Galactic Civilizations 4 Review

ign.com:

I’ll be blunt: if I were to rank prominent space 4X games of the past decade, Galactic Civilizations IV would come in near the bottom of the list, even behind Galactic Civilizations III. It’s not a disaster – like the previous three Galactic Civilizations games, this is a decent, functional 4X space game – but its predecessors were good for at least a round or two before they wore thin due to the lack of an “X factor” to really keep me hooked. None of them stacked up to Endless Space 2, Stellaris, or even 1996’s Master of Orion 2, which each deliver more substantial variety, flair, polish and creative identity than any GalCiv game managed for me.

I had hoped that GalCiv’s fourth iteration would finally find and deliver the spark that the series has been searching for. Instead, it’s had the opposite effect on me: After completing several playthroughs, its glaring design problems and balance issues are painfully clear, to an extent that I worry that Stardock won’t be able to pull it out of this tailspin and salvage its handful of smart ideas anytime soon. If the stars align I can see playing Galactic Civilizations IV and not having an unpleasant time, but it’s done so disappointingly little to keep up with the heights the rest of the genre has reached since 2015 that I’m usually wishing I was playing one of those instead.

Upon hitting the new game button, you’ll be greeted with a generous selection of nicely animated space empires both familiar and original to the franchise. There’s a decent array of colorful and bizarre alien species amidst the human and humanoid, with the terrifying Festron bugs or literal giant mantis shrimp standing out the most at first glance. Each race comes with a selected set of traits that