14 DAY TRIAL // The team at the Paradox Development Studios has chosen to use a livestream to deliver more information on their upcoming Hearts of Iron IV, including details on the way historical events will be approached and how Germany will be able to try and keep the United States out of World War II.
During a recent livestream show from the company, which can be seen on the Twitch service, Jakob Monthe and Dan Lind, two of the leading developers associated with the new title, have offered some more details about its core design and about the new features that players will be able to experience.
The pair mostly talked about subjects that were already covered in the Developer Diaries launched by Paradox until now, but they also offered some deeper insight into the philosophy powering the game-making process.
Dan Lind says that the simple fact that a new leader is in charge of the title means that the similarities to Hearts of Iron III will be limited.
The new World War II focused grand strategy title will be more open and will put less pressure on the player to go along with historical choices.
This might be an unpopular decision for most longtime fans, but it makes the entire game more replayable and ensures that newcomers find it easier to understand the core ideas.
More abstraction will be used to make sure that day to day busywork is less of a focus and that the player has more time and reserves of attention that can be devoted to high-level choices for each country.
World War II in Hearts of Iron IV will have more similarities with both Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings II, which have been both massive hits for the company.
The livestream also offers details about the way the new production line mechanics will work and how the team plans to differentiate the various nations in terms of units and combat doctrines.
The two developers have also hinted that new and surprising features will be revealed in the coming diaries linked to the game and that they plan to improve the quality of the Artificial Intelligence significantly.
Heart of Iron IV is at the moment set to be launched during the first few months of 2014 exclusively on the PC.
It’s unclear whether a beta period will be used in order to test some of the core mechanics of the grand strategy title.