With many of the best grand strategy games on PC to its name, developer Paradox Interactive looked set to knock it out of the park with Victoria 3, the long-awaited return of its 19th-century-set fan favorite. Yet while Crusader Kings 3, Europa Universalis 4, Stellaris, Hearts of Iron 4, and 2023’s Age of Wonders 4 all boast ‘very positive’ Steam ratings, Victoria 3 now sits at a rather underwhelming ‘mixed’ score, with just 66% of its total user reviews expressing overall satisfaction. As such, the developer has outlined its roadmap of upcoming free updates as it attempts to win back the hearts and minds of its audience.
Our Victoria 3 review found quite a bit to like about the return to one of Paradox’s most notable grand strategy games, but noted that “a few rough edges” and some absent or oversimplified features from Victoria 2 meant the game still fell a little short of the heights reached by its predecessor. Unfortunately, just over one year on from the launch of Victoria 3 and despite a number of major updates, it seems many players are still dissatisfied with the game’s current state.
In its latest dev diary, Paradox outlines how its planned improvements are coming along, and details the changes and upgrades it’s working on, which it says we can expect “in future free updates such as 1.6, 1.7, and beyond.” Patch 1.5 launched in November alongside the Victoria 3 Colossus of the South DLC, continuing the game’s focus on “four key improvement areas, namely military, historical immersion, diplomacy, and internal politics,” along with a separate section tracking anything else falling outside these bounds.
The planner above covers most of the key points in detail. Paradox explains that points highlighted in green are “done,” meaning they’re now considered in good shape, although adds that “something being done of course doesn’t mean we’re never going to expand or improve on it in the future, just that it’s no longer a high priority for us.”
Parts of the game highlighted in yellow have seen updates (primarily during patches 1.4 and 1.5), but are areas that Paradox isn’t yet satisfied with, and plans to make further improvements to in future updates such as 1.6, 1.7, and so on. Those without a highlight are either new additions to the list (where marked as such), or parts that require improvements but haven’t yet seen any changes released.
Among the changes still on the way, then, are: companies becoming actual actors within your country that own buildings and affect other characters or local politics; individual ships being distinct hardware that are build, damaged, sunk, and repaired; more rewards for declaring your diplomatic interests; and a rework of legitimacy that’s affected by national pride and forms of discrimination.
There are even more details given in the full blog from Paradox, if you’re eager to dive in deeper. Quite whether it’ll be enough to restore player satisfaction remains to be seen – and with patch 1.4 arriving in August, and patch 1.3 in May before that, it seems we can expect a cadence of roughly three months between major updates, so it’ll likely be some time before all the issues highlighted here are resolved.
In the meantime, you can take a look through our Victoria 3 beginner’s guide if you’re just getting started, or there’s a whole lot of the best strategy games to choose from if you’re in the mood to try something new.
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