Paradox apologizes for botching yet another DLC release: ‘It hurts so much when we f**k up like this’

PC Gamer’s Joshua Wolens wrote last month that Crusader King 3’s then-upcoming DLC Coronation would provide “even more opportunities to be murdered spectacularly by your vassal.” He was close, as it turns out, but a bit off the mark: It is in fact Paradox Interactive that’s being spectacularly murdered by Crusader Kings 3 players, for once again blowing it with a DLC release.

One day after its launch, Coronations holds a “mostly negative” rating on Steam, driven by complaints about the minimal additions it makes to the games and the bugs it brings along with it.

“This is literally a DLC that doesn’t change anything,” one reviewer wrote. “I understand that it’s a content pack, but it’s at the level of a mod from a workshop, or a small free update, as an attention-grabber for a major update. But definitely not something that can be called DLC.”

Another review called Coronations “a welcome addition” but also said it should’ve been put out as a free update: “Paradox, just make this one free, and re-evaluate what sort of content is worth being paid for in the future. You are just nickel and diming people at this point.”

Even the positive reviews hammer Coronations for offering very little for the cost. One user wrote, “As someone who already paid for it, I think this should have been free or should be made free so everyone can use it,” while another suggested players “buy it if you have some free money,” but otherwise, “it’s not really recommended.”

Given the choice, most people in most cases would rather get stuff for free than have to pay for it, but in this case that doesn’t seem to be at the root of the ‘should be free’ complaints. In a lengthy message posted to Steam, Crusader Kings 3 QA manager Riad apologized for the state of Coronations, saying it “was not up to the standard you deserve.”

Riad said PDS Black, the Paradox studio working on Crusader Kings 3, has been “pouring enormous resources” into the development of the All Under Heaven expansion, which will expand the game across all of Asia. Because of that, other projects, including Coronations, have not been given the resources they need to do their jobs—something Riad said he wants to avoid in the future.

“As a studio, we’re taking a hard look at how we assign resources, and support our developers so that every release meets the expectations you rightfully have,” Riad wrote. “For example, we will be more stringent about allowing last-minute changes to the game (which can cause issues like broken oaths). We will also ensure that we dedicate more time towards full-length playthroughs throughout the entire development cycle, to ensure that issues like these can’t slip through. This is about making sure the quality of every DLC lives up to the game that I, and many of you, love.

“Many of us on the team, myself included, joined Paradox as fans of the games. Meeting you at events (most recently in Visby!), hearing your stories, and seeing how much Crusader Kings III means to you is what makes this work so meaningful. That’s why it hurts so much when we fuck up like this. We don’t take your trust for granted, and I want to do my best to ensure we earn it back.”

I have no doubt about the sincerity of the apology. Paradox’s problem, as many people pointed out in the comments, is that this seems to happen a lot. Just a few weeks ago, Paradox was forced to walk back an obviously ill-conceived plan to lock two clans in Bloodlines 2 behind $30 DLC, although it has yet to specify exactly how it’s “making adjustments” on that front. In 2024 the publisher apologized for an equally dumb DLC release for Cities: Skylines 2, and a few years prior to that it said sorry for literally years of general shittiness in Europa Universalis 4.

This has not gone unnoticed. “If this was the first time paradox was apologizing for a rushed, subpar DLC I might take this post seriously,” Steam user marshall said in response to Riad’s apology. “Sadly it’s not even the first for CK3, I also play several other Paradox games and get the same ♥♥♥♥, the studio is banking on our good will to release crap and make more $ (less workers for a DLC = more profit). Good will is NOT infinite.”

“While I appreciate the apology, it has been a trend across many updates or DLCs for all your games this last year or two,” MadMax X added.

“Literally, I feel like I’ve read some variant of this apology a half dozen times,” Xineate wrote.

A few also pointed out that while Paradox has apologized, it’s also continuing to charge full price for the DLC. Coronations costs just $5/£4.29/€5 on Steam, so not a huge amount of money, but some Steam reviews say it’s more akin to a Steam Workshop mod than actual DLC. Paradox did offer refunds on the botched Beach Properties DLC for Cities: Skylines 2 and made it free for everyone, but at this point there’s no indication the same thing will happen here.

Paradox has put out a small patch, however, that aims to fix the worst of the bugs in Coronations, so at least it should work more or less properly now. The patch notes on that are below.

• Fixed the issue with always getting the Oathbreaker event, regardless of if you completed the oath or not
• The buildings needed for the three “build special oath buildings” oaths have been changed from tier 3 to tier 2
• The special oath buildings have had their costs and modifiers reduced across the board
• The special oath buildings have had some of their triggers simplified, so they need fewer of their requirements than they used to
• These oaths have also had the time you can do them increased from 10 years to 20 years
• Specifically for the spiritual one, switched the requirements from tier 3 to 2, and vice versa
• The Alliance oath has been changed from 5 alliances needed to 3
• Building Oath (the generic one) has been reduced from 10 buildings to 8, and the time available to do it has been increased (from 15 years to 20)
• Legendary Hunt has been changed from 3 to 1, and has had the time available increased (from 20 years to 40)
• Fixed the Prepare Heir oath decision, so it checks for the proper scope in its requirements, and also removed the gold cost
• Added two new modifiers for the AI, so if they choose a warlike oath, they will have an increased war chance, and similarly, if they have the peace oath, they will have a peace oath, which will decrease their war chance
• Removed health bonuses and maluses from Prepare the Heir rewards
• Added extra checks for the AI so they will try to take oaths that make sense
• Fixed the End the Struggle oath, so it correctly tells you which struggle area it is targeting, and massively increased the time it is available to you (from 20 years to 50)
• Increased the time available to do the Repent Oath from 10 years to 20 years
• Fixed Anointment Doctrines and Anointment activity type being available to faiths with Temporal Head of Faith (these are for Spiritual HoF faiths only); temporal HoF faiths have guaranteed access to regular coronation instead
• Fixed duplication bugs and self-crowning malus caused by temporal HoF being Coronation host
• Blocked the building oaths for Nomads and Tribals