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Crusader Kings 3 is ‘probably’ happening, says outgoing Paradox CEO

There will probably be another Crusader Kings, Paradox's best-selling grand strategy series

a map of southern england in ck2

A new Crusader Kings game is “probably” going to happen, according to Paradox Interactive’s outgoing CEO Fredrik Wester, who hands his duties as chair over to board member Ebba Ljungerud this week.

GamesIndustry.biz interviewed both Wester and Ljungerud about the changeover in Paradox leadership, and they provided some retrospective on Paradox’s successes and missteps over the last few years, as well as where the company plans on heading in the future. Part of that, it seems, is likely Crusader Kings III.

“We will probably do it at some point, and the reason for that is the technical depth that we have in Crusader Kings II,” Wester told GamesIndustry.biz during PDXCon earlier this year.

Crusader Kings II is, after all, six years old, and over the course of its lifespan it’s grown a lot. Even if you never bought any of its mountains of DLC add-ons and expansions, Wester says that the game you have now is probably three or even five times the size of the game that launched in 2012.

Each major expansion to Crusader Kings II has come with significant free updates and additions to the vanilla game, and now Paradox’s medieval dynasty simulator is starting to creak under its own weight.

“We can’t add much more to the game as it is now. It’s crowded,” Wester said. “The map is really big, there’s so much content in there. It wasn’t really built for all of the expansions we made.

“We might need to take the etch-a-sketch, shake it a little bit, and start over,” he said.

When we might see a new Crusader Kings game is still an open question, but it’s certainly a significant way off if the studio has yet to start working in earnest on it. But after the latest Hearts of Iron game, which introduced a number of sweeping changes, it will certainly be interesting to see what’s different – and what remains – in Crusader Kings III.