Hearts of Iron IV

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 91%Very Positive · 91%2016

The verdict

A huge, addictive WW2 grand strategy sandbox with endless replayability and mods, but it has a brutal learning curve and a costly DLC wall. Skip it if you want a complete base game or a casual experience.

Great for

Patient history and strategy fans who want hundreds of hours of replayable, mod-friendly WW2 map painting

Main risk

Base game feels incomplete without hundreds of dollars of DLC, and the learning curve is steep

What changed in the last 30 days

160 recent reviews

Many recent negative reviews protest Paradox's Discord moderation over Atatürk and vow to boycott. This is unrelated to gameplay, so the sentiment is likely a temporary review bomb.

160 recent reviews

What players love

Extremely addictive, huge time sink

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews

“it will infuriate you at times, but you will look up and you have been playing for 12hr straight.”
Steam review · 23663.6 h played ↗

“I am completely and hopelessly addicted.”
Steam review · 2523.4 h played ↗

“I got addicted so hard that im spending more of my life playing this game then studiying for my upcoming exams.”
Steam review · 1086.7 h played ↗

Deep strategy and huge replayability

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“Deep strategic game with a myriad of options. Replay value is off the charts”
Steam review · 278.4 h played ↗

“near endless replayability”
Steam review · 2304.5 h played ↗

“Non historical AI allows for so much replayability, even as the same country going down the same path.”
Steam review · 477.6 h played ↗

Rewarding once you learn it

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“Very steep learning curve, and a pretty difficult game.BUT with that said it is a very awesome game once you start picking it up.”
Steam review · 10.8 h played ↗

“HUGE learning curve, but once you get the basics down this game can get addictive quick!”
Steam review · 247.1 h played ↗

Great mods and active community

Mentioned in ~1 in 14 positive reviews

“great game huge comunity with a active moding base”
Steam review · 73.8 h played ↗

“Huge modding community that compensates for the predatory policy of Paradox regarding DLCs.”
Steam review · 811.4 h played ↗

Fun alt-history and what-if scenarios

Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews

“This game also scratches lots of "What if" questions, like What if the Germans were democratic? What if France doesn't capitulate? What if Italy didn't suck?”
Steam review · 2304.5 h played ↗

“This game allows you to make tsarist russia (through dlc), allow you to achieve atatürks dreams (through dlc) and even make the french resistance (through dlc)”
Steam review · 15.6 h played ↗

Teaches history and geography

Mentioned in ~1 in 30 positive reviews

“All while learning about history, geography and politics.”
Steam review · 2304.5 h played ↗

“without your game, I would never have passed my "Foreign policy of Hungary in the 20th century" course.”
Steam review · 791.7 h played ↗

What players complain about

DLC overpriced; base game feels incomplete

Mentioned in ~2 in 5 negative reviews

“The base game is incredibly bare bones, the DLC is essentially 90% of the actual content for the game.”
Steam review · 728.7 h played ↗

“The base version is just a blank outline of a game; to get a proper experience you need add-ons costing many times more than the game.”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 57.1 h played ↗

“If you want any up to date mechanics, you need to pay $250 on the DLC AFTER paying $50 for just the base game.”
Steam review · 1346.6 h played ↗

Poor AI, front lines and combat/balance quirks

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“Front line will just fall out of no where, troos redoploy and move without orders.”
Steam review · 439.1 h played ↗

“How can 30 German divisions lose to 2?”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 29.4 h played ↗

Steep learning curve, weak tutorial

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“Absolutely NOT beginner friendly. Tutorial doesn't explain anything and the game expects you to know all the gameplay mechanics.”
Steam review · 3.6 h played ↗

“Not beginner friendly at all game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ complex that u have to spend ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hours to watch toturials and in the end its still complex”
Steam review · 3.5 h played ↗

Bloat and changes making game worse

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“They've grossly increased the games complexity often just for the sake of complexity.”
Steam review · 850.1 h played ↗

“Coal is easily the worst mechanic implemented in game.”
Steam review · 5407.8 h played ↗

“the game at this point has been hacked together like Frankenstine's monster.”
Steam review · 1633 h played ↗

Poor performance and crashes

Mentioned in ~1 in 10 negative reviews

“The game runs on a single CPU core.”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 2324.5 h played ↗

“bots are constantly doing something, it turns into a slideshow, and then the game crashes.”
Steam review · translated from Russian · 397.7 h played ↗

“the end-game lag is absurd.”
Steam review · 1348.6 h played ↗

Save incompatibility and multiplayer problems

Mentioned in ~1 in 21 negative reviews

“too many updates make the previous game not loadable.”
Steam review · 2240.4 h played ↗

“My god how do you not have a stable multiplayer after so many years of development.”
Steam review · 103.6 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OSWindows® 10 Home 64 Bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ i5 750 | AMD® FX 4300

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia® GeForce™ GTX 470 (1.28GB) | AMD® HD 5850 (1GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) | AMD® Radeon™ RX Vega 11

Storage2 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows® 10 Home 64 bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ i5 2500K | AMD® Ryzen 3 2200G

Memory6 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia® GeForce™ GTX 570 (1.28GB) | AMD® Radeon™ HD 7970 (3GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake)

Storage2 GB available space

OSWindows® 10 Home 64 Bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ i5 750 | AMD® FX 4300

Memory4 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia® GeForce™ GTX 470 (1.28GB) | AMD® HD 5850 (1GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) | AMD® Radeon™ RX Vega 11

Storage2 GB available space

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