I loved coming up with that title. It is just so satisfying and poetic that Paradox Interactive is, for me, one of the most paradoxical game studios out there.
Over the past few months, I played a number of Paradox Interactive games. Games like Stellaris, Cities Skylines, Hearts of Iron 4, and Surviving Mars. While playing these games I also started reading more about them in articles, forums, and Discord servers. And while most of these games have a devoted following of fans, I honestly cannot say whether or not people like Paradox Interactive or not. This is strange, as there is normally a clear indication of what the general fanbase’s feeling is towards publishers such as this. But I get it now. So let’s talk a bit more about Paradox Interactive, and what makes them such an anomaly.
Firstly, Paradox Interactive publishes some of the very best Grand Strategy games that have ever been made. Games such as Europa Universalis 4, Hearts of Iron 4, Stellaris, and Crusader Kings 3 are the gold standard when it comes to games within the Grand Strategy genre. What makes these games so utterly brilliant is the incredibly deep and complex systems and varying ways people can play. These are games with no outright win condition, making them extremely replayable and variable. If Grand Strategy or complex gaming is your bag, you cannot go wrong with games from Paradox Interactive.
It is therefore so sad to see the publisher’s stance on DLC implementation. Every game has a whole raft of DLC’s available, and some add an astonishing amount of content and gameplay to the base games. Almost so that the base game is by no means the best way to play the game. Having played HOI 4 without mods and with mods, the vanilla game feels more like a demo rather than a full game. Only when you add all the DLC content do you really get the full extent of the Paradox gaming experience.
But these DLCs do not come cheaply. And many of them are released in a buggy, unbalanced game-breaking state. Looking at some of the last Paradox games DLC, for EU4 you have one of the most negatively reviewed DLCs on Steam, HOI 4’s No Step Back is getting reviewed bombed to high hell, and Surviving Mars got a DLC that broke the game so much that people stopped playing it. For a company that seems like their whole business strategy is making money off of DLC’s, there is a sorely missed lack of quality control in place.
Then Paradox redeems itself with its extremely open stance to mods. Modding is such a big reason why many Paradox games are successful, and they’ve gone out of their way to ensure modders get the support they need. Game versions are shared early with modders to ensure the new update does not break their mods, and they’ve even gone so far as bundling high-quality mods into content packs for various games and giving the mod creator a large share of the income from their mod.
The crux is that Paradox Interactive is an anomaly. On the one hand, they make and sell great games at competitive prices, only to gouge the user with bug-riddled but required DLC, but support mods and the modding community more than most publishers ever have. I’m confused and not sure if I like them or not. I love their games, but as a company, they are a paradox…