Anyone that knows me as a gamer will know that one of my favourite genres is Strategy. And my favourite strategy game is the Civilization franchise. Available on many platforms, and developed by Fraxis and Aspyr for the Switch.
Finally my Favourite Game on my Favourite Console!
My first experience with playing Civilization was playing Civilization I in 1996 on the original PlayStation One, all those many , many years ago. After that, my next visit to Civilization was with Civilization IV, though I didn’t play it myself. Instead I watched my son-in-law play it on his home computer. Even though I wanted to push him off the seat and take over, I was good and held back from the urge!
On the16th of November, 2018 Civilization VI was released on the Nintendo Switch. I was delighted as I could finally own the game on my system of choice. That year in the 3 months after the game was released I played it as much as I could. I also wrote a pile of guides for the game on the Switch for LadiesGamers as most of the game guides for Civilization on the internet are geared towards to PC version.
After the game was out for a while the developers decided it was time for some updates so in November 2019 that’s exactly what they did. Gathering Storm & Rise and Fall expansion packs were released for the Nintendo Switch. Again, I was thrilled as the expansions added so much more gameplay to an already super game so I quickly paid up and downloaded the update to my Switch.
Civilization had run pretty stable on the Switch up until the release of the expansion packs. It did crash every so often and return to the menu screen, but for it to run at all on the Switch was a miracle in itself.
World Congress Interferes
Now dear reader, this is where my story takes a turn for the worst. You can picture the scene. I’m playing CIV VI, feet up, headphones on totally engrossed in a game that I’m 3 or 4 hours into and throughly enjoying it and the music. I’m about to decide if I want to conquer the irritating neighbouring Civilization as my next move. Then the World Congress screen pops up in front of me unexpectedly. I pressed the X button to close the Congress screen and nothing happened.
Pressed numerous buttons and still, nothing happened. Okay, a light bulb goes off and I have an idea, I’ll reload a previous save of the same game. Less than a few minutes into the newly loaded save the game does exactly the same thing again. Oh no not again!!
It turns out that Fraxis new expansions had broken the game on the Switch and made it unplayable. Apparently, I wasn’t the only Switch CIV owner that was having this problem. The developer’s Twitter page was testimony to that and I added my own feelings to it. We were all directed to take a ticket out with 2k support and they would look into the problem. And to clarify: these updates cost almost as much as the full game, so that made it extra vexing.
2K support came up with a workaround for the game-breaking-bug, their answer to the problem was to delete your saved Civilization game files. Which I did but it didn’t work, now there’s a surprise! Weeks later Fraxis finally released a fix. And the game was able to be played once again without too many hiccups. But without my old files of hard won victories though.
The Bugs Reach a New Frontier
But that isn’t the end of my story, on the 21st of May, 2020, New Frontier Pass expansion was released. I would imagine you know where this is heading, and yes you would be right!
The update broke the game yet again. I sighed, shook my head and complained profusely to Yvonne. Who, dear help her, has had to listen to me moaning every time the game gets broken. Sorry, Yvonne! ☺️
The game-breaking-bug in the update this time stopped the player being able to use the Y and X button. Or maybe I should rephrase that: you could press either of those buttons all you liked but there was no response in the game!
This time I took to Twitter myself and made my feelings clear to Fraxis once again. Eventually, they fixed is. But why oh why can they not fully test how the game runs on the Switch before they release the update. To me, that would be common sense. And most folk would feel the same I’m sure. After all, as I said, these games don’t come cheap and neither do the expansions.
Lessons Learned?
There is a new part of the New Frontier Expansion to be released later this month. I know I shouldn’t think like this, but with CIV VI previous updates breaking the game it’s hard not to think the same will happen again.
I still love the game, even after a very bumpy road of game updates over the last two years. I keep hoping that Fraxis and Aspyr will have learnt a few lessons from the previous updates.
What do you think, will they release an update that for once does not break the game. I really do hope so!