Despite only launching on February 11, Civilization VII has already seen a number of patches. These are currently only available for PC players, but the developers have promised they're working hard to bring them to players on console soon.
News in brief
- Recent patches should be available to console players in "early March".
- The 1.0.1 Patch 1 build will be available on a separate console-compatible Steam branch, enabling cross-play between PC and console.
- Opting-in to cross-play means you'll play an earlier, unpatched version of the game.
Civilization VII saw its second patch land last week on PC, mainly addressing issues with the UI alongside some minor tweaks to gameplay and AI. So far, console players on Xbox and PS5 have been left out of the loop as console versions take longer to patch.
In an update posted to Steam on February 14, the developers said they were still "actively working to bring the most recent PC updates [for Sid Meier's Civiliation VII] to the console versions of the game." The plan is to release these updates for console in early March, and they promised fans more details soon.
Due to the lack of console patching, PC/console crossplay has been temporarily disabled until now, leading to frustration for some players. The good news is that things have changed! The 1.0.1 Patch 1 build is being released on a separate Steam branch that PC players can opt into. By doing so, they'll be able to play with console players via cross-play.
Enabling Cross-Play Means Playing the Game Unpatched
This isn't a long-term or perfect solution, though. By opting in to the console-compatible branch, you're playing an older version of the game, minus the latest PC upates, which is less than ideal. The devs also noted that this older version of the game isn't compatible with saves made on the game's current version, so your existing saves or in-progress campaigns aren't backwards-compatible.
That means if you're playing on PC and want to cross-play with friends on console, you'll need to switch over to the console-compatible branch and start a completely new campaign. Note however that any saves you create on the console-compatible branch are forwards-compatible with the latest PC version of the game, when you switch back.
How to Join The Civilization VII Console-Compatible Branch on Steam
It's easy to join the console-compatible branch on Steam by right-clicking the game in your Steam library. Select Properties, then click over to the Betas tab. From here, select "console-compatible" from the Beta Participation dropdown. You might need to restart Steam for the new branch to appear in the list.
Your game will then update to the correct version of the game that enables console crossplay. Next to the game title in your Steam library, you should see the "console-compatible" suffix to confirm that you're in the right game version.
To switch back to the most up-to-date version of the game on Steam, head back into the Beta Participation dropdown menu and select "None" then wait for the game to update. You'll then be back to the most recent version, with all the PC updates and should see the "console-compatible" suffix vanish from the end of the game title in your library.
In the same post, the developers promised to share a development roadmap for the game in the coming weeks.
