One player on Steam spends 8,000 hours in difficult strategy game, says first 1,000 are just the tutorial

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A Hearts of Iron 4 player suggests that newcomers to the game – and fans of Paradox strategy games in general – should expect to spend around 1000 hours mastering it.

This Swedish publisher is well-known in the strategy game world, particularly for creating games that are more complex than most. They’ve actually built a reputation on this, and don’t mind if people point it out.

A Steam review perfectly captures the experience of playing Hearts of Iron IV. The reviewer, who has played for over 8,000 hours, explains that it takes around 100 hours just to grasp the fundamentals, and another 900 to truly understand everything the game has to offer (according to Mein-MMO).

Many Hearts of Iron 4 players have noticed this problem – one person even joked online that Paradox games make him feel isolated. While this might be a minor annoyance for some, others see it as a significant issue. One Steam reviewer pointed out that the game seems designed with its downloadable content in mind, and playing without the DLCs leaves many features feeling unfinished.

Despite frequent criticism from players – most recently regarding the price of Expansion Pass 2 – the game keeps growing in popularity. Yesterday, it reached a new peak on Steam with over 65,000 concurrent players, according to SteamDB.

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2025-10-07 13:32