Hearts of Iron III Is in Closed Beta

Following news that it has picked up the rights to publish Nitro's East India Company, a strategy title focused on the diplomacy and warfare waged to secure trade to the Indian theater, Paradox Interactive has talked at the Game Developers Conference about its arguably biggest title of this year, Hearts of Iron III.

The third in the series, the game is set to be released late in 2009 and is now in closed beta stage, which means that a group of players are getting their hands on it and exchanging suggestions with the developers on what could be changed before the release.

Johan Anderson, who is the lead developer on the title, has said that “We at Paradox were stunned by the response we got for the Beta testing, with over 10,000 people registering an interest in contributing. It made it one of the hardest selection process [sic] for Betas we have ever had, as there were just so many well qualified candidates to chose [sic] from.” There is no word on whether Paradox intends to offer an open beta at a later date.

Hearts of Iron III seems to be shaping up to be a complex experience focused on World War II and the diplomacy, army management, espionage, government, research and tactical battles that defined the conflict.

The team is taking all the best bits of the first two games and is also introducing new gameplay mechanics and more options. It's pretty clear that the company is really aiming to create a game that is both deep and popular, after the rather disappointing Europa Universalis: Rome, which a lot of fans of Paradox games found too shallow.

Here's a video in which Johan Anderson presents some of the most important changes that Paradox is making for Hearts of Iron III: