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Although it’s the fourth game in a well-respected series, Europa Universalis IV has been created in the shadow of Crusader Kings II, which unexpectedly but deservedly discovered a wider audience than its predecessors. As the next game from the internal Paradox Development Studio and a chronological sequel to CK II, EU IV has a weight of expectation upon it. The two games can even connect, covering almost a thousand years of history. Daunting, broad and deep, EU IV is more than equal to its burden. Here’s wot I think.

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Cancel all plans. Paradox have just dropped the Europa Universalis IV demo on to Steam. They could have waited until the end of business hours on Friday, leaving it there as a pleasant treat for weary commuters to discover as they crack open the first beer of the weekend, or take the first sip of calm-inducing brewed leaves, but no. They have released the demo on a Thursday afternoon. Enjoy the next few hours, as the office walls close in and dreams of conquest swim through your mind. Enjoy dragging yourself to work tomorrow, leaving a world of possibilities behind. I love pre-release demos, even if the timing is cruel. I’ll update below the line when I find out exactly what it contains.

Apologies for being a bit Slowtaku on this one, but the good third-person-Battlefield-with-swords PC game War of the Roses is getting a sequel: War of the Vikings. Announced yesterday. Full details at the official site.Read more...

I don’t know if I’d be more disappointed reading ‘customisable beards’ as ‘customisable bears’ or vice versa. Either way, elaborately braided face furniture is the stand-out feature of the newly announced War of the Vikings. Or perhaps it’s the brutal melee hacking that should give this newly announced game in the War Of The [blank] series an identity of it own. Thrown weapons, including the axe that stars in the teaser trailer below, and a greater emphasis on rapid, vicious bludgeoning and chopping, as shields splinter under the force of beard-powered blows. As with War of the Roses, Vikings follows the ‘pay to prettify’ rather than ‘pay to win’ formula, with longboat-loads of customisation options.

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War of the Vikings, a sequel to multiplayer melee combat game War of the Roses, is currently in development at FatShark, for launch on the PC sometime in 2014. It's a game that executive producer Gordon Van Dyke says will be "historically inspired," not necessarily entirely historically accurate.

This choice gives FatShark some wiggle room when it comes to technology of the time and the types of weaponry the development team can put in the game. "We wanted to have a broader range of stuff. Even though there were a lot of places the vikings went, their technology stayed the same for 300, 400 years," Van Dyke said. "So we wanted to be able to use any style we wanted from those time periods, but we also wanted to make sure there is real evidence of these weapons so there's no fantasy, there's nothing made up. We're very factual but maybe not 100% accurate. We didn't want to paint ourselves in that corner."

The final preorder bonus for Paradox Interactive's eagerly-anticipated PC/Mac grand strategy Europa Universalis IV has been revealed — a save game converter for Kotaku 2012 Game of the Year nominee Crusader Kings II, and a free copy of that game for those unfortunate enough to not own it already. Read more...

My inventory is nearly empty. It always is, I don't know why I thought this time would be any different. My health is low and I haven't seen a can of rejuvenating meat in what seems like hours. Everything is completely silent. In front of me I see a pair of doors leading to the only area I have yet to explore. I take a breath and slowly walk forward.

As the doors open, I hear the screams. A pack of things rush me and I only have a few shells left in my shotgun, not nearly enough to take down this frenzied mass. As I wait for them to get closer, I say my prayers and ready my last explosive. I place it at my feet and, at the last second, run back through the doors. The explosion echoes faintly and, with my gun raised, I wait to see what's going to come rushing through.

This is Teleglitch: Die More Edition.

Magicka, a whimsical independent action adventure game released by Arrowhead Game Studios in 2011, took everyone by surprise with its excellent spell-crafting system and blend of satire and comedy. Using its original as a base, developer Paradox North has wrapped a MOBA framework around Magicka and created a Frankenstein's monster of pick-up-and-play fun.

