Last week was arguably the biggest week in the weekly free giveaway from the Epic Games Store. They gave everyone Grand Theft Auto 5: Premium Edition free of charge. It was such a rush for everyone that it pretty much killed Epic’s server for a good minute. While it’s pretty much impossible to top that, this week’s free title is no slouch.

Civilization 6 is the latest entry in the long-running and legendary strategy series. It’s now free for those who have an Epic Games Store account. It also just happens to come at the same time as the newest season pass, so even if you manage to squeeze the huge amount of content out of the base game, there’s lots to extend it.

If you recall, there was an alleged leak earlier in the week for Epic Games Store’s free giveaways, and Civilization 6 was on it. So it looks like when May 28th rolls around, the next game in rotation is most likely Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, and then ARK: Survival Evolved.

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a full year now since the Epic Game Store launched. Epic started the project to be the great disruption to the PC market, which has largely been ruled by Steam. Has that happened to any significant degree? I don’t know, I’ll let you be the judge, but regardless of what you think on that topic, Epic’s storefront deserves credit for its steady rollout of free games- and we might have many more to look forward to soon.

This week’s game was one of the biggest the store has ever given away: Grand Theft Auto 5: Premium Edition. It was such a big get, the whole thing basically destroyed the servers for hours. The next game is also a mystery for now, but it does seem like someone on Reddit managed to screen grab an ad that went up a tad early that allegedly spells out the next set of games: Civilization 6, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, and ARK: Survival Evolved.

Of course, as always with these leaks, we treat them as rumors for now. We actually got burned this month for the PS Plus by a pretty good fake. Fingers crossed here, though, as this is a pretty nice list for the next few weeks.

Despite a rocky (but still successful) start, Firaxis Games has been supporting Civilization 6 with numerous updates and paid expansions. Its latest initiative is the New Frontier Pass which will dole out six DLC packs over the next year. A new DLC pack will be available every two months with the first – the Maya and Gran Colombia Pack – arriving on May 21st.

Firaxis lead game designer Anton Strenger said that, “We’re very excited to be adding even more content to Civilization 6, ensuring longtime players and franchise newcomers have something fresh to look forward to in the months to come. By delivering new content on a regularly scheduled basis, we’ll have more opportunities than ever with the New Frontier Pass to connect with our community as we actively develop and deliver content.”

Two new leaders, new buildings and units, new Natural Wonders and the new Apocalypse mode will be included with the Maya and Gran Colombia Pack. The new mode will see catastrophic events like asteroids and solar flares threatening your civilization, which should up the stakes. The Ethiopia Pack will release in July and offers a new civilization and leader, new districts and a new mode called Secret Societies.

Costing $40, the New Frontier Pass will offer eight new civilizations, nine new leaders and six new game modes among other additions. If you’re not too keen on buying all of the DLC packs, then they can each be purchased separately. However, along with differing prices depending on the number of leaders offered, the New Frontier Pass will also net you the Teddy Roosevelt and Catherine De Medici Persona Packs, which arrive in July and offer new leader models, backgrounds, agendas and more.

For many years, the Civilization series has been on the top of the list for strategy games. The newest entry, Civilization 6, is one of the best ones yet and PC and Switch players have been having a blast with the game. Well, it’s time for those on other consoles to get in on this, too, as the game will now come to Microsoft and Sony’s consoles near the end of the year.

As announced at Sony’s State of Play, the game will come to the PS4 in November. It was later clarified by publisher Take-Two that it will also come to the Xbox One. The retail release will include the full, updated version of the game, but the two expansions, Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, will be sold in a separate bundle. The PS4 version of the game will also include free Nubia + Khmer and Indonesia Civ & Scenario packs.

Civilization 6 is available now for Nintendo Switch and PC, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions coming November 22nd.

Civilization 6 is the newest game in the long running strategy franchise, and one that’s been acclaimed and successful. It also seems to be trying out something quite different as it’s entered into the Battle Royale genre in a way that’s…unexpected.

As part of its September update, the game added the “Red Death” mode. The scenario puts you in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with a continuous, creeping radiation (the titled Red Death). It’s last man standing as the Red Death will expand, killing units, as you must do what you can to save your citizens from both the radiation and other players who are on the attack. The player with a civilian alive at the end is the winner. The update includes new wasteland themed factions such as Mutants and Doomsday Preppers. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

Civilization 6 is available now for Switch and PC. The September update is currently live for PC players.

Civilization 6 came to the Nintendo Switch last year, and ended up being a surprisingly great port (that ended up doing well, to boot). Now, Aspyr, Firaxis, and 2K are giving you further reasons to look into getting the game if you haven’t already—especially if you already own it on PC.

