2K will announce a “new franchise” this month, and it’s probably from the Civilization devs

2K is teasing a new game announcement for August, and the timing matches up with the games Firaxis currently has in development

The key art for Civilization VI, whose developers might be announcing a new game this month

2K Games will have a new franchise to announce in August, and the game will launch by March 31, 2022. Parent company Take-Two revealed this during today’s financial earnings report, and the timeline matches with what we’ve been expecting from Firaxis, the studio behind Civilization and the modern XCOM games.

“Later this month, 2K will unveil details of another exciting new franchise planned for launch during this fiscal year” Take-Two president Karl Slatoff says during the quarterly results report. The company’s fiscal year ends on March 31, 2022 – so this new game would launch sometime by then. (The Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands release date was also confirmed for this window as part of today’s call.)

This new franchise isn’t confirmed as a Firaxis game, but there’s good reason to suspect it’ll be the next thing from the Civ devs. We already know that Firaxis has “several” games to announce this year, and the studio’s titles have historically been published under the 2K label. Civilization’s 30th anniversary is coming up in September, but of course a new Civ wouldn’t count as a “new franchise”.

That’s what we officially know, but unofficially it’s been reported that the next Firaxis game will be an Avengers game in the XCOM style. That rumour started making the rounds ahead of E3 and was quickly corroborated by some reliable sources, but the big trade show came and went without any official confirmation.

For now, check out some strategy games to whet your appetite for this mystery announcement.