WARDOGS
WARDOGS
Game
Game2020
Crusader Kings III
Developer Paradox Development Studio
Crusader Kings III is a grand strategy role-playing video game set in the Middle Ages, developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive as a sequel to Crusader Kings (2004) and Crusader Kings II (2012), featuring similar gameplay, centred around historical bloodlines and dynasties. The game was released on PC on 1 September 2020 and on the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on 29 March… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
593 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
73
Fresh
343 positive · 128 negative
95% range 69–77%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 343 | 128 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 26 | 2 | 69 |
| Lemmy * | 4 | 1 | 12 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 8 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
62,125 of 69,115 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
76% recommend · 180 yes, 56 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 236 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (128,774 of 142,364 positive).
Players praise the game's emergent storytelling and roleplaying, with many citing chaotic family drama and political scheming. [1][2][3] The game is widely recommended for its depth and replayability, especially with mods like A Game of Thrones. [4][5][6]
Liked
Representative posts
- [14]
Bought at launch, and enjoyed it. Came back a few years later and tried to play again, but there was a new thing called Legitimacy, that I kept losing that was causing me problems. I looked up how to increase legitimacy, and it's locked behind a DLC. They make it so you need to keep buying DLC all the time or the game quickly becomes unplayable. Sucks that I can't continue to play without continuing to buy more DLC.
- [1]
I wrote a love letter to the pope. I murdered my own uncle for making fun of me at a feast. I slept with my sister. I then sat down to play some Crusader Kings 3, it's a pretty good game.
- [2]
My loving wife contracted smallpox. Then my three young daughters. Then my infant son, the only male heir. They all died. I survived, suffered a mental breakdown, became a drunk and took the Court Jester as a concubine. 10/10. Will play again.
- [3]
I definitely recommend Crusader Kings III. I heavily use mods when I play, and the modding community adds an insane amount of content and replayability, but even without mods, the base game itself is genuinely amazing. There’s so much freedom in how you play. You can build a massive empire, focus on your dynasty, scheme your way through politics, create absolute chaos, or somehow turn what was supposed to be a …
- [4]
the base game itself is good; i think the DLC practices are a little predatory. where it really shines is with mods like CK3AGOT
Summarised from 34 of the 339 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 9, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Crusader Kings III sits at 73% positive across 471 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Crusader Kings III received "generally favorable" reviews for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S according to review aggregator platform Metacritic; the PC version received "universal acclaim". Leana Hafer of IGN wrote that the game "is a superb strategy game, a great RPG, and a master class in how to take the best parts of existing systems and make them deeper and better"; scoring it 10/10 in her review. Lauren Aitken from VG247 also gave the game a perfect score, writing it is "just as bonkers, unpredictable and enthralling as its predecessor." David Wildgoose of GameSpot praised the procedural narratives of the game saying that they are rarely as affecting and poignant as they are here;…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 593 · most liked first/2 I have never accidentally filed something secret but I have accidentally sent a Crusader Kings III save game file to, if memory serves, the client Fortunately (1) the client had no idea what it was and (2) I wasn’t scheme to kill the pope or anything
positive · AI labelView post →Bought at launch, and enjoyed it. Came back a few years later and tried to play again, but there was a new thing called Legitimacy, that I kept losing that was causing me problems. I looked up how to increase legitimacy, and it's locked behind a DLC. They make it so you need to keep buying DLC all the time or the game quickly becomes unplayable. Sucks that I can't continue to play without continuing to buy more DLC.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game, terrible monetization practices. Steam's Summer Sale is going on now, and I can't pick up bundled DLC because I have an active subscription and my Collection is marked as "Complete" as far as Steam's store is concerned. I am getting fed up with Paradox Interactive's predatory DLC practices. Edit: If you are commenting to white knight for the $1.14 Billion dollar corporation I will be deleting your comment. I dislike the greed of the $1.14 Billion dollar corporation. Your comment…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wrote a love letter to the pope. I murdered my own uncle for making fun of me at a feast. I slept with my sister. I then sat down to play some Crusader Kings 3, it's a pretty good game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would have gladly given this game a positive review, but Paradox are a disgrace to humanity. CK3 is an amazing game. I love it. It's super fun, but eventually I've gotten bored of playing the same playthroughs again and again, but if you want to play as essentially any character with a unique government type for example, sorry bud, that'll be 30€. You want to make hybrid cultures and mess around and have fun? Too bad. 30€. I only have the base game and one DLC, northern lords, since I loved…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Every DLC should have and probably would have been free updates to the game if it were any other company, all of them add very little to the game, but don't worry they'll add more to flesh it out later...and then charge you 20 bucks again. Paradox has become one of the most greedy company's to exist. Too much ask for not nearly enough give.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a good game, but why do I need to spend 170 dollars for the DLC's? Is paradox serious? Greed with no limits. I'm actually not buying any of the DLC's out of principle. Maybe sell me the completed game instead.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I cannot recommend this nor any paradox game for one simple reason: The game requires DLC to get the full experience. MOST if not ALL game content is locked behind a DLC. If you want any up to date mechanics, you need to pay $275 on the DLC AFTER paying $50 for just the base game. This is not a game I can recommend without DLC. I bought this game near the time of release, when they had no DLCs released, and now I cannot play the "full" game without paying $300. I will NOT spend that much…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think its a great game for girls where you can play as a queen, have a nice husband, care for your kids and enjoy the attention from priests. I really enjoyed how weddings are done and finally fulfilled my female urge of having a great wedding. Big love to the developers, waiting for them to add my home country Japan. xoxo everybody, have a great rest of your day
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →DLC policy is so shameless and predatory, I would rather not to pay that much for each game. I'm sick of paying money for what would be considered "feature updates" for other games and no better than "Mostly Positive" at best.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →picked up Crusader Kings III > start game > son and wife kidnapped by vikings > divorce wife so I can have new son > new son killed by vikings > new wife dies of tuberculosis > try to seduce viking leader > learn norse poetry > give viking leader tuberculosis > die in hunting accident 10/10 gameplay
positive · AI labelView post →Still playing that Crusader Kings III game where I'm trying to recreate and exceed both Ancient Egypt's greatest extent and religious reach. It's going... pretty good.
positive · AI labelView post →When they made Byzantine DLC, they somehow locked down landless play, and now they made a China DLC, they somehow locked down Japan and Southeast Asia content? Not to mention never revisiting old DLCs to update them to interact and rebalance them with newer DLCs as well, or even fixing 2 gamebreaking DLCs (Friend and Foe, and Coronation which they've admitted to abandon in favor of developing AuH). Not only this finally unmasks their greed, it also reveals their laziness. I don't have high…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The team needs to take a break from new content and spend time being custodians of the game they've created. The old DLCs need to be polished and brought up to the current standard, they need to fix the near-constant desync'ing in multiplayer and take a hard look at the current state of the game before adding new content.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I once loved this game, however each DLC brings with it more bugs and the gameplay just keeps getting worse. When this game released its first few DLC expansions the developers did a wonderful job seamlessly implementing them into the games core gameplay, while not effecting users playing without it. Unfortunately like most other paradox games the developers got lazy and the company money hungry. The only updates this game gets are tied to DLC content, most of which creates a gameplay void for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is fantastic but the expansions and addons are exhorbitantly expensive. They offer a subscription service to get them all but i prefer to own the game and for that reason im giving it a -
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →8/10 Should have been called Crusade for your Wallet if you wanna get all the dlcs but, Great game for medieval power fantasy where you seduce rivals, abduct princesses, murder siblings, and turn your family tree into inbred spaghetti.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The near thousand hours Steam says I've put in feel kind of misleading - but even if you only count the times I've actually played an entire character through, without mod troubleshooting or false starts, it's still a lot of hours. And they've been fun hours! I really really want to like this game, and I really really want to keep playing it. So why the "not recommend"? I just keep thinking about the one experience that makes me not want to go back to this game, despite all that. I was…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love this game. I have been playing since CKII and I just love this game. There is no other Grand Strategy game like it. It is like a role playing game meets strategy wargame. It is exceptional, but for two aspects: 1) Paradox's DLC pricing strategy is outrageous. They do include most of the features in the base game for most of the expansions, but key features are locked behind overpriced DLCs. This is nothing new, they have been doing it for years on all their games, but they have now…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →SHOULD YOU PLAY CRUSADER KINGS III? Do you like big fancy maps? Role-playing games? Game of Thrones? Because Crusader Kings III is a role-playing game, played on a big fancy map, with all the violence, sex and skulduggery you would find in a mature fantasy novel. While it’s certainly an intimidating game at first glance, believe me when I say it’s well worth getting into, and after you’ll have grasped the fundamentals, it’s nowhere near as hard as it appears from the offset. Despite having…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm just tired of DLC that should have been in-game and not sold separately. All paradox games have this problem. It needs to stop. Especially when you charge $30 bucks for it. You know what I can with that $30 bucks? Not buy your DLC. ♥♥♥♥ you. These people are worse than ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Total war when it comes to this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Devs/companies like is are a blight on gamers. The games fine alone, I guess. You can enjoy it for what it is but replay value drops after two runs of it. $200 you can pay…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My loving wife contracted smallpox. Then my three young daughters. Then my infant son, the only male heir. They all died. I survived, suffered a mental breakdown, became a drunk and took the Court Jester as a concubine. 10/10. Will play again.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is the best game for neurodivergent folks who love excel, no I will not elaborate
