Crusader Kings 3 will 'probably' happen, says outgoing Paradox CEO

The outgoing CEO of Paradox Interactive Fred Wester has said the publisher will "probably" make a sequel to sprawling grand strategy game Crusader Kings 2, which he feels is becoming too "crowded" for more expansions.

Paradox has released regular expansions for Crusader Kings 2 since it came out in 2012, and the next, Holy Fury, is due later this year. Wester—who will move to a different role at the publisher next week and be replaced by Ebba Ljungerud—says that the game is beginning to feel "heavy", and can't be expanded much more. Therefore, a sequel is likely, he says—but it doesn't sound like it's being worked on just yet.

"We will probably do it at some point," he explained to gameindustry.biz in a interview in May, which was published yesterday. "The reason for that is the technical depth that we have in Crusader Kings 2. We can't add much more to the game as it is now. The map is really big, there's so much content in there. It wasn't really built for all of the expansions we made. 

"It's getting heavy. We might need to take the etch-a-sketch, shake it a little bit, and start over." 

He also hinted that Paradox may take "a bigger stab at RPGs" going forward, potentially with the White Wolf, World of Darkness, and Vampire: The Masquerade licences it bought in 2015. A Vampire: The Masquerade tabletop RPG came out this week, and it sounds like we can expect more soon, with "a couple of projects that are at more than an experimental level right now". 

"People ask us why it's taking such a long time to do anything with the White Wolf stuff. And, well, we want to do things the proper way this time," Wester said.

He added that the company will try to update its games more regularly with in-game events in future. "We need to be even better about working on a weekly basis—like, what's happening this week? Not necessarily something people pay for, but events within the week and things that have just happened in the game."

Samuel Horti

Samuel Horti is a long-time freelance writer for PC Gamer based in the UK, who loves RPGs and making long lists of games he'll never have time to play. 

Latest in Strategy
Mongolian throne room
Crusader Kings 3 saddles up for a long-awaited return to the east with its first Asian DLC, Khans of the Steppe
Manor Lords promo art - knight on horseback looking at a medieval village in the distance, viewed from behind
PCG's best city builder of 2024 is adding a map with a gigantic hill in the middle: the perfect spot for your next castle
Maximillian from Evil Genius 2
Rebellion CEO says Evil Genius 3 could happen but wonders 'what else could we do with it other than a base-building game?'
A city from 1800
One of the best city builders of the last decade is currently 90% off on Steam
Company of Heroes 3
Company of Heroes 3 is free to try and 50% off, so it's the best time to check out the beefy 2.0 overhaul
People swimming in a pool and lying on floats
Planet Coaster 2's spring roadmap splashes down, with 'round-bottomed flumes' coming in March and buildable restaurants arriving in April
Latest in News
Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect's Jennifer Hale, who played femshep, 'saw no line' before she recorded them for Bioware's flagship trilogy: 'It was all cold reading on the spot'
A side by side comparison of two Asus Q-Release systems, with the original design on the top and the bottom showing the apparently new design.
Asus appears to have quietly changed the design of its Q-Release PCIe slot after claims of potential GPU pin damage
Microsoft's Task Manager in Windows 11
After years of complaints about Windows Task Manager displaying CPU utilization incorrectly, a fix is finally on its way
Sony RGB LED panel tech
Sony's fixing the wrong panel problems while showing off its new 'RGB LED' backlight tech with outrageous colours and brightness
Super Mario World
Super Nintendo consoles appear to be running ever-so-slightly faster as they age and speedrunning detectives are hot on the case
A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor surrounded by DDR5 memory sticks from Corsair, Kingston, and Lexar
Fresh leak suggests Intel's on-again-off-again Arrow Lake CPU refresh is back on the menu (boys)