2K and Firaxis Games have announced the first expansion for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

The new expansion is dubbed simply “Rise and Fall,” and it’s launching for Windows PC on February 8th of next year. Featured above, you can view the announcement trailer for the new content.

Players can expect new choices, strategies, and challenges in the new expansion, including “Great Ages,” a new loyalty system, and even Governors while expanding existing Diplomacy and Government systems. There’s also nine new leaders and eight new civilizations, a multitude of new units, districts, wonders, buildings, and more.

“Sid Meier’s Civilization is 2K’s longest running franchise and we’re thrilled to reveal this exciting and dynamic expansion for fans to experience Civilization VI in all new ways,” said Matt Gorman, VP of Marketing at 2K. “The Civilization VI: Rise and Fall expansion comes after a year of content and updates to Civilization VI, and marks the perfect time for both veterans and newcomers to take one more turn at building their empire.”

“With the new Great Ages system in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Rise and Fall, players can experience the ebb and flow of building empires amidst the challenges of history, either to lasting greatness or the dust of antiquity,” added Anton Strenger, Lead Designer at Firaxis Games. “With this expansion’s new features, players will be both challenged and rewarded in ways never seen before in the 26 years of the Civilization franchise.”

Here’s the key art and first screenshots for the new expansion:

Here’s a rundown on the expansion, via Firaxis:

Civilization VI: Rise and Fall brings new choices, strategies, and challenges for players as they guide a civilization through the ages. The expansion introduces new Great Ages, a new city loyalty system, and Governors while expanding existing Diplomacy and Government systems; and adds nine new leaders and eight new civilizations, a variety of new units, districts, wonders, buildings, and more. Players can now lead their empire into a Golden Age of prosperity or emerge triumphantly from a Dark Age into a memorable Heroic Age.

Key Features:

• Great Ages: As your civilization ebbs and flows, and you reach milestone Historic Moments, you will experience Dark Ages or Golden Ages, each providing specific challenges or bonuses based on your actions in-game. Rise triumphantly from a Dark Age, and your next Golden Age will be even stronger – a Heroic Age.
• Loyalty: Cities now have individual Loyalty to your leadership – let it fall too low, and face the consequences of low yields, revolts, and the potential to lose your city to another civilization, or its own independence. But one civilization’s loss can be your gain as you inspire Loyalty among cities throughout the map and further expand your borders.
• Governors: Recruit, appoint, and upgrade powerful characters with unique specialization bonuses and promotion trees to customize your cities, and reinforce Loyalty.
• Enhanced Alliances: An enhanced alliances system allows players to form different types of alliances and build bonuses over time.
• Emergencies: When a civilization grows too powerful, other civilizations can join a pact against the threatening civilization and earn rewards, or penalties, when the Emergency ends.
• Timeline: Review your civilization’s history at any time with the new Timeline feature, a visual journey through the Historic Moments that you encountered on your path to victory.
• New Leaders: Nine leaders and eight new civilizations are introduced. Each brings unique bonuses and gameplay, as well as a total of eight unique units, two unique buildings, four unique improvements, and two unique districts.
• New Global Content: Eight new world wonders, seven natural wonders, four new units, two new tile improvements, two new districts, fourteen new buildings, and three new resources have been added.
• Imporved Gameplay Systems: The Government system has been enhanced with new Policies and additional improvements have been made to existing systems.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is currently available for PC. In case you missed it, you can find my thorough written / video review of the game here (I highly recommend it!).