Apple's platforms are also getting Retrocade, a library of classic arcade games.
See full article...
See full article...
Civilization VII is headed to iPhone and iPad with “Arcade Edition”
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
The story is missing a sentence/paragraph explaining the Apple Arcade subscription plan. Just referring to the name of the game and saying it is 'part of the subscription' leaves out important context for the many readers who may not be familiar with it, and at least for me, made me go back looking for the explication that didn't exist.
Upvote
63
(67
/
-4)
It's a bummer that it's not going to get all the DLC and multiplayer. I still quite enjoy playing Civ6 on the iPad either casually, or multiplayer with my kids on their iPad's - I guess we will be staying on 6 for a while more.
Upvote
5
(7
/
-2)
henrythefool
Smack-Fu Master, in training
You know what was great? The original Civilization Revolution on iPad. Just simplified enough to work great for shorter sessions, but smartly, with fewer but more distinct options for techs, units, and civilizations. Just an excellent couch experience.
Then they murdered it in place of Revolution 2, which was and is dumbed down, half broken mobile garbage. All they had to do was leave the original up. But noooo, we need to sell people funny leader skins, surely that's what civilization players want.
Then they murdered it in place of Revolution 2, which was and is dumbed down, half broken mobile garbage. All they had to do was leave the original up. But noooo, we need to sell people funny leader skins, surely that's what civilization players want.
Upvote
50
(51
/
-1)
I've stopped playing Civ 7 until they patch in the option to not have to change your civilization after every age. While that was interesting (and IIRC a mechanic copied from Humankind) to start now it is just annoying.
Upvote
29
(30
/
-1)
I have to wonder whether the downfall of the Civilization franchise is because of design decisions made to accommodate platforms other than PC. Civ 5 was the last game to focus solely on PC players. I had some fun with Civ 6 but not nearly as much fun as I had with 5. The less said about 7 the better.
Upvote
11
(21
/
-10)
Civ VI on an iPad made many multi hour flights feel like instant, I hope that Civ VII will be good in this format, as I haven’t played it for more than 20-30 hours on the computer.
Upvote
19
(21
/
-2)
Upvote
56
(57
/
-1)
Civ 7 is obviously a bigger get from a marketing standpoint, but I'd love to see Civilization Revolution on Apple Arcade instead. Y'know, the game where playing a full campaign takes a couple of hours instead of a couple of days. It's a pity it was delisted years ago on both Android and iOS (and is incompatible with current OS versions even with sideloading).
Edit: ninja'd by henrythefool
Edit: ninja'd by henrythefool
Upvote
21
(22
/
-1)
I thought they fixed that already. Not that just fixing that will make Civ VII buy-worthy.
Upvote
1
(3
/
-2)
I forgot about the Apple Arcade subscription so I thought "Arcade" means a more dumbed down experience
Upvote
15
(16
/
-1)
I never knew RDR was on iOS/iPadOS.
Now the real question is when we'll see SMCVIIAE in proper arcades.
Now the real question is when we'll see SMCVIIAE in proper arcades.
I'll keep an eye out for that article!Samuel Axon said:
Upvote
0
(1
/
-1)
This is coming up a lot so I'll try and clear this up. For the writing part of my job, my primary beats these days are software development and AI (used to be Apple, but I've handed most of that to Andrew Cunningham). So when I write about games, it's a bonus side passion thing, and I'm writing about Civ7 a lot because I really like it and it's one of the games I have played the most in the past year.
Both on Steam:
And on PS5:
My wife and I also play multiplayer together regularly—including just last night:
So it's just a passion thing for me, as with any other games-related writing I do at Ars.
So for example, a lot of folks in the comments on our "favorite games of 2025" post were irate that I wrote it up for that, but that's not an attempt at an objective list of the universally best games of the year that everyone agrees on. It's just hey, here are the games we each enjoyed playing the most. (Which is also why stuff like Clair Obscur wasn't there... most of us just didn't play it! For whatever reason the Ars editors are mostly not a big JRPG crowd.)
Kyle Orland is our gaming editor and he has the responsibility of covering the industry robustly, but for the rest of us who sometimes write gaming articles, we just write about what we personally play and care about.
I get not everyone likes this game. But I do! So I write about it.
Upvote
132
(136
/
-4)
That game's been dead to me since version 6. I have thousands of hours on the older versions.
