2K and Firaxis marked the series' 35th anniversary at PAX West on Saturday (Sunday morning our time) with three separate announcements for Civilization VII. It's worth keeping them apart, because two are free and one isn't.

First up is Update 1.5.0, due later this month. The big piece is a True Start Location Earth map: real-world land and resources, every civ starting where it did historically, and natural wonders spawning where they actually are, with a different set each game. The Terra Incognita and Shuffle map types get a new generation algorithm, maps load faster with more varied resource placement, and on the diplomacy side you can spend Influence to stay in an alliance without being dragged into your ally's wars. There's a run of UI work too, including plot tooltips, settlement banners and a new tile ruler.

Then comes Arc of Tomorrow, a major free update due in 2027. This is the one that adds a fourth Age. The Atomic Age runs from roughly the 1950s to the 2050s with its own buildings, units, visuals and music, a new set of period civilisations and leaders, and the return of Gandhi. Nuclear play gets expanded with new offensive and defensive options and what Firaxis calls a new twist on mutually assured destruction. You'll be able to release settlements as independent city-states to manage empire size, there's a Great Works of Film system where film crews scout locations, and a Manufactured Goods system for combining commodities into new resources like Enriched Uranium. The tech and civic trees, Triumphs, social policies and narrative events all get updated. It's free to every Civ VII owner and delivered in-game. Playtest sign-ups for it are open through the Firaxis Feature Workshop, with the first round later this year.

The paid one is Sid Meier's Civilization VII: Earthrise, due later in 2027 after Arc of Tomorrow. It's about space and about the planet. In the Antiquity and Exploration Ages you chart the night sky and name what you find. In the Modern Age you run early orbital missions around Earth and the Moon. In the Atomic Age you found a space agency and launch missions across the solar system, discovering planetary features and resources that feed back to your civ at home. Alongside that is a system Firaxis calls Environmental Adaptability: units and tech that alter terrain and tile bonuses, civil engineering to fight natural disasters as global temperatures rise, and the ability to reverse that warming. New civs and leaders are coming with it but none have been named, there's no price, and 2K says the exact timing is subject to change. To be clear, Earthrise doesn't add a new Age. The Atomic Age is in the free update.

If you've been holding off, Civ VII is free to play on Steam until 10am Pacific on Thursday 10 September, which is 3am Friday for us, and the Standard Edition is half price until 17 September US time. The base game is on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, Switch 2, PC, Mac and Linux. Which of those get Earthrise hasn't been spelled out yet beyond the Steam page existing.