Developer Paradox Development Studio

Publisher Paradox Interactive

Format PC

Release Out now

The early medieval period, as Crusader Kings III paints it on its seductive world map, is a time of affectionless psychopathy. Less a game of nations, this is instead a grand strategy game about smaller, more intimate stories. And all of them are about furthering your bloodline. It teaches you to view people only in terms of what their personalities and genetics can do for your claim to the throne, and ultimately, that everyone’s a massive liability who’s just as likely to catch a debilitating STD as they are to plot your death, or perform their job as your steward. It is, of course, wonderfully compelling.

Your Spymaster might be a lazy, sadistic, frail malcontent, but he’s also your nephew

Paradox’s breed of strategy has never lacked depth or long-form intrigue. Historically, though, grappling with the myriad systems of a Crusader Kings game felt a bit like learning to code the game yourself, on the fly. You had a fuzzy sense of how you wanted to impact the world, but little clue as to where in the stack of menus to click first to start doing it. The most significant change about its threequel is a newfound friendliness about the UI, and an essential tutorial that tacitly acknowledges how daunting this all must be for newcomers. Through this, and a never-ending stream of tooltips, the interconnected mechanics begin to reveal themselves more clearly than they ever did before. Money, dread, renown, titles, claims - all crucial currencies gathered from elements as disparate as arranged marriages and horse-riding accidents - all become rote before the 11th century’s over.