A player spent over 3,200 hours on Steam playing the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV, but he wouldn’t recommend it. The sarcastic response from a developer sparked a discussion.
Which game is it about? Hearts of Iron IV is a game by the Swedish strategy geniuses at Paradox. Players take control of a nation and must guide it through World War II. Since its release in June 2016, 3 free and 4 paid expansions have been added to the game, all focusing on different involved regions.
So there is enough content to keep players busy for a while. On Steam, Hearts of Iron IV is rated “very positive” with 91% recommendations from over 200,000 reviews. However, a player with more than 3,200 hours gave the strategy game a thumbs down, drawing the attention of the developers (via Vida Extra).
With their new game Millennia, Paradox wanted to compete with Civilization, but even here they are struggling with negative reviews.
About naked soldiers in the Siberian winter and airplanes
What does the player say? The Steam user “Pluto” addresses various aspects of the game he dislikes in his review. He emphasizes that Hearts of Iron IV is not a bad game, but he criticizes Paradox’s approach.
He believes that rather than fixing bugs, new content is added. He is also bothered by the sometimes questionable logic of the game: naked soldiers can survive at -50 °C, and anti-aircraft equipment only works against very specific airplanes (via Steam).
The review was published on March 7, 2024, and updated on April 4. Overall, Pluto has now spent more than 3,275 hours in the game.
You can read the entire, very detailed review here in German:
After 3,263 hours, I finally decided to submit my review. I waited until the last unnecessary DLC (Trial of Allegiance) was released to see if the developers were more interested in squeezing money out of the broken game rather than fixing the core mechanics and bringing some logic into the game. The current company policy is to add more things that bring more bugs and issues into the game rather than ensuring that the game works as intended.
First of all, I wouldn’t have 3,000+ hours in this game if it were really that bad. The game is very entertaining and fun, as long as you don’t care about historical immersion, realism, and how the logic of the game works. Do you want to see hungry naked soldiers survive at -50°C forever while only the equipment goes into the stratosphere? Play Hearts of Iron IV! Do you want to build an airport for the enemy at your own expense? No problem, it’s possible and really dumb. Do you want to see your soldiers shoot down enemy planes? Well, for some reason, they can’t do that with their numerous machine guns, even though history teaches us they did. You need a very specific piece of equipment that only shoots down certain types of aircraft! Do you want to build a better fighter plane and see it support your divisions in ground combat or disrupt enemy logistics? Well, it can’t do that, but some other types of planes can, even though they have the same equipment and capability as a fighter plane. Generals are immortal and abstract. I could go on like this for a long time.
“What was I getting at? You know, for balancing reasons, the game is very binary and limited. The game requires the player to research/build one thing, such as researching anti-aircraft weapons, just to shoot down certain types of aircraft. To destroy other types of planes, the player must build anti-aircraft buildings that destroy the others, but those that destroy the others cannot destroy the first-mentioned ones and vice versa. In both cases, it’s anti-aircraft, but their capabilities cannot be offered more dynamically. World War II did not work this way, and the situation on the battlefield was much more dynamic and universal.
Of 8 bugs reported in the forum, not a single one has been fixed in recent years; some could have been done in 2 minutes. I’m not the only one blindly reporting issues on the Paradox forum that are then forgotten. The AI is weak and incompetent in some parts of the game. It doesn’t even use some functions created by the developers. Don’t even think the AI will send a military attaché to request licenses or urgently needed equipment; the AI doesn’t do that.
These days, the game is only popular because of mods, and I believe there is currently no better game like Hearts of Iron IV. The unmodified vanilla game is extremely boring, simple, and only for those who care about achievements for experienced players. Without mods, this game wouldn’t remain so popular for long.
If you like strategic sandbox games inspired by World War II events and logic isn’t that important to you, then go ahead. If you’re a detail fan, a history enthusiast, or a fan of logic and realism, then you will likely have a hard time understanding this game.
Developer response divides community
How does the developer respond? Under the review, there is a developer response from a Paradox employee. It states: “I’m sorry to hear that your 3,263 hours with Hearts of Iron 4 were a disappointment. We will strive to make your 3,264th hour as fulfilling as possible.”
This flippant response received rather mixed reactions from the community:
- One side criticizes the developer: the response is childish and unprofessional, the player wrote a detailed review and made valid points of criticism.
- Others are on the developer’s side: writing a negative review after so many hours in the game is silly. It’s like going to a restaurant every day and then complaining about the food. However, the player might also be “burned out” after so many hours and need a break from Hearts of Iron IV.
The developer, who uses the name “Arheo” on Steam, provided another update on the situation on April 5. In it, he states that he and Pluto exchanged private messages weeks ago. The player has a right to his opinion; he should be left alone.
If you want to get a picture of Hearts of Iron IV for yourself, you can do so for free until April 8, 2024, at 19:00 – that’s how long the “Free Weekend” promotion lasts. During this time, the game is also 80% off, reduced from €49.99 to €9.99.
Not for the first time does someone’s playtime draw the attention of the devs: “She played for 16,395 hours” – Mother plays strategy game on Steam for so long it even amazes the developers
