Paradox Development Studio (PDS) is a Swedish video game developer founded in 1995. It is closely associated with its parent company and

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ( ...

Paradox Interactive Paradox Interactive AB is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an independen ...

. It is best known for its

grand strategy wargame A grand strategy wