Dev Diary 191 - 2025 in Review

Another year has passed, and the game grows ever larger! Before we look back on 2025, allow me to look back to 2017 for a moment! A mere two years after I had started working at Paradox, we released Jade Dragon for Crusader Kings 2 - an expansion that was somewhat of a compromise between adding Asia and not adding it. I remember designing systems of tribute and grace, where you could request various things from an immaterial off-the-map version of China… with a ‘western protectorate’, and a very artificial invasion of China acting as sort of an end-game boss for player empires reaching their height. We toyed with the idea of adding Asia on the map back then, but ultimately it was not possible due to a variety of concerns, such as performance, etc - CK2 was not a game meant for expansion on that scale.

But Crusader Kings III is!

It was a dream of mine, as well as others on the CK2 team that followed us to the CK3 team today (shoutout to @servancour), to one day have the entirety of the interconnected medieval old world playable - to have the possibility of literally going from Ireland to Cathay! And now, in 2025, this is reality.

We worked long and hard (the longest we’ve worked on any expansion, in fact) to make sure that completing the map would feel seamless, and not impact the game negatively. Tick speed (how fast days pass) needed to be roughly the same, the existing content needed to feel appropriate, etc. The amount of such maintenance needed was immense, but it was clear what we had to do. There was no shortage of discussions, feedback, and tales of caution from you in the community - and we collected this, weighed it carefully, and incorporated it into our plans. We also continued having early and in-depth Dev Diaries so that we could change and update things while there was still time - the early feedback loop proved as invaluable in 2025 as it was in 2024, and we’ll continue to collect feedback as early and as openly as we can.

Throughout the steppes - in the verdant reaches of China - across the insular lands of Japan and South-East Asia: we now have more of you playing than ever before. Yes, even more people are playing than when the game was first released, which is mind-boggling. To see so many of you playing and enjoying the game this many years after it was first released is extremely humbling! And it’s not only new players, but also returning players - those of you who might not have played for a while. For one day, we even surpassed Hearts of Iron IV in how many active players we have! 😄

[Celebratory image courtesy of @JonZone]

And it’s not stopping; more and more of you are playing each day that passes. We hope that what we’ve made will continue to bring you joy throughout the winter and the holidays, all while we’re working on what’s coming next.

Now, let’s recap the year in more detail!

Chapter 4

Let’s go through the content in the order it was released!

Realm Maintenance 2025

We started off the year with a big Realm Maintenance update, containing improved Combat AI, Automated armies, info on allied armies, an updated Interaction UI, a large update to Court Positions including Tasks and a new UI, as well as many, many other things. Essentially a