Civilization 6 has been around since October of 2016, and Firaxis Games has been steadily introducing more and more content. More recently, Firaxis Games created a game pass for Civilization 6 players with the intention of releasing 6 DLC in 2020's May, July, September, November, and the last being in January of 2021. In each of these DLC, a new game mode would be introduced as a kind of modifier that could only be played alongside certain preexisting DLC.
Little is known about the scope of a potential Civilization 6 game mode. Only one game mode is fully known about so far and one other has been announced but without much detail aside from the title. The New Frontier Civilization 6 pass claims that the player will be required to buy the Rise and Fall expansion and the Gathering Storm expansion to be able to use the upcoming game modes. By analyzing what is known about Civ 6 game modes, it is possible to anticipate what game modes are likely on their way. Of course, this is all just speculation.
Apocalypse (Already Added)
In May, Civilization 6 introduced the apocalypse game mode as a part of the Maya & Gran Colombia Pack. This game mode would serve as an extension of the Gathering Storm DLC released on February of 2019. When activated before a game is made, the apocalypse game mode forces the game to start at the highest natural disaster frequency. The new game mode adds two new natural disasters which appear at the last stage of climate change: Comet Strikes and Solar Flares.
Comet strikes can destroy cities and ruin tiles by making them impassable, like mountains. Solar Flares destroy infrastructure by knocking out power to cities and pillaging late game districts and units.. A new unit is also added, called the soothsayer, which can be purchased with faith and is used to force specific natural disasters to happen. To accompany the new unit is the Appease the Gods Competition that may appear during a new age in Civ 6.
Secret Societies (Confirmed)
Later this July, another game mode will be released for Civ 6 with the Ethiopia Pack. There are no details about exactly what the game mode will add, but the title is known. The Secret Societies game mode requires either the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions to play which may give some insight into the details. The Rise and Fall expansion may be involved due to its creation of the loyalty system and the governor system in Civilization 6. The Gathering Storm expansion added the World Congress feature and enhanced the espionage feature which also may be tied to what the Secret Societies game mode has in store. The most likely scenario is that Secret Societies will give Civ 6 a new system for exploiting the loyalty of cities and expand on the espionage system to give the player more options than just stealing gold and technology. It may also create a new avenue to achieve a certain win condition like the diplomacy victory.
Barbarians at the Gate
What other game modes could Civilization 6 introduce to further delve into some of its existing systems. The first game mode that could come after the Ethiopia Pack would be the Barbarians at the Gates game mode. This game mode would further increase the aggression and frequency of the barbarians and their camps in the early game. Normally, barbarians are an NPC pseudo-civ that serves as an added danger to the player and the other competing civilizations.
In this game mode, the barbarians would start out as normal, but with several more camps than usual. Once the game makes it to the Classical Era, the barbarians become a new unique civilization whose dedicated purpose is to achieve a domination victory. Any camps left over from the previous era become cities for the barbarian civ which create units with a special bonus making them difficult to kill. The first civ to locate and destroy the barbarian capital will be rewarded with era score, a unique great general, and several diplomacy victory points for saving the world.
Alien Invasion
Another possible game mode for Civilization 6 comes from the science victory. When achieving the science victory, the player must accomplish 5 feats of space exploration, and the Alien Invasion game mode would serve as a new hurdle for science victory contenders to face. Aliens will be present at all stages of the game as slight nuisances like natural disasters. Once a player sends the first satellite into orbit, the aliens will start to appear more frequently. The frequency will amp up until the Mars colony project is finished.
Then the aliens will start appearing as hostile enemies like barbarians, but with superior technology. There could be an event where the alien mothership appears above the earth and the main objective will be to eliminate the mothership. The first civ to stop the invasion by destroying the mothership will be given a considerable head start on the last science victory project, boosts to undeveloped technologies, and several diplomacy victory points. It may be out there for a game like Civilization 6, but it sounds fun.
War Games
A third and fourth game mode could stem from the competition system in Civilization 6. As of now, there are only 10 different scored competitions aside from the World Congress. Most of these competitions are only available during the later stages of the game. The War Games game mode would serve as an incentive to capture a civ's capital not as a means to gain domination victory, but instead to gain tourism and diplomacy victory points. At the beginning of an era, each civ will be given the objective to conquer another civ's capital city. Each civ that completes this mission may return the capital to its owner to gain a tourism bonus from that civ and 100 diplomatic favor as well as eliminating all grievances between the two civs.
Buy the World
The other competition game mode for Civilization 6 would be a gold based competition. The Buy the World game mode would pit all civs in a contest at the beginning of the game to see who could amass enough wealth to buy out all the other civs. To accomplish this, a new type of domination victory could be added to Civilization 6 to award victory to whomever buys a certain number of cities from the other civs. The amount will scale with the number of civs present in a game and the price of cities will be a fixed amount albeit extremely expensive. This game mode will finally give civs geared to amassing wealth a new outlet for their gold bonuses. New era competitions centered around amenity, culture, and faith growth will serve as methods for civs to gain bursts of gold to achieve the gold victory.
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Production could also be the crux of a new Civilization 6 game mode, and The Journey to the Center of the Earth game mode would introduce new districts, projects, and resources. The purpose would be to gain ridiculous amounts of production by harnessing the geothermal and gravitational forces of the planet. Rewards for completing the projects associated with the game mode would be great, but would dramatically increase volcano disasters and maybe even a new earthquake disaster. With this game mode, it will be possible to speed up army and wonder production as well as gain the ability to summon active volcanoes near enemy cities.
The New Age
The last idea for a game mode for Civ 6 would be to expand on the dedication system. The New Age game mode would create new dedications that will be randomly cycled into the roster of 4 dedications that each player can choose from at the beginning of a new era. Early eras have many of the same dedications and they don't start to diversify until the Renaissance era, and these these additions to the dedication roster would help focus certain civ strategies earlier on and present new choices early. Some new dedications could be increases to wonder production or bonuses for settling near world wonders.
Civilization 6 is a deep and intensely strategic game. Game modes increase the variance during games thereby increasing the number of choices players must make to achieve victory. With 5 more game modes on the way, players can only speculate on what they may bring to Civilization 6.
Civilization 6 is available for iOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.