to be seen here, which is a major reason why Civilization has always been so popular with people outside the teenage male demographic of most video games. The intro doesn't presuppose anything about who the player might be: there is no normative race, gender, age, etc.
This is the very reason why there are no characters whatsoever in the introduction, as it allows absolutely anyone to step into the "God" role that you get to play in Civilization and guide your people as you see fit. In Civilization, *YOU* are the one in charge, and it is your story that the game will be weaving through the course of your own choices and decisions.
There is no central character that we'll be experiencing the game through, no "Navi" accompanying helper to chatter on about where to go and what to do. Once again, the introduction serves as a vehicle for getting across one of the key themes of the game.įinally, the introduction makes it clear that Civilization is an open-ended game, with no predetermined narrative formula. It's a very deterministic view of the universe, and certainly something that postmodern scholarship would have a few words with, but I think it works for the Civilization series. This mirrors the progression that takes place in the game itself, with every new technology adding something, civs getting bigger and stronger over time, etc. We then progress from microscopic organisms, to early prehistoric creatures, through the dinosaurs, and the finishing with man itself. Then we have a planet, which slowly takes shape and form. First we have nothing but the galactic void. Throughout the introduction, events are always moving forward and "bettering" themselves in some way. If the use of the world/globe/earth is one of the main themes in the introduction, then the idea of progress would clearly be another. Very fitting that the game would end with you leaving behind the same globe seen in the introduction and starting anew on another planet.) (This also fits well with Civilization's use of the Spaceship victory condition, which was completely novel at the time. The constant use of the Earth throughout the introduction emphasizes the global theme of the game, that you will be the one charged with building a civilization to control the world itself. We literally start with the formation of the world, at the very beginning of creation itself, and follow the development of the planet up to modern times. So what themes emerge from this opening? Right from the beginning, it's clear that Civilization will be operating on a grand scope. What can I say, it was memorable.) There was an Easter Egg in Civ4 of Leonard Nemoy reading this same text, which you can listen to right here if desired. The people await only one thing: a great leader, to unite the quarreling tribes, to harness the power of the land, to build a legacy that would stand the test of time: a CIVILIZATION! (I still remember that ending, even after all these years. Over time that life grew and evolved, forming higher and higher forms of beings, until the eventual arrival of humans. Over time, the planet formed, the land separated from the seas, the atmosphere formed, and life was born. The text that you probably can't read is a paraphrasing of the opening lines of Genesis from the Bible, talking about how "in the beginning" the Earth was initially without form and void. When starting a new game, you would see the video on the right. Good start for what was a new franchise at the time (and the graphics weren't bad then either!) The music rises to a crescendo as the title screen appears bearing the Civilization logo. There's a slow pan over to a static picture of the young solar system, as the Earth forms out of a swirl of cosmic debris. (Unfortunately, I could only find the latter video on YouTube in German, so apologies for those who can't read the language!) Let's look at how this sequence plays out.
#Hd civilization v background full
I'm combining the title screen and the sequence that plays when you start a new game, as they're sort of two halves of the full setup. This isn't intended to be taken too seriously, so please don't come after me if you have a different take on some of these! With that said, let's look at how these different games introduce the audience to the Civilization franchise. I felt like writing something more on the Civ series, so I decided to take a look at the intros to all five of the Civilization games and see what sort of themes emerge. Just like the opening to a book or a movie, a good introduction to a video game should set the tone and mood for the rest of the game to follow. I was watching the introduction video to Civ4 recently, and it reminded me how much I loved the start of that game.
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