Paradox ceases work on Imperator: Rome temporarily, won't release anything for it this year

An art image from video game Imperator: Rome of ancient warriors fighting over a throne
(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)

Ahead of the digital PDXCON planned for later this month, Paradox's segment and portfolio manager for strategy games Bevan Davies posted an update on the official forum to explain organizational changes at the studio. Davies said that, with over 150 developers at Paradox Development Studios now, a restructuring has seen them split into three teams—each working on separate projects. Unfortunately, none of those projects is Imperator: Rome.

Davies explained that "we realized that there was a need to bring reinforcement for a couple of the projects at PDS, and given where Imperator was at in the run up to 2.0's launch, we decided that after the launch of the update we would move people from Imperator to these other projects." Though nobody's working on Imperator: Rome at the moment, and there won't be "any new content coming out in 2021" for it, the plan is to return eventually.

"Right now we're working on plans to regrow the team for Imperator and continue development," Davies wrote, "but for the short term we needed to focus our efforts on these other projects."

Those other projects are under the aegis of three Paradox Development Studios nicknamed PDS Green, PDS Red, and PDS Gold. Each is working on the development of unannounced games ("at least one of them you'll discover more about at PDXCON this month") as well as maintaining one existing game. PDS Green handles Stellaris, PDS Red is on Crusader Kings 3, and PDS Gold is tackling Hearts of Iron 4.

Europa Universalis 4 is currently the responsibility of external studio Paradox Tinto, which opened last year. Its latest expansion, Leviathan, hasn't been well-received, with the lowest user rating of anything on Steam, currently 8% positive. Meanwhile, a content designer on Hearts of Iron 4 has said that player toxicity is driving Paradox's developers away from its forums.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.