A leaked posting on the official Paradox Interactive forums has confirmed the existence of Victoria 3. The posting, which has since been deleted, consists only of an announcement and a dev diary thumbnail, but it confirms the game is real nonetheless.
What do we know about Victoria 3?
Right now, not a lot is known about the third installment in the Victoria grand strategy series. A forum listing was spotted by a user on Reddit in which a Victoria 3 dev diary thumbnail was posted, alongside confirmation of the game. In the listing, Paradox's Martin "Wiz" Anward confirms himself as the director of the game, and acknowledges that it's been a while since the last game (which launched back in 2010). Anward says that this "isn't a belated April Fools joke", and that after "all these memes", Victoria 3 is finally happening. The listing is courtesy of freelancer Sanna Valapuro, who's currently working for Paradox, so it seems like it's legit.
This would gel with Martin Anward's current Twitter bio, in which the Paradox exec says he's "working on a secret project". Back in April, Paradox advertised for an experienced designer to work on an "unannounced project" that would require experience in "4X and grand strategy games". It would make sense if that project was Victoria 3. Despite speculation that the project might be Europa Universalis V, it seems Anward's been toiling away at a new entry in the 19th-century empire-builder.
What is Victoria and why should you be excited about a new game?
Victoria is one of Paradox's major grand strategy franchises alongside Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and Crusader Kings. The Victoria games task players with creating and managing a 19th-century state; players must engage in diplomacy with friends and rivals, oversee economic and military development, and progress along the tech tree. If you're familiar with Paradox's other grand strategy games, you'll know what you're getting into here; they're games of dizzying depth and complexity which also usually have some rather amusing patch notes.
Paradox will announce Victoria 3 officially at their PDXCON Remixed Announcement Show later today, with this leak happening due to some admin mistakes in the set up. The Announcement Show portion of the stream - which you can watch right now, as it's an ongoing event revolving around Paradox games - will begin at 2pm Eastern, and we're expecting the official Victoria 3 announcement during that portion of the show.
Would you play Victoria 3? What features do you want the game to have? Let us know in the comments below!
