Victoria 3 is a new strategy/societal simulation game from Paradox Interactive. It spans from 1836 to 1936, allowing players to guide a nation through a tumultuous century. Each political, economic and diplomatic decision matters. The game launches on October 25. You can get it on Steam.

At the risk of sounding like an uneducated pleb, Victoria 3 is a seriously complex game. Existing fans of the series will be nodding right now like a parent whose child has just told them the sky is blue and stinging nettles hurt, but as a newcomer to this particular franchise I was genuinely surprised by just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Not to mention how many rabbit holes there are. Paradox are counted among the very best creators and publishers of civilisation sims. If it carries their name, either for development or distribution, you can almost guarantee a degree of quality and attention to detail rarely matched by any but the genre-leaders. I’ve always entered their universes with a certain amount of trepidation and come out feeling oddly smarter than when I went in, whether a new universe like