There May be Hope For Gandhi in Civilization VII

Mahatma Gandhi, notably absent from Civilization VII, might still make his way into the game as future DLC. In an exclusive interview conducted by IGN, lead designer Ed Beach claimed that “there’s still hope”.

Many fans were disappointed by the absence of Gandhi in Civilization VII, a leader who became infamous in the series for his unexpectedly aggressive nuclear policies that comically misaligned with his real life political activity. Ed Bach explained that some leaders inevitably have to be left out, stating, “there are just too many popular choices, and we always want to introduce a few fresh ones that feel new and exciting to players.”

“There’s sort of a big, longer picture roadmap that we have, and some pieces fit better in the long picture roadmap than they do in the short picture one,” Beach said. “So things are getting left behind, but we always are looking at the big picture, when we’re going to bring leaders or civs into the fold. So there’s hope for Gandhi, yet.”

Having been in every Civilization game since 1991, Gandhi has been a staple to the franchise ever since the Nuclear Gandhi bug blew up – creating widespread memes surrounding the trigger happy “non-violence” leader. In the original Civilization game, each AI leader had a nuclear aggression rating between 1 and 10. Due to a programming glitch, Gandhi’s rating unintentionally overflowed to 256, making him excessively prone to using nuclear weapons. This unintended behavior became a long-running joke and was intentionally referenced in later Civilization games.