The official Civilization account announced today on Twitter that Civilization 6 now supports cross-platform saves between the Switch and PC versions. You will need your 2K account to do this, as well as enable cloud saves. It’s also obvious that saves utilizing mods, or any content from the newer Civilization 6 expansions (which are not yet available on Switch) won’t work on Nintendo’s console. However, it’s fantastic that the option is available, even with caveats, and should only serve to expand and grow as more expansions are made available on Switch. Plus, this provides incentive to players to pick up both versions.

Civilization 6 is out now on PC, mobile, and Switch.

Civilization VI now supports cross-platform cloud saves on Steam and #NintendoSwitch. Link your @2K Account, tick the multi-platform cloud save box in options, and you're good to go!

Get your 2K Account: https://t.co/HX0bxwgmnt pic.twitter.com/LxYdxG7hbp

— Sid Meier's Civilization (@CivGame) April 2, 2019

Firaxis has released its second major expansion for 4X turn-based strategy Civilization 6 with Gathering Storm. While the new natural disasters have been hogging attention, there’s a lot more to look forward to in terms of new gameplay features. Check out the expansion on Steam right now.

For those who have yet to play it, Civilization 6: Gathering Storm adds eight new civilizations with nine new leaders. You can build 18 new units, 5 new districts, and 9 buildings including, seven new World Wonders. The natural disasters in question include storms, floods, and volcanoes. You also have resources like Coal and Oil to generate electricity, with renewable energy also opening up. Stick to polluting the environment and don’t be surprised if sea levels rise around the world.

Diplomatic Favor is your new tool for dealing with other civilizations, and can be used to strike bargains or create alliances. Diplomatic Victory is very much possible if the focus is on making your vote matter the most. And of course, there are the new scenarios, like the Black Death, in which you must keep your population alive as the plague ravages the world.

Canada has never been a playable nation through the almost thirty years we have had Civilization games. Can you believe that? While the country has been prominently featured over the last couple of entries in the series, with multiple of its cities, such as Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Quebec City having been CPU controlled city states in the games, players have never been able to take control of the Great White North and play as Canada.

That changes, at last, with the upcoming expansion The Gathering Storm. In the latest update for the upcoming expansion, Firaxis revealed Canada as the newest playable civilization, led by the much lauded Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. Canada gets the Mounties (its iconic horse mounted police force) as its unique unit, hockey rinks as its unique building, and can neither have surprise wars declared on it, nor can it declare one itself. All in all, it sounds like Canada, alright.

You can check out the trailer for Canada for yourself below. Civilization 6: The Gathering Storm launches for PC on February 14, 2019. Civilization 6 is also out now on Nintendo Switch and iOS.

The common meme among Civilization fans goes that it takes two expansions for the newest game in the series to be up to the standard of its predecessor. So, it took Civilization IV until Beyond the Sword, and Civilization V until Brave New World for fans to be happy with those games.

Civilization 6 came out a few years ago, and it was a great game, but it ended up removing quite a few mechanics from Civilization 5’s Brave New World. The first expansion for the game, Rise and Fall, was a marked improvement, but ask any fan of the series, and they’ll tell you Civilization 5 is still better. Going by the meme, then, what the game really needs now is the second expansion.

That second expansion may be coming—the YouTube channel for the series has posted a brand new video livestream, titled only ??? (You can see this video for yourself below). The timing suggests that a second expansion for Civilizastion 6 may be imminent—hopefully it is as much of a revelation as Brave New World was.

Civilization 6 is out now on PC. If you want, you can also play it on iOS, and on Nintendo Switch.

https://youtu.be/fgrphndbpgE

You can soon play Civilization 6 on your Nintendo Switch, but in case you have a hankering for portable Civ right now, and/or don’t have a Switch, boy have we got some good news for you. Civilization 6 is available right now on iPhone. I presume this is actually the same version that came out on iPad, just shrunk down to an iPhone.

But, you ask me, how does a game like Civ 6 translate over to a small screen like the iPhone’s? Apparently pretty well. At least judging by the launch trailer that Aspyr Media, who ported it to the platform, put out (you can see this trailer for yourself below).

But here’s the catch— of course there’s a catch, you knew there’d be one. This version is going to be very expensive. It’s $24 right now, which is already expensive for a mobile game, but starting October 16, it will go up to $60, which is practically unheard of in the mobile market.

If you want to give it a test go for yourself, the first 60 turns are free, so you can download it and see how it is. You need an iPhone 7 or later, running on iOS 11.