Victoria 3, the most recent flagship product from Paradox Interactive, has received a lengthy list of modifications and upgrades that will be sent out over the next several patches and hotfixes. Victoria 3, a grand strategy game that focuses largely on the social influence of scientific advancement and world-changing discoveries from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has big shoes to fill after its immediate predecessor, Victoria 2.
Despite favourable reviews, Victoria 3 seems to have a long way to go before it is a fully-fledged grand strategy game. Since the game’s debut in late October, fans have been expressing their worries about its health and durability, and Paradox Interactive has now chosen to respond with a major new development diary.
Not only is Paradox Interactive renowned for its extraordinarily extensive grand strategy games, but also for its proclivity to sustain them for years on end – both with new material and significant upgrades for old, obsolete content. The several vast DLCs for Crusader Kings 3 demonstrate this, and something similar will occur with Victoria 3. The new development blog has detailed a slew of modifications to the game’s fighting, diplomacy, and historical immersion. Modifications to the way AI handles different emerging scenarios are examples, as are improvements to interactions in various contextually sensitive situations.
With multiple unannounced games cancelled by Paradox Interactive, the studio’s existing and ongoing properties are even more important, and Victoria 3’s unique focus on the economy and societal progress, rather than military clashes, makes it a particularly noteworthy highlight of the studio’s roster. According to Martin Anward, Game Director at Paradox, the list of modifications revealed in this latest development diary “is not even close to being an entire list of everything
Overall, the adjustments outlined in Paradox’s recent dev diary indicate that the developer is reasonably in touch with the needs of its audience. Even though it will take some time for all of the stated upgrades and adjustments to be implemented, Anward believes that the game will be a much better product in a few months. If some of Victoria 3’s features are now missing, newcomers should have an even better experience with it.
Of course, many gamers believe that Paradox Interactive should concentrate on wholly fresh creative setpieces rather than historical fiction. To be sure, Paradox might build a fantastic fantasy grand strategy game, but it seems like the company is more interested in improving its existing products than in creating something altogether new.
