Paradox Suspends Development of Imperator: Rome
Paradox decided to temporarily suspend development of Imperator: Rome. The developers responsible for the game were delegated to work on other projects for the publisher.
We have bad news for fans of strateg games from Paradox. The company has announced that it has suspended further development of Imperator: Rome. Fortunately, the state of affairs is to be temporary.
This decision is the result of a reorganization of the company's production structure. Its main team (Paradox Development Studio) has been divided into three groups dealing with separate projects. PDS Green is responsible for Stellaris, PDS Red for Crusader Kings III, and PDS Gold for Hearts of Iron IV. The company felt that these games were a priority at the moment, so they put the people who had been developing Imperator: Rome to work on them. They have also strengthened the teams responsible for future games.
Paradox assures that the company does not intend to abandon the game. It plans to recruit a new team which will take over the development of the project. It is not known when this will happen.
Paradox explains its decision by the fact that currently Imperator: Rome does not require quick changes. In February, the huge patch 2.0 launched, which thoroughly improved many aspects of the game. The update was received very warmly, as shown by player reviews on Steam. While only 56% of all user reviews since launch have been positive (a result of poor quality on launch day), 78% of reviews from the last 30 days have been positive.
Fans will be disappointed by the company's decision, but it's not hard to understand the reasons behind it. Patch 2.0 fixed the game, but did not lead to a renaissance in terms of popularity. According to data from SteamDB yesterday, at the hottest moment of the day, only 1,244 people were playing Imperator: Rome on Steam at the same time. For comparison - Crusader Kings 3 had 13,464 players, Hearts of Iron IV - 35,849, Europa Universalis IV - 21,525, and Stellaris - 28,355. Even the old-school Victoria II got a better result than Imperator, as yesterday's activity record for the title was 1,703 players.
Of course, the problem is that if the development of the game is stopped now, then after forming a new team Imperator: Rome may already be so unpopular that further work on the project will lose its sense.
What about Europa Universalis 4?
It's worth noting that Paradox Development Studio is currently not working on Europa Universalis IV, as that project has been handed over to a new team in Barcelona called Paradox Tinto. So far this has resulted in the disastrous Leviathan add-on.