Upvote
3
(8
/
-5)
Honestly, if Civ 7 is going to be simple enough to be a mobile game I can't see it working for PC.
Upvote
-7
(6
/
-13)
Five and Six are amazing games... seven is a dud - for sure.
And then on a phone, hard pass.
Upvote
1
(9
/
-8)
The game should be fine on an iPad, from a technical/UI standpoint. But on a phone? How is that going to be at all usable? Or is the idea that you'd use your phone with an external display of some sort?
(putting aside the ...controversial game design decisions)
(putting aside the ...controversial game design decisions)
Upvote
5
(7
/
-2)
I have an Apple Arcade subscription and I missed out on the original release for various reasons. This seems like a good opportunity to demo the game and see for myself. As it is, I feel like I can't trust the community criticisms of it because a lot of it sounds like they're not trying to engage with what the game is trying to do.
Upvote
14
(17
/
-3)
That is true, a lot of game publishers do junkets and I attended the preview one for Civ7. We don't have a bottomless travel budget and for various reasons, in certain industries it's more typical for the company being covered to pay (most notably for Ars, gaming and cars) whereas in others it's more typical for the publication to pay.
We turn down ones where we're like, our readers won't be into this, but especially pre-launch, it seemed a safe bet Ars readers would be interested in Civ7. However, we do not accept any form of payment to dictate what we write.
At the end of the day at Ars, writers are generally writing about whatever they personally feel like writing about. There usually aren't a lot of outside pressures to do otherwise.
It's both a strength and a weakness of our coverage. The strengths are that hopefully some passion and real geeking out comes through, and an independent streak. The weaknesses are that it tends not to be as comprehensive as some other tech news sites, and sometimes we have to wrestle with an audience/writer interest mismatch.
Upvote
69
(70
/
-1)
Civ 6 has been available on iPhone (and Android phones) for a while now and seems to work well enough. You just have to zoom in to see anything.
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
Glad to see an article about Apple Arcade games! I frequently read a game review only to discover it's not available on any Apple platform. Please do more reviews of Apple Arcade games and other games on Apple platforms!
Upvote
12
(13
/
-1)
I am constantly surprised by what games people play on their phones. If people are willing to play games like Baldur's Gate and KOTOR on their tiny pocket screens, I'm sure it will find an audience.
Upvote
10
(11
/
-1)
Ah, yes, the Civilization that actively makes your storefront less profitable by having it available for sale...
Upvote
-7
(3
/
-10)
I've been playing civ7 and I know people have been hating on it, but as a first time civ player, I really like it, but.... I ended up playing it on my switch (v1) just because that's the console that wasn't being used in the house.
Small screen I can get over, but towards the last age, the slowness (and UI freeze during) was unbearable. I takes minutes for a turn to finish. Really turned me off starting a second game. I can't imagine that getting better on iphone?
Small screen I can get over, but towards the last age, the slowness (and UI freeze during) was unbearable. I takes minutes for a turn to finish. Really turned me off starting a second game. I can't imagine that getting better on iphone?
Upvote
0
(4
/
-4)
I didn't know Freeciv was on the App Store, that's awesome, thanks adespoton!
I also highly recommend Polytopia, also on the App Store... kind of Civilization Revolution-esque in its approach of stripping the formula down to its essence, but it's super addictive and well done.
I also highly recommend Polytopia, also on the App Store... kind of Civilization Revolution-esque in its approach of stripping the formula down to its essence, but it's super addictive and well done.
Upvote
14
(14
/
0)
Seconding Polytopia. My gaming group used to play a bunch of Civ6, but as time has gotten shorter for playing, Polytopia scratches a lot of the itches of Civ in bursts as short as an hour.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
Would LOVE to see a Civ rev 3, played a lot of civ rev on iPad.
Edit: thanks for arcade article, I second the more articles on iPad games!
Also, RDR is a pretty old game could be that $40 is asking too much for something that old that most people already own.
Last edited:
Upvote
4
(5
/
-1)
Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense if it's something you are passionate about.
Upvote
10
(10
/
0)
This was a surprise. I’m pretty happy about this.
For those who haven’t tried it, Civ 6 is a great experience on iPad. Like, really great. But the elephant in the room is its cost of entry. Like many “older” App Store games, it’s been kinda forgotten about, so the default cost hasn’t changed to reflect the game’s age. While the base game is free to try, any Civ player knows the best experience comes after you get the expansions, and they still cost a combined $70 USD. It’s a hard sell in 2026. (The game also hasn’t been updated to take advantage of the higher resolution displays that are now common on iPad hardware.)
But whoa, the new Civ is on Apple Arcade? That’s pretty huge. I always wondered why Apple didn’t leverage their subscription service for their other big gaming launches lately—Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, etc—so I hope this is a sign of future investment from Apple into making the subscription really sing.
As for the game itself, I haven’t played Civ 7 since launch, but I’m eager to try it again. The idea of the civ-switching mechanic didn’t bother me and I wanted to give it a fair shake, but I was turned off by the sorry state of the UI. That was disappointing, because it ran like a dream on the Steam Deck. I told myself I’d pick it up again when the first expansion comes out, but a surprise (and cheap) iPad release is even better.
I hope they include multiplayer, expansions, and everything else down the road. And I hope this is successful for both Firaxis and for Apple Arcade as a subscription service.
For those who haven’t tried it, Civ 6 is a great experience on iPad. Like, really great. But the elephant in the room is its cost of entry. Like many “older” App Store games, it’s been kinda forgotten about, so the default cost hasn’t changed to reflect the game’s age. While the base game is free to try, any Civ player knows the best experience comes after you get the expansions, and they still cost a combined $70 USD. It’s a hard sell in 2026. (The game also hasn’t been updated to take advantage of the higher resolution displays that are now common on iPad hardware.)
But whoa, the new Civ is on Apple Arcade? That’s pretty huge. I always wondered why Apple didn’t leverage their subscription service for their other big gaming launches lately—Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, etc—so I hope this is a sign of future investment from Apple into making the subscription really sing.
As for the game itself, I haven’t played Civ 7 since launch, but I’m eager to try it again. The idea of the civ-switching mechanic didn’t bother me and I wanted to give it a fair shake, but I was turned off by the sorry state of the UI. That was disappointing, because it ran like a dream on the Steam Deck. I told myself I’d pick it up again when the first expansion comes out, but a surprise (and cheap) iPad release is even better.
I hope they include multiplayer, expansions, and everything else down the road. And I hope this is successful for both Firaxis and for Apple Arcade as a subscription service.
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Wait, am I the only one that's going to notice/mention that 10% of Samuel's Steam time was in an MMO that was released 30 years ago???
I didn't even realize that one still lived on!
What's next? He's going to tell us he still logs into Ultima Online?!?!
I didn't even realize that one still lived on!
What's next? He's going to tell us he still logs into Ultima Online?!?!
Upvote
12
(12
/
0)
Strongly disagree. The game launched in very rough shape - you can tell they were under a hard deadline and had to ship it. There was so just a tremendous amount of stuff that was unfinished or flat out broken. The UI was a mess and missing stuff like renaming your cities and scout auto-exploring was laughable.
But it's a much better game now. The UI is mostly fixed and the diplomacy/city-state/barbarian combination is great. So is the tech tree and civic policies (makes me actually want to harvest culture now). And the multiplayer actually works, which can't be said for Civ6.
Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things that still need improving. Religion sucks, governments are boring, air combat needs an overhaul, and it seriously need a 4th age of technology (information/future age). And being able to play as 1 civ without breaks in a classic Civ format will also go a long way to mending fences with the community. But the core gameplay is really solid now. It does enough stuff right to overlook the shortcomings.
Upvote
4
(10
/
-6)
Apple Arcade surely needs this. The top two games are currently Solitaire+ and Power Wash Simulator.
Upvote
7
(8
/
-1)
Haha, I have a long, storied history with Meridian 59. I actually helped with development after it was bought and re-released by Near Death Studios, I'm in the credits for one of the expansions. And I've written about it many times before, albeit not at Ars: https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-the-worlds-oldest-3d-mmo-keeps-cheating-death/
It's a very unique game and I still play it. It's a really tight knit community now, to say the least, we've all known each other for 30 years. I have fond memories of UO, too, but I haven't played that one in a bit. Hmm... sounds fun though, maybe I should...
EDIT: Typo.
Last edited:
Upvote
13
(13
/
0)
I can second Polytopia as being both super-addictive and very well-done. My wife and kids and I have played it a bunch, and it manages to stay pretty fresh despite being pretty simple. Simple enough that my 9-year-old and 12-year-old can play it and be competitive, but not so simple that it feels impossibly easy to maximize every decision.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)