Magicka: Wizard Wars, a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game (MOBA) set in the Magicka universe, is currently in Alpha testing. The premise is simple: two teams of four mages do battle over three spawn beacons, with the entirety of combat being driven by the spell system and some rudimentary melee combat. As saturated as the MOBA genre is, Magicka: Wizard Wars surprisingly never felt like retreaded ground. Its delightful marriage of spell construction and tug-of-war gameplay ultimately left me wanting more.

Arrowhead Game Studios' 2010 action-adventure Magicka was memorable not only for its unique spellcasting system, but also for the hilarious accidental deaths caused by said spellcasting system. Now that Magicka: Wizard Wars exists, there should be a lot more of that coming.Read more...

Magicka: Wizard Wars, the upcoming MOBA-like from Paradox North, has finally issued its first gameplay footage. A lot of common MOBA elements can be seen in this footage, married to Magicka's unique magic-crafting system, in which combinations of elements produce varying spells.

Magicka: Wizard Wars will be Paradox North's first game, an outfit formed specifically to craft the competitive online game. Paradox North is headed up by John Hargelid and currently enlists former DICE and Avalanche Studios talent, among others.

We are approaching the historical strategy event horizon. I’ve been playing Civ V all weekend, exploring the Brave New World expansion, which has sucked me back with all the effectiveness of a vacuum cleaner in a black hole, triggering a late night Michael Corleone impression that left my flatmate concerned for my wellbeing. Then there’s Rome War: Total: The Second, which threatens to march into my life on September 3rd and conquer all of the free time that remains. There won’t be a great deal of free time because on August 13th, Europa Universalis IV arrives. I might as well say goodbye to the world for the rest of the year. Several developer diaries and songs below. Paradox really do like their songs.

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Jim is more pleased than usual. (I totally am! – Jim) Teleglitch, the top-down rogue-like shooter that he personally championed, has been picked up by Paradox. Not only that, but the harsh sci-fi horror game will be expanded upon in the Die More edition, which is a phrase I find rather sinister. Surely you can only die the one time? The rest is basically corpse mutilation. Anyway, the game that Jim loved, and that no-one on RPS else bothered with, will be out in the summer as a free expansion for current owners, and a full game for the rest of us. Trailer below.(more…)

Preordering anything in a digital format seems like an odd thing to do, unless you’re absolutely confident of the product’s quality and are getting some form of discount. Otherwise, why not wait, look for the best deal on release day and purchase then? All of that said, Europa Universalis IV is now available for preorder and, having spent almost a hundred hours with the pre-release version, I’m not afraid to say that it’s very good indeed. I’m sure you’ll be sad to hear that my preview copy has now vanished so I’ll have to wait until August 13th to play, like everybody else. The video below is less than a minute long so you’d have to watch it around 90,000 times to pass the time until release.

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Hey, remember Leviathan: Warships' smooth jazzy pre-order trailer? Well, the makers of this snazzy little wargame put out a free update that introduces that smooth jazziness to the game itself—by making the trailer's narrator one of the announcers. How'd they reveal the update? With a smooth jazzy trailer, of course!

If you're new to the world of grand strategy games having picked up the gateway drug that is Crusader Kings II, may I suggest you look into this, Paradox's big follow-up game, Europa Universalis IV. It's lacking in Crusader King II's intimacy, but shifts its weight by letting you control just about any faction of people on Earth during 300 years of global expansion and colonisation. Which, yes, is as grand as grand strategy gets. This new trailer accompanies the announcement that the game's due worldwide on August 13. Can't wait.

A few weeks ago, Paradox invited a group of journalists to Stockholm in order to see how much violence we could do to one another in a massive two-day multiplayer session of Europa Universalis IV. I packed my bags, steeled my nerves and prepared to present Rock, Paper, Shotgun the only way I know how – with fruitless acts of violence and a burning desire to reduce France to ashes. Inevitably, it transpired that I would be playing as France but I wasn’t going to let that petty detail shake my resolve. Europe was about to meet its maker.

