Emergent dynasty stories
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“You’re playing as a character with their own family, ambitions, relationships, and problems. Every campaign creates its own story”
Steam review · 227.3 h played ↗
Crusader Kings III
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 91%Very Positive · 91%Paradox Development Studio2020Grand Strategy · Strategy · Simulation
The verdict
A deep, character-driven medieval dynasty sandbox with endless emergent stories and great mods. Skip it if you hate expensive DLC, need stable multiplayer, or have a weak PC.
Great for
Players who love roleplay, family drama, emergent stories and modding, and who will wait for sales
Main risk
Base game feels incomplete and the DLC costs hundreds, while crashes and slow loads hit many players
What players love
Great mods (AGOT, LOTR, Elder Kings)
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“The mods are crazy good, I recommend the A Game of Thrones mod and the Realms in Exile (LOTR) mods.”
Steam review · 73.4 h played ↗
Huge replayability and depth
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews
“Every single experience on this game is different, every character, every culture, every playthrough.”
Steam review · 961.9 h played ↗
Addictive and time-consuming
Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews
“it lead to 30 hours of gameplay in 3 days...now I know what crack feels like.”
Steam review · 30.3 h played ↗
More accessible than other Paradox games
Mentioned in ~1 in 25 positive reviews
“It's the easiest paradox game to learn and pick up, but it's not too simple while still keeping enough complexity to find interesting.”
Steam review · 961.9 h played ↗
Better than CK2 in many ways
Mentioned in ~1 in 25 positive reviews
“The game takes the best of CK 2 and improves on almost everything. Much friendlier UI, and the updated graphics are very welcome.”
Steam review · 301.8 h played ↗
What players complain about
Overpriced, paywalled DLC
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“If you want any up to date mechanics, you need to pay $275 on the DLC AFTER paying $50 for just the base game.”
Steam review · 148.4 h played ↗
Crashes, memory leaks and endless loading
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“Game crashes after 30 to 60 minutes every time because of memory leak.”
Steam review · 15.7 h played ↗
Unstable, desyncing multiplayer
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“Multiplayer, still to this day is unplayable and constant desyncs while playing the stable + unmodded version of the game happen every time after 200-ish years playing the game.”
Steam review · 720.5 h played ↗
Shallow, repetitive, too easy
Mentioned in ~1 in 11 negative reviews
“the longer you play the more you realize it's really not that deep, and it's far far too easy.”
Steam review · 259.8 h played ↗
Frustrating RNG, plagues and balance
Mentioned in ~1 in 13 negative reviews
“Plagues ruin this game for me. What a garbage, unfun mechanic.”
Steam review · 152.2 h played ↗
Popup and event spam, bad UI
Mentioned in ~1 in 17 negative reviews
“just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pop up simulator and the map is the biggest pile of unreadable ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ever mad by a supposed human”
Steam review · 129 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Playable20 GB
Minimum
OSWindows® 10 Home 64 bit
ProcessorIntel Core i5-750 | AMD FX 4300
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | AMD Radeon HD 7870 | Intel Arc A310 | Intel Iris Plus G7 | AMD Radeon Vega 11
Storage20 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows® 10 Home 64 bit or Windows® 11
ProcessorIntel Core i5-8400 | AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 480 | Intel Arc A580
Storage20 GB available space
OSWindows® 10 Home 64 bit
ProcessorIntel Core i5-750 | AMD FX 4300
Memory8 GB RAM
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | AMD Radeon HD 7870 | Intel Arc A310 | Intel Iris Plus G7 | AMD Radeon Vega 11
Storage20 GB available space
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