The next Civilization game appears to be getting underway. Developer Firaxis has posted a job ad that seeks a narrative lead to work on an "AAA Strategy Title," and one of the qualities they're looking for is someone who has a "knowledge and ion for world history." That sure sounds like a certain 4X game series we've heard of.
The ad itself doesn't explicitly say that it's for Civilization VII, but there aren't a lot of other possibilities – unless there's a surprise plan to reboot Sid Meier's American Civil War games, a new Civilization seems the most likely, by a wide margin. The ad says the studio is looking for someone with three years of credited games writing experience, and who can write cinematics alongside a cinematic director in order to tell stories visually.
The role will also requires a candidate who understands ways to tell stories within the structure of a strategy games, and who is "driven to find new ways of storytelling within our genre." One of the 'nice to have' qualities is experience in directing either voice or live action performances.
Firaxis has exciting new franchise" sometime this month as well.
Obviously, there's no Civilization VII release date set yet, since we're still waiting for the publisher to officially confirm it's in development. But it seems likely we'll be hearing more about it pretty soon.