Originally released in 2016, the base game turns five this coming June. Like learning to perfect the mechanisms of war? It offers every possible land, sea and air war on earth.īest of all, like all Paradox grand strategy titles, it has lived a long, busy life, accumulating whole ranks of cracking DLC expansions, as well as a vast, flourishing modding scene that has expanded HoI4’s horizons many-fold, with countless fantastic, transformative mods.Īnd yet – by mainstream game standards at least – Hearts of Iron 4 is getting old.
Its malleable toybox of alternate WW2 histories, powered by a phenomenally addictive set of crunchy, complex systems, manages simultaneously to be many things to many people. Hearts of Iron IV is one of Wargamer’s favourite PC grand strategy beasts.