Games
‘1,500 hours and not even done the tutorial’: The most difficult games ever don’t come from From Software
Titles like Stellaris or Crusader Kings 3 are extremely complex and sometimes drive players to despair.
Who makes the hardest games, From Software? Wrong thinking: Even tough titles like Sekiro, Elden Ring or Dark Souls don’t demand as much from their players as the games from Paradox Interactive. At least both the fans and the developer/publisher themselves joke about how complicated and difficult many Paradox titles are – with some really hilarious results.
Hundreds of hours and only one win: Paradox and fans enjoy the complicated games
Paradox Interactive makes very own games. Titles like Crusader Kings 3 or Stellaris are usually very complex and time-consuming. If you want to understand them, you have to dig deep and even then it can happen that nothing works.
But that’s part of the experience and many fans just love this kind of game. The Swedish developer studio knows this and jokes about it on Twitter:
“In Sweden people make games but they’re just maps. Nobody knows how to play them and people just stare at them for hours and watch them change color.”
link to Twitter content
The reactions of many fans on it are at least as humorous. Some Stellaris players apparently find this color change on the map really so fascinating that they “watch 8,000 hours”:
— Perradan 🦠+💉+💉 (@Perradan) May 29, 2023
Speaking of 8,000 hours: One person says it took them that long to figure out how to play a Paradox game. He was extremely happy – until a new patch was released. The update changed the mechanics and he had to start over. Which is of course a joke: he declares that he loves Paradox and its games.
Another person commented that he installed and uninstalled Hearts of Iron 4 at least four times because he just didn’t understand anything. According to Paradox, the key is to understand that “HoI IV is a platform for anime mods”.
Play through Paradox games, is that possible? In response to an Nvidia GeForce Now tweet revolving around quitting games cover to cover, Paradox just responds with “it’s complicated”.
One fan countered that he managed to conquer the world once and saw that as the end – only to continue playing for another 400 hours:
link to Twitter content
Another fan explained that he only “won” a round of Stellaris once after many hundreds of hours, and that was actually more of an accident.
But this comment takes the cake:
“1,500 hours of Crusader Kings 3 and I haven’t even finished the tutorial.”
1500 hours on CK3, didn’t even complete the tutorial
— DukeAstraea (@DukeAstraea) May 30, 2023
Both Paradox Interactive and the many players* on Twitter agree: With all the complexity and the high barriers to entry, they all love titles like Europa Universalis 4 or Cities: Skylines with all their hearts. There’s simply nothing else that comes close to it. Good news for Trekkies: Paradox is working on a new 4X title called Star Trek: Infinite.
How do you like Paradox Interactive’s games? What do you think are the most difficult games ever?