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Avoid all Paradox games at all costs. A once proud and amazing studio is gone, and in its place are broken games, and endless over priced DLC products that only change the game incrementally. They update policy gives you a third of new DLC's, but without any way of actually manipulating the new mechanics unless you pay for the whole thing. You might say, 'then don't download the updates', to which I will point out that all bug fixes are handled in these updates, and updates are tied to mods, so…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A very good game. Unfortunately, the constant desynchronization issues and the fact that achievements are disabled in multiplayer are unacceptable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →neo-royalist foreign policy (the king has gone insane like a game of Crusader Kings III)
neutral · AI labelView post →fun especially with friends, fun with mods to fix the game, interesting to explore medieval age made with the most greedy intentions you could imagine this thing itself is what you would expect of your paradox games: - poor optimisation -dlc policy -a subscritption but then they decided "hey guys lets increase the price 10 fold without actually doing anything with base game" surely, it worked for this game. Even more people are not going to buy this PRODUCT, peps will spend their money on…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game for committing incest and casually invading and killing half of France. Can recommend Added: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Game of Thrones + dragons + Targ incest 100% goated game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Comprehensive Analysis of Deep Flaws in CK3 Core Mechanics: Centralization vs. Eurocentric "Thug-State" Bias and Broken Pacing Dear Crusader Kings 3 Development Team, I am writing to express my profound frustration with a series of interlocking, deeply flawed design mechanics in Crusader Kings 3. When combined, these mechanics utterly ruin the experience of playing a highly centralized, legitimate bureaucratic empire (such as an Eastern/Confucian state) and turn a grand strategy experience…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the base game itself is good; i think the DLC practices are a little predatory. where it really shines is with mods like CK3AGOT
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You can sleep with the pope and then break his heart by invading him and putting him in your dungeon and torturing him until he dies. 10/10 if you don't value your sanity
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought the game just to play the AGoT mod, ended up playing the base game and love it. AGoT mod is amazing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →fun, addictive game. some of the dlcs seem a bit greedy, but you can enjoy the game without them just fine (i dont have any right now). wish i could give a somewhat neutral review.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was intimidated to start this game for the longest and what a dumb move that was. Just play through the very easy-to-follow tutorial and you will be into it before long. I still get a little lost looking for things in the UI but it's really not too bad. The upside is some of the most unique and engaging story-telling. Also my geography knowledge has gotten a huge boost. Infinite replayability potential
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While this game is really good, and better than CK2 in many ways, something should be said about the amount of DLC. I feel like the base game is missing so much content, and the amount of DLC you need to enjoy it to it's fullest potential makes this a very expensive game. Still though, I love this game and will continue playing it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →THIS is the time I don’t bounce off of CRUSADER KINGS III. I need a strategy game for the half-hour spin down at night, and there’s nothing else I can see in the slot. I will gladly take recs in the comments.
neutral · AI labelView post →Only play for the Agot Mod. 10/10, Started my own house during the year 0 and conquered the iron islands just to be slimed out by a Stag during a hunt
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I always wanted to try out Paradox games, but I never wanted to put the time to learn the gameplay because it seemed too complex. I finally did it over the weekend and it lead to 30 hours of gameplay in 3 days...now I know what crack feels like. Its a phenomenal game for anyone that has interest in history and political drama and its totally worth the money, especially when its on sale. I can't wait to try other Paradox games in several years when I am done here lol.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I definitely recommend Crusader Kings III. I heavily use mods when I play, and the modding community adds an insane amount of content and replayability, but even without mods, the base game itself is genuinely amazing. There’s so much freedom in how you play. You can build a massive empire, focus on your dynasty, scheme your way through politics, create absolute chaos, or somehow turn what was supposed to be a serious campaign into the most ridiculous family drama imaginable. The…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dear Paradox Interactive Team, I am writing this message as a long-time player and supporter of your games, particularly the Crusader Kings series. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to raise a serious and ongoing issue that is widely reported across the community: the current state of Crusader Kings multiplayer stability. At present, multiplayer sessions are extremely unstable and, for many players, effectively unplayable. Sessions frequently crash after very short periods of time,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For this month's edition of The Backlog, I looked at Crusader Kings III, a game that has taken over more than one of my friends' lives. It rocks: defector.com/embrace-crus...