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There's a point, maybe around an hour in, where you might feel a little disappointed with The Old Gods, a new Viking expansion for epic strategy game Crusader Kings II that was released this week. When you think Vikings, you think looting, pillaging, beards, fire, axes, mayhem. Yet this expansion delivers almost none of that. It takes some of history's most notorious raiders and reduces them to a themed faction of a PC strategy game, one that has to work within the same structural confines of politics, technology, religion and intrigue that every other more boring Kingdom has to work with. You're balancing books. Dealing with petty disputes. Worrying about marrying off your daughters. In other words, it feels like the most boring Viking game ever made. As you play on, though, you remember, hey, wait a minute. I'm not playing a Viking game. I'm playing an expansion to the wonderful Crusader Kings II, one that - in addition to Christians, Muslims, Byzantines and Republics - now lets me play the same great game, only as a Viking, with some neat new features like raids (armies can pillage cities without declaring war) and a very Norse wooden skin over the UI to give it as much of a Viking feel as is possible. That's the beauty of each of these CKII expansions; they each introduce something new, sure, but for the most part they're just adding layer upon layer to the original experience. Nothing drastic here, then, aside from a possible meta-game of halting the spread of Christianity through Viking lands. Same game, same amazing highs, same crushing lows, only now you can look at them through a thick ginger beard. Think of it that way, as a feather in an already amazing hat, and you're good to go. For experienced players, the best new features are probably the aforementioned raids, a revamped technology system that actually makes you use it, the ability to plan big invasions (increasing your troop sizes) and the nice customised Viking touches like Norse advisors on the game map. The only real downside, I've found, is that you're going to need a history book and an atlas open, because I'd wager unless you're Scandinavian, or a Viking scholar, you'll have no idea where most of the place and realm names are actually located on the map. The game's search function will take a beating during your first few hours.

The world of gaming moves so fast that writing about Leviathan: Warships feels like an act of retro-archaeology. It came out almost a month ago, which makes it positively ancient in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve been so busy swabbing the poop deck that I’ve only just found time to gather my thoughts.

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Last week, the rights to Homeworld, a beloved old RTS series by Relic, went under the hammer as part of an auction following the closure of former publisher THQ. A winner was found. They now have the opportunity to create new entries in a series that's lain dormant for a decade. It's just...we don't know who they are. Several parties involved in the bidding have revealed that they tried, and failed, to get hold of the series. One of them was a group of fans, which got nowhere near it. Finishing in third place was, sadly, hardcore PC publisher Paradox, who "would have loved to work on that IP but wish the winners all the best and hope for a great HW3". Ahead of them was Stardock, the publisher behind Sins of a Solar Empire, the game that's come closest to any other to matching Homeworld's scale and ease of control in a 3D space. So who came first? They're staying quiet, for now, leaving us free to either hope for the best or prepare for the worst, depending on how nice a day you're having.

Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet launched on iOS and Android this week for $1.99. The game features up to four-player cross-platform cooperative multiplayer action, as well as a campaign mode that's new to the series.

Paradox Interactive recently announced Magicka: Wizard Wars, a PC game in development by Paradox's new Stockholm studio that is definitely not a MOBA.

For Paradox North's Executive Vice President, John Hargelid, Magicka: Wizard Wars has been labeled improperly as a MOBA. It features themes seen in the genre, but for Hargelid the differentiator is the simple gameplay that provides a vehicle for high-level tactics.

"This is why we think we're not a MOBA," Hargelid said. "Magicka: Wizard Wars is much more skill-based, much more hardcore to be honest. At the same time, anyone who hasn't played this type of game before can simply be satisfied by gameplay. It's quite simple to get into it and it's not this 40-minute game mode you have to learn what the progression looks like and halfway through, you'll know if you lost or won."

Following today's news of Magicka: Wizard Wars, we inquired with publisher Paradox Interactive about the news of a brand new development studio: Paradox North. The studio opened in February and will be headed up by executive vice president John Hargelid, who's had stints at DICE working on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as a producer and EA's business side before making his way over to Paradox.

