Impressions: I got to play Victoria 3 and so can you this October

destructoid.com:

Ever since Paradox Interactive announced Victoria 3, I’ve been in a state of semi-disbelief. It was a strategy game in-joke for so long that I couldn’t believe it was really happening. I was provided a preview build of the upcoming socio-economic grand strategy game thanks to Paradox. To quote Sidra Holland and Jackie Chiles, it’s “real, and it’s fantastic.” And soon, you too can politick to your heart’s content when the game releases on October 25, 2022.

For those of you present who aren’t cool enough to know what the Victoria series is all about, an introduction is in order. Victoria is a grand strategy game series aptly set during the Victorian era. Whereas other entries in the Paradox family of grand strategy games focus on war or lineage, Victoria‘s focus lies in economics and the changing political landscape of the dawning Modern age. Starting in 1836, you control a country and all of its economy and laws while trying to improve the lives of your citizenry. You know how you always scream at your screen that you “can do better” whenever some talking head politician messes everything up? Victoria allows you to put your money (or national credit) where your mouth is.

The problem with the Victoria series is that we’ve been devoid of a new entry since 2010 and the last entry is a notoriously hard nut to crack for various reasons. From the Version 0.1 build that I played, I can safely say that Victoria 3 is well on its way to addressing many of the barriers to entry that its previous entries had.

The first improvement that stood out to me was the UI/UX design, even compared to games as recent as Imperator: Rome. At a closed-door press demo, game director Martin Anward emphasized that while Victoria 3 would be easier for