Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

The Gathering Storm features a long checklist of other new additions, including 18 new units, 9 new world leaders, 9 new technologies, and 10 new civics. These are all nice little bonuses, but Gathering Storm’s world congress and natural-disaster system are robust enough to make Civilization feel fresh. The Gathering Storm adds new layers to Civilization VI’s incredibly deep strategy system, but taming the planet remains far from simple.

Civilization 6: Gathering Storm bites off a lot, but it proves more than capable of juggling big concepts like climate change and global diplomacy. It turns them into coherent but still complex systems that you'll constantly be interacting with, even before you start noticing that the beaches are vanishing. The climax doesn't live up to the build-up, but Civilization 6 is still a richer game for all the expansion brings.

That’s a darn shame, really. The Civilization franchise has always been known for having a weaker endgame experience, and Civilization VI: Gathering Storm is no exception. Most of the action happens in the early to mid-game stages of your playthrough. Anything that happens past turn 250 is just you cleaning up the mess — whether it’s an AI opponent that needs to get crushed by your Giant Death Robot, or the planet’s pollution.