Here’s some important news for folks who’ve been waiting for Civilization 7 to get some key changes since it released to mixed reviews. Developer Firaxis has announced that it’s brought one of the most high-profile Civ modders (at least in terms of the last couple of entries) on board in an official dev capacity.
Why’s that a big deal, aside from obviously being cool for the folks involved? Well, one of the things this particular modder’s known for is UI tweaks, which has been one of Civ 7’s biggest points of contention, and something Firaxis has been clear it wants to improve.
Regardless of the motivation, both the developer and modder Sukrit ‘Act’ Tan – aka Sukritact – have revealed that the former’s now joined the studio. “We’re happy to announce that Sukritact has officially joined Firaxis as our latest Tech Artist,” Firaxis community manager Sarah Engel announced in a post on Civ 7’s official Discord server fittingly entitled “Entering our Sukritact Age…”
Meanwhile, over on Bluesky, Tan provided their own confirmation, writing “Finally, MY turn to do one of those fancy profile update videos! Waaaaay back in high school, I started modding Civ 5, and honestly, that’s what started me down this path of working in game dev.”
Finally, MY turn to do one of those fancy profile update videos!
Waaaaay back in high school, I started modding #Civ5, and honestly, that’s what started me down this path of working in game dev. So today, I am beyond thrilled to be able to say that I’ve just joined Firaxis as a Technical Artist!— Sukrit “Act” Tan (@actsukrit.bsky.social) 4 March 2025 at 21:58
Overall, as you’d hope, the Civ community on Reddit and Discord looks to be overwhelmingly happy for Tan, with a number viewing the move as a potential answer to their prayers in terms of tweaks they’d like to see made to the game, especially UI-wise. While it may not be that simple, you can understand the hype, given that plenty of Sukritact’s works for Civ 6 were changes to aspects of that game’s UI, such as their ‘Simple UI Adjustments‘ and ‘Global Relations Panel‘ mods, which have both been subscribed to over 650k times on Steam Workshop as of writing.
As someone who’s dipped their toe in Civ 6 modding, these and a bunch of Tan’s other works that do stuff like adding new world wonders and revamping various aspects of the game’s visuals and text to be extra historically accurate were among the first I grabbed, and became load order staples. The modder seemingly hasn’t commented on whether their new gig will affect them continuing to make unofficial mods, so a few of the players reacting to the news have expressed a bit of concern about the possibility of Civ 7’s modding scene potentially suffering as a result of this.
We’ll just have to see, but at the end of the day, none of us are entitled to getting game tweaks folks make on a volunteer basis.