bug, balance, and UI fixes, but today saw the release of version 1.2.2—possibly the biggest yet in terms of adding features to the game.

Available for all platforms except Switch and Switch 2—which will get it later—the update adds several tweaks that allow the game's players to customize games in a more granular way, with a particular emphasis on the ability to disable controversial new additions that a subset of players felt took things too far from the traditional Civ experience.

Many of the new options are available in the advanced settings menu during game setup, though one of the major additions is in the standard setup screen: large and huge map sizes. (Both of these new sizes have a default civilization/player count of 10.)

RIP Legacy Paths and Crisis (if you want)

The biggest change is the option to disable Legacy Paths.

Legacy Paths are structured sequences of objectives that lead to major rewards as the player transitions from one Age of history to another. They add some fun new gameplay approaches and dovetail nicely with the other systems in the game, but traditionalists felt they added a bit too much structure to the game, which has roots in a more sandbox-style design.

You can now disable any specific Legacy Path for any Age, or you can just turn them all off, which makes the game more open-ended, akin to earlier entries in the franchise. Civilization VII's radical Age transitions are still in place, though.

Some fans are also calling for Firaxis to allow players to disable the new Ages system entirely, but the developers haven't said they're working on that—and we'd be surprised if they did, frankly, as distinct Ages are foundational to the game's design in a way not even Legacy Paths are.

That's not where the options to turn off tentpole Civilization VII features end, though. You can also individually or completely turn off Crisis, the urgency mechanics that kick in near the end of Ages.