What happens when two publishers work together? You get social games. GREE and 2K Games have announced a new partnership that will see the release of at least two new social, and presumably free-to-play, twists on Sid Meier’s Civilization and Sid Meier’s Pirates in “select global social gaming markets," and more specifically, Japan.
This new Civilization is described, foremost, as a social empire-building game that’ll have the usual Civilization stuff: diplomacy, famous leaders, technology races, and a touch of war if you’re the killing type.
The new Pirates game, Pirates Legends, is also being described as a pretty faithful take on the existing franchise, as it’ll have you sailing around the high seas in a quest to become the world’s most notorious pirate. The word “social" has been floated, but as with Civilization, there’s no hard information on what sort of mechanics will be implemented on this front.
It’ll be interesting to see if these games can take off with GREE’s injection of social hooks and free-to-play mechanics. Civilization is probably better suited, since a lot of its action is timer-based. We guess Pirates will roll out with a new economy for bullets and bombs, but that’s just our speculation.
Regardless, both of these games have already seen specialized platform-specific releases on the App Store, and they’re both pretty good. You have to wonder if GREE is going to be able to make them better.
