Here’s a neat surprise today: Civilization 6, after hitting the Switch and iOS devices, has finally made the jump to Android.
It wouldn’t be my first platform of preference. Digging through hundreds of turns and organising an entire army to launch an all-out attack to prevent a space race victory on a four-inch screen isn’t as easy as, say, controlling things on a monitor with a mouse. Or a Switch Pro controller. But, if you’ve got the patience and don’t mind waiting a bit longer, Civ 6 will now run on just about every phone:
Similar to its release on iOS, the Android version acts like a free trial. You’re given 60 turns of gameplay, and if you want to continue on, you’ll have to fork out a hefty $33.99.
And that’s just for the base game, by the way. The Android version does come with Civ 6‘s expansions, Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, but they’ll cost you even more. In the US, Rise and Fall is priced at $US30 while Gathering Storm is priced at a much heftier $US40. I can’t see the direct Australian prices — not without dropping $34 to buy Civ 6 — but the Play Store notes that the in-app purchases go as high as $68.99.
The $8.49 per item is the cost for individual scenarios, in case you just wanted the base game with some extra trimmings.
While I obviously haven’t gone through a full 250 or 300 turns on Android, the interface handles pretty much the same as the Switch and iOS versions. And it’s worth noting that, at least on iOS, the base Civilization 6 unlock gets discounted fairly regularly. $34 is a hell of a lot for anyone to buy Civ 6 on their phone, but the game should be available for at least 50% off later this year when there’s some sales on the Play Store. It might even go for under $10 come Christmas, and that’s a pretty decent deal to have in your Google Account until the end of time.
The port was built by Aspyr, the long-running studio responsible for bringing games to Mac before they began branching out into other platforms. Aspyr recently handled the Jedi Knight re-release on Switch, as well as the Star Wars: Racer remaster. By default, animations are speedy, and the game is set to keep 10 autosaves at any one time (although you can increase this to 100, or every turn, if you care not for your phone’s storage).
You can download the Civilization 6 trial now on Android by going to the Play Store, or installing it remotely by logging into your Google Account via the Play Store here.
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