Paradox North lead designer David Nisshager also spent time at DICE, while lead artist Staffan Norling and senior animator Patrick Kling both worked on Just Cause for Avalanche Studios. Right now Paradox North is about ten deep, with a mixture of new talent and old veterans, but a Paradox Interactive representative tells us plans to expand the team are in place.

Magicka: Wizard Wars will be Paradox North's first game.

The mages of Magicka are headed to the online arena in a multiplayer-focused, four-on-four PVP battle game called Magicka: Wizard Wars. Paradox's announcement doesn't mention the genre explicitly, but the new game sounds like it falls under Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA).

In Magicka: Wizard Wars, two teams of four wizards duel to the death using Magicka's established spell-crafting system as the foundation for combat. The game is differentiated by "short battles, persistent character progression, and plenty of laughter."

Magicka: Wizard Wars is in development at Paradox North, a new studio in Stockholm under the banner of Paradox Interactive. The studio is composed of former DICE and Avalanche Studios talent, and led by executive vice president John Hargelid.

There are all sorts of Paradox games these days, which can be confusing for a fellow who is mostly looking for armies to command and maps to paint in his chosen colour. Fearful that March of the Eagles might be a Napoleonic era take on Angry Birds, I was pleased to find an internally developed strategy title, but this is a wargame rather than a historical playground. I am rubbish at war.

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They say history is written by the victors and they quite often go on to say that Churchill said that, but they don’t appear to have any proof of the latter. I’m here to prove the former wrong as well. This is a Europa Universalis IV tale of betrayal and bellicose bastards, in which the losers have the final word, and that word is an obscenity, bellowed across a field of the dead.

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#marchoftheeagles Paradox's March of the Eagles was released this week on PC, and if you've been at all swayed by my love of Crusader Kings II, the video above may have you thinking "wonderful, this is like that, only with muskets". More »

The Showdown Effect is a bombastic game, packed with more eighties action movie clichés and stereotypes than Schwarzenegger’s CV, or that one friend’s DVD collection that you’re fairly sure is entirely an edifice of ironic appreciation. I spoke to Arrowhead CEO Johan Pilestedt at the Paradox Convention and we talked about Warhammer, dice and situational comedy. And, hey, why not the game as well?

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The Showdown Effect stood out at the Paradox Convention. Among the fine Port*, maps and history, here was a game that threatened to introduce itself like a shot of Tabasco sauce to the back of the throat. GUNS! ONE LINERS! SWORDS! BLOOD! ACTION MOVIES! THE EIGHTIES! I was braced for impact but as the sauce settled, I paused to swirl it around my mouth, nodded appreciatively and then turned a man’s head into a blood pudding by liberally applying a fire extinguisher to his face. There are explosions and gibs aplenty, but between the bullets and blades, there’s a great deal of precision.

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Victoria II has always felt a little incomprehensible to me and it’s not just the time period or the focus on industry and empire. When I play strategy games, grand or otherwise, I tend to prefer taking control of a small entity. I’m no Ozymandias – my pedestal would read “Look upon my works, if ye like, I mean, if ye have a minute to spare” – so I’m more naturally drawn to the small-scale squabbles, exploration and expansion of earlier ages. The next piece of DLC, Heart of Darkness, could be just what I need to give the game another shot. As the title suggests, the expansion concentrates on the ‘scramble for Africa’, but it also promises to make the game more interesting for smaller powers. Details below.

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I didn’t expect it to happen like this. I knew that one day I’d end up sucked into a multiplayer affair that left me checking over my shoulder, erasing entries in my diary and losing sleep, but I figured it’d be Planetside 2 or Day Z, not a strategic wargame. In the last week, I’ve spent a few hours playing March of the Eagles and Europa Universalis IV multiplayer and, despite myself, I’m ready to admit there’s a future in this ‘gaming with other people’ malarkey. More on EU IV soon. First, it’s Napoleon time.

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