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3 weeks ago
Crusader Kings 3 introduces us to new Lifestyles, and brings back some favourites
A new Crusader Kings 3 video developer diary explains how Lifestyles are going to work in this third instalment of the series. It's a new and improved system that's pretty different from Crusader Kings 2 - featuring proper skill trees so you can better shape your character to be the way you want them to be.
Feature: One Off The List
Children, life’s great copy-paste. Adorable, drooling idiots with no self-control and a habit of yelling embarrassing facts to the entire supermarket. In our everyday lives, human children are a snotty emblem of hope, vulnerability, and aspiration. In videogames, they are a cursed harbinger of escort missions, narrative roadblocks, “cutesy” voice acting, and precocious dialogue. They are annoying. But hold on, that’s the point. Many of…
Feature: Divide and conquer
For a time it looked as though strategy games had sunk into a kind of deathly malaise, unsure which territory to claim next and which ones it should leave well and truly alone. Fast forward to 2020, though, and strategy games have never looked healthier, which is why we've compiled this best strategy games list of all time. Whether you want to conquer the depths…
2 months ago
Feature: The definitive and objective list
It's been an eventful decade for PC games, and it would be hard for you to summarise everything that's happened in the medium across the past ten years. Hard for you, but a day's work for us. Below you'll find our picks for the 50 greatest games released on PC across the past decade.
3 months ago
Building empires in Crusader Kings 3 is dirty work. You can't just roll up with an army and start taking farmland willy-nilly - you need friends to fund your battles, lovers to keep your line in check, and even an occasional so-called ally may need to be taken out of the picture. Paradox's latest Crusader Kings 3 dev diary is all about plotting and scheming,…
Feature: Beware negative splendor
Crusader Kings 3 is basically a Game of Thrones RPG in disguise
The Crusader Kings franchise has always had a massive Game of Thrones vibe. Indeed, the first two games in the series got their own Westeros mods, and our own Adam Smith called CK2’s “such a blindingly obvious combination of worlds and mechanics that it simply had to exist”. Now, however, looking into the new dynasty mechanics for Crusader Kings 3, it’s clear what Paradox are…
4 months ago
Feature: Too many popes
Although we won’t be able to play Crusader Kings 3 until next year, last weekend I got to try the next best thing - a massive game of Crusader Kings 2 without a single PC involved. As part of the celebrations at PDXcon, Paradox turned the interior of the Nalepastrasse radio station (formerly the broadcast hub for communist East Germany) into a vast map of…
Feature: When you're king, there are no bad ideas
Crusader Kings 2 isn’t the easiest game to define. It mixes Paradox’s grand strategy formula with a big bucket of RPG flavour, creating something that’s just as playable as an emergent storytelling toy as it is as a wargame. Crusader Kings 3, its freshly-announced sequel, has this same mix of ingredients. But from what we’ve seen so far, it looks like it might just have…
Having permanently removed Crusader Kings II's price tag last week, making it free for keepsies, Paradox are giving an expansion away free to people who sign up for an account. The Old Gods is the giveaway, the 2013 expansion focused on marauding Vikings, pagans, and Zoroastrians. Turns out I already have a Paradox account from something or other so sure, gwan, wang me a Steam…
Feature: Best start believing in feudal dynastic struggles: you're in one
Crusader Kings 3 is happening: here’s ten things we know so far
A few minutes ago, Crusader Kings 3 was announced at PDXCon in Berlin, with an actual choir of hooded figures, and this splendidly grim trailer. Predecessor Crusader Kings 2 is still going strong after nearly eight years, with its last expansion launched last November, but now it's time for that old warhorse to be put to pasture. Or perhaps become pope. Either way, it's free…
To start their annual fanfest PDXCON off with a bang (or at least an "Ooh!"), Paradox are now offering Crusader Kings 2 for free. It seems to be free forever? [Update: yes, it is.] If you've not yet tried to form your own medieval dynasty and found yourself undone by intrigue, backstabbing, and your own damn foolishness, you're missing out. Expansions are not included in…
7 months ago
Get Crusader Kings II and all its expansions for £12 in the new Humble Bundle
Hey, you there, the reader who's always fascinated to hear weird tales and unusual patch notes from Crusader Kings II but has never gotten into the wheeling-dealing empire strategy game because even just buying it is intimidating with the array of add-ons supplementing it. Yes, you. You can now grab CK2 and all fifteen expansions for just over £12 in a new Humble Bundle, which…
Feature: Relaxing times in medieval Estonia
One of the games I return to regularly is Crusader Kings 2, and usually, what pokes me back into its torrid embrace is a trip abroad. I’ll go to a place I’ve not really thought about much, then get well into its history and, because my curiosity writes cheques my attention span can’t cash, I’ll fail to read up on it at all. What I…
8 months ago
Feature: Listen now and be intrigued
This is the shipping forecast; the synopsis at 5pm. Solid Snake just west of cloak room, expected to move towards Sam Fisher on dance floor before midnight. Wrecking Ball from Overwatch, mild at 1am, becoming rabid with lust at 3am. Agent 47 from Hitman: confused, occasional peeping, becoming horny later. Red Prince: cyclonic, mainly drinking alone, peering at Steve from Minecraft with questionable motives,…
1 year ago
Feature: Veni, videogame, vici
Imperator: Rome finds the difference between obstruction and intimidation
Bugger me, Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy games are a lot, right? If I could put that even more in bold, I would have fattened up like a sacrificial pig before god-appeasing slaughter, because they really are. My experience with Crusader Kings II, for example, mainly involved me staring at menus for half an hour then crushing half a pack of ibuprofen into a fine powder,…
Feature: Chartist rebellion
Hello! This week John is doing a super secret special mission (playing a video game) so I, one of the other Alices, have taken over the Steam Charts. I am afraid that I do not put as much time as John into constructing elegant jokes that are several layers deep, though, which means you might even be able to tell which games are charting. I…
It feels only right that the biggest expansion for historical simulator Crusader Kings 2 adds the option to simulate alternate worlds's histories, too. Released today, Holy Fury was initially billed as an expansion to the religious systems of the game. While that is part of the package, even Paradox's own focus has shifted to the expansion's potential to generate endless earths. While the geography may…
Crusader Kings 2: Holy Fury can randomly generate a world of talking animals
Credit to "quill18" for the image. Crusader Kings 2 has always played fast and loose with historical accuracy, but the random world generator in its next expansion, Holy Fury (due tomorrow) lets Paradox really get wild. Covered over on PC Gamer by the familiar-sounding Fraser Brown, poking around in the world generation settings can reveal the hidden 'Animal Kingdom' option. It replaces most (if not all)…
Crusader Kings 2 expansion Holy Fury makes religion even messier on November 13th
As if holy wars weren't bad enough, Paradox are making them more complicated than ever before in their expansion, Holy Fury, for historical political life-sim Crusader Kings 2. Announced back in May, the expansion now has a release date - November 13th, just one month away. Leaders can become saints, successions are to become thornier, and pagans can forge their own custom path instead of…
2 years ago
Feature: Norse of a different colour
The allure of Viking fantasies, and the games that cherry-pick them
The Vikings have long ago invaded the coasts of pop culture on their dragon-headed longships and carved out their own Danelaw in the realm of video games. In recent years, they’ve grown even bolder, taking over most genres from RTS to RPG, classic point and click adventure to action, with an utter disregard towards distinctions between AAA and indie. They’ve settled in Hellblade and Frostrune,…
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