Here are the Europa Universalis 5 unlock times for your region

(Image credit: Paradox)

Need to remember the release date for Europa Universalis 5? Just recall this handy rhyme: In two-thousand twenty five, Europa Universalis sailed the ocean… five. Or you could just look below, I guess, because EU5 finally hits on November 4, 2025, 12 years on from the original release of Europa Universalis 4.

In other words, it's nerd Christmas. Still your breathing and strain your ears, and you can hear, on the wind, a million people with history degrees and jobs completely unrelated to those history degrees getting incredibly excited (no shade: I'm one of them). This is Paradox's flagship grand-strategy series—its early-modern history sim that sees you guide one of a whole bunch of countries out of the late middle ages and into modernity, with almost certainly a whole lot of atrocities along the way.

Our Europa Universalis 5 review is already up and, sorry to spoil you, this one sounds just as likely to suck a few hundred, or thousand, hours away from you as the last entry. "A new bar for complexity in the historical grand strategy genre that sometimes buckles under the weight of its ambition," we called it. Sounds like a Paradox grand strategy game alright. Here are the EU5 release times for your region.

When is the Europa Universalis 5 unlock time?

Release times for Europa Universalis 5 on a map. — (Image credit: Paradox)

For most of the world, EU5 releases on November 4, though one must—as ever—make a few exceptions for territories at the far east of the world map. China, Japan, Korea, and Australia all get the game in the wee hours of November 5. Just consider it the price you pay for living in the future, and please let me know tomorrow's lottery numbers once you have them.

Here are the release times, with additional times in the map up above:

West Coast US: 9 am PST
East Coast US: 12 pm EST
UK: 5 pm GMT
Europe: 6 pm CET
Australia: 4 am AEDT (November 5)
New Zealand: 6 am NZDT (November 5)

And if you're wondering if your PC has the heft to run a few hundred years of history, you can always check out the system requirements on the EU5 Steam page.

Is there preloading for Europa Universalis 5?

Joyous news: yes! In an email to fans, Paradox confirmed that EU5 would have preloading 24 hours before launch (Ie 24 hours before the times listed above, in whatever your timezone is). That should be more than enough time to get it all downloaded: the game only weighs in at around 15 GB of space.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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