Paradox Explained Their Future Plans for Crusader Kings 3

This week, the project leader for Crusader Kings 3 took to the Paradox Interactive forums to share the team's ideas and ambitions for the game's future.

The lengthy post began by touching on what players can expect over the coming months in CK3, and then went on to speculate about what might be coming over the course of the next few years, if the team is able to fulfil their current ambitions for the game. 

What we know from this dev diary is that a free update is planned for CK3 before the end of the year, and that the next DLC is planned to be focused on roleplay elements and "reinforcing the connection between map and character". There were no specific details about exactly what that means, but a large part of Crusader Kings has been that it's not just a war game, but largely a sandbox simulation of life as a ruler in the Middle Ages. So to that end, further expansion on the character side of the game is likely to be a good thing. 

But what about after that? Well once again, no concrete announcements were made, however we have learned about what the team wants to implement in CK3 over the current years. Here are some of the most notable plans that were mentioned:

This is nothing new to Crusader Kings, and there was a DLC for CK2 that made merchant republics playable and expanded upon trade in the game. However it seems that Paradox wants to take a different approach this time around. Rather than just adding a couple of playable merchant republics to the game, the developers instead want to make a more character driven interpretation, with new playstyles made possible, along with more focus on the people actually doing the trading, rather than just on the ruling houses of the Merchant Republics. 

Paradox say that they want to add new depth to the experience that you get when playing as (or in) an empire in CK3. No two empires were the same, and the developers want to represent this fact and add new systems to differentiate Empires and make them feel more "real", rather than them effectively just being a higher tier version of the Kingdom title. 

While religion has come along way since CK2, offering players immense customization options when reforming a branch of paganism or embracing a new heresy, laws have not really changed much at all (with the exception of CK3's vassal contract system). 

Paradox want to bring laws up to scratch and do even more work to develop the game's religion systems, making both systems more character driven and more relevant to the character you are playing as. 

Clans, tribes and nomads are different government types that were fairly well represented in CK2 after the game had received DLCs for each of them, however in CK3 there really isn't much at all that sets them apart from feudal systems of government. I tend to forget pretty quickly about government types and the only reason I remember it is when it's time to reform a tribe to get access to the feudal buildings and armies. 

Luckily Paradox is also planning to address these issues, and  hopes to add new mechanics that more accurately reflect the governance of these regions, as well as the lives of the people who lived there. 

Finally, an expansion to the map is also being thought about. CK3 is set a little too early in history to think about colonizing the New World, but in the dev diary it was mentioned that they would eventually like to have the entirety of the Old World in the game. The map is already pretty huge, stretching from Iceland to Tibet, but if the cultures of newly added regions are adequately reflected in the game (ideally without the need for subsequent DLCs), then a map expansion could certainly be interesting. 

There's even more beside this that was talked about - if you want to know all about it then feel free to check out the full dev diary here. 

While the flow of new content to CK3 has so far been quite slow (perhaps in part due to the pandemic), it seems that Paradox have lofty ambitions for the game's future. It will be interesting to see how much of this they manage to implement - if they can pull it all off then CK3 will be an impressive and in-depth sandbox experience indeed.