neutral · AI labelView post →Amazing game. The mods are crazy good, I recommend the A Game of Thrones mod and the Realms in Exile (LOTR) mods.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Crusader Kings 3 is honestly a really good game. It’s not just strategy, it’s more like you’re running a whole family and kingdom at the same time, and every decision actually matters. One minute you’re building alliances and trying to keep things stable, and the next you’re dealing with betrayals, succession drama, or a war that starts because somebody thinks they deserve your land. The best part is how it creates stories naturally. Every campaign ends up feeling different. The base game is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I came into CK3 thinking I’d play a medieval roleplaying game. A few hundred hours later, I realized I was actually interacting with a dynastic systems simulator disguised as a strategy game. What makes CK3 special isn’t just the wars, the map painting, or the roleplay. It’s the way the game lets you operate simultaneously at multiple scales: micro scale → individual personalities, marriages, hooks, stress, succession macro scale → institutions, legitimacy, economic development, cultural…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This week has been hectic as I'm preparing to attend a congress. But today I had time to relax and play Crusader Kings III. Unsurprisingly, my characters are always Adamites 😁 This is Anastasia, a Byzantine princess dispossessed and forced to exile due to her beliefs. #nudistgamer #nudistlife
positive · AI labelView post →Best strategy game i have ever played and the only one I have bought after pirating it :>
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →you do not need to buy the DLC to enjoy this game. buy the royal court, wandering nobles, and then get what interest you specifically.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you like eugenics, the idea of roleplaying a bloodline of great conquerors, and cuckolding the king of england. Then this game may be for you.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Crusader kings 3 is the type of game you play if you like customization and politics. If you enjoy the climb up the political ladder whether through long cons or hidden blades you'll enjoy this. Moving through the base game can feel empty but the massive amounts of mods can fill in a lot of it. If you were to get any DLC I would recommend many roads of power. It allows the player to take part in the admin system. This system being the easiest for social mobility if you don't want to outright…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →CK3 is a grand strategy game unlike any other, because you don't really play countries like in Paradox's other big titles. Rather, you play individuals within a dynasty. At first glance this may seem similar, even Victoria 3 now has portraits with leaders and modifiers, but in CK3 every decision is from the character's perspective, not the state or government. If I arrest a noble unjustly, and I have been raised to be just, I incur stress that weakens my character. I can choose to befriend or…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have a pretty intense love-hate relationship with this game, for a couple of reasons that I'll try to concisely explain here. Overall, I'd say that it makes for an addictive experience, and about 90% of the time, it's incredibly fun. Emphasis on "90% of the time". For a game that seems to pride itself on historical accuracy and the nitty-gritty details of kingdom management, there are a lot of mechanics that simply feel...unfinished, in some way. Which doesn't immediately seem like a big…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this game is so good and can be applied in real life. im currently plotting for my grandma to fall down the stairs so i can claim my inheritance. take that grandma.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Basically a Game of Thrones simulator. You’ve got everything from intrigues and backstabbing to love affairs and political scheming. You’ll spend hours building your dynasty, only to end up betrayed and killed by the ones you trusted the most. So yes, basically real life 1:1. Also, get the Game of Thrones mod if you’re a fan of the series. You’ll absolutely love it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Absolute peak of all Paradox gaming. Every single experience on this game is different, every character, every culture, every playthrough. It's the easiest paradox game to learn and pick up, but it's not too simple while still keeping enough complexity to find interesting. No two playthroughs will ever be the same, and the amount of ways people can play this game is just incredible. It has some lackluster dlcs every now and again, and some parts of the world are much more shallow than…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Easily the easiest paradox game out there. It is so fun to become stupidly overpowered and change history however you see fit. Obviously, wait until the game and it's DLC's are on sale, because paradox are greedy corporate scum.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It has stolen, and will keep stealing, hours of my life. Even when I do not play, it whispers to me, it calls me, and though I may resist, it is only a matter of time before I approach it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Incest, eugenics, and nepotism, the game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Memory Leak - The Game This game used to be good fun, but in recent years it has become basically unplayable on lower spec to medium spec devices. It hogs memory like there's no tomorrow. And Paradox probably will do nothing about it. Unless you have a beast PC, don't bother buying it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very fun to play, but it takes more than 15 minutes to launch for some reason i cannot begin to understand. Game runs just fine on my computer after it launches, the problem is it takes way too much time for it to start
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Started a new multiplayer game of Crusader Kings III with my friends and I made a horrible little intrigue man named Mr. Secrets. I literally cannot stop him from fucking the wife of the emperor of Japan. He's extremely fertile. I think it has something to do with his many ridges
positive · AI labelView post →
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