Paradox abandons multiple unannounced projects to focus on ‘proven game niches’
One particular month following the shock departure of previous CEO Ebba Ljungerud, Paradox Interactive has announced the cancellation of work on many unannounced projects. Paradox explained it decided to pull the plug on the games so that it can instead target on “demonstrated video game niches and initiatives that superior satisfy the company’s needs on returns and chance.”
All those “demonstrated game niches,” of training course, are tactic online games. “It is wherever we have our heart and our intellect and we are passionate about earning video games that our gamers can love above a lengthy period of time,” Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester claimed. “Hence we have sharpened our pipeline further more to make sure that the jobs with the optimum possible have the assets important for the very best attainable growth.”
The past calendar year has not been variety to Paradox, or the people today who do the job there. There was excitement all over the announcement of Victoria 3 in May possibly, but the anticipated criminal offense administration sim Empire of Sin failed to are living up to expectations, the wheels arrived off Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, and the reaction to the Europa Universalis 4: Leviathan growth was so overwhelmingly unfavorable that the game director formally apologized for yrs of “minimal quality releases.”
The problem is even worse internally: Soon just after Ljungerud’s resignation, a greater part of females responding to an inside study discovered that they had experienced mistreatment or abuse in the workplace a week right after that, Wester—who Ljungerud experienced replaced in 2018—apologized for “inappropriate habits” with another Paradox worker at a business meeting that yr.
Wester reported in the statement that Paradox now has 15 games in growth, some new and some sequels, four of which have been formally announced: Victoria 3, Crusader Kings 3 and the Shadowrun Trilogy for consoles, and—despite its troubles—Bloodlines 2.