Patch 1.3.3
The patch has been in open beta a few days now and after a few tweaks seem ready for general consumption!
The best way to learn about the most important changes is to read the last 2 dev diaries (or furher back if you are interested in the modding aspects).
Path 1.3.3 Diary #1 - Industry, infrastructure and world tension changes and new capitulation loot!
Path 1.3.3 Diary #2 - Resources now much more important, optimizations, quality of life and AI improvements
Patch 1.3.3 Modding - New modding features and some new events
The plan is to have the patch go live tomorrow once we investigate some final hardware compatability things this afternoon.
Patch log too long for Steam, go here to read it!
500k sales!
We broke half a million sales of Hearts of Iron IV which the team celebrated with cake and working on the 1.3.3 patch :)
As game director for HOI this feels really good and shows that WWII sandbox games are something people want and its not really just a small niche! More practically this means for us that HOI will have a long future ahead of updates and expansions because the support is there for sure :) and speaking of....
What now?
Once 1.3.3 is out the door we will start work on the 1.4 "Oak" update as well as a DLC, which shall remain mostly secret for now, but without revealing too much will have some axis focus.
Our aim is for 1.4 "Oak" to be a bigger than normal patch where we get some time to revamp some systems that have been getting a lot of feedback (Air system will be getting updates for example). A lot of focus will also be put on AI, but we are happy to say that we think it has grown a lot since release. Finally squashing any "frontline dancing" will be top priority there. We have also started working a bit on the side on making the gameplay map clearer and easier to read based on feedback from the community.
After Oak in the misty uncertainty future of winter we have our next big game update where we plan to focus on Asia and war-related stuff. Of course subject to change.
Next week the team is heading to GDC, and this will be the start of bit of a hiatus in dev diaries. We feel like people prefer big juicy dev diaries so we are going to be back once we have done enough big changes to start talking about them. We plan to be in diary break until April. During that time I'll be sharing progress bits on twitter (which we will also repost here on the forum) and once we return we'll jump back on bigger diaries.
Also don't forget to tune in at 16:00CET on www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive today where me and Daniel continue playing Russia in Kaiserreich in World War Wednesday!
Useful links Official Website Hearts of Iron IV Wiki Hearts of Iron IV Development Diary Archive