Civilization 7 Dev Firaxis Says 'There's Hope for Gandhi, Yet'

Civilization 7 is out in the wild, and veteran fans of the strategy series might be left wondering: where’s Gandhi?

Indian leader Gandhi has been in every Civilization base game since the franchise’s first release in 1991. He is inexorably linked with Civilization, and spawned one of gaming’s most infamous bugs: Civilization's ‘Nuclear Gandhi’ — a bug that turned out to be a myth.

But Gandhi is nowhere to be seen in Civilization 7. So what gives? That’s a question I put to Civilization 7 lead designer Ed Beach, who gave Gandhi fans a clear ray of hope that eventually he’ll make it in as DLC.

“So I would say we haven't forgotten about anybody who's been in our game before,” Beach said. “Certainly civilizations, there's a lot of consternation right now about where's Great Britain or England, why aren't they in our game?”

(Carthage and Great Britain join Civ 7 as part of The Crossroads of the World Collection DC in March 2025, followed by Bulgaria and Nepal.)

“But there's sort of a big, longer picture roadmap that we have, and some pieces fit better in the long picture roadmap they do in the short picture one,” Beach continued.

Beach went on to explain a bit of Firaxis’ thinking when it came to which Civilizations to add for Civ 7. “One thing I always think about is, we've had the same situation where iconic civilizations haven't been in our base game before,” he said. “We had both Mongolia and Persia missing from the base game of either Civ 5 or Civ 6, and both of those were just massive conquerors who ruled huge chunks of Asia during their time period.

“So we always have to leave somebody out. There're just too many popular choices and we always want to have a few fresh ones that sound really new and exciting to people. So things are getting left behind, but we always are looking at the big picture, when we're going to bring leaders or civs into the fold. So there's hope for Gandhi, yet.”

There you have it: there’s hope for Gandhi.

Perhaps in the shorter term, Firaxis will be working to address Civ 7’s ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, which stems from various community complaints around the user interface, a lack of map variety, and a feeling that the game has launched without a number of key features fans have come to expect.

In an interview with IGN ahead of the release of its third quarter financial results, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledged that Civilization 7 had received some negative reviews from press and players, but insisted that the “legacy Civ audience” will come around the more they play, and called Civilization 7’s early performance “very encouraging.”

Looking for tips to help you take over the world? Check out our guide to completing every Civ 7 victory, our run down of the biggest Civ 7 changes for Civ 6 players, and the 14 crucial Civ 7 mistakes to avoid. We’ve also got explanations on all the Civ 7 map types and difficulty settings so you know what you’re getting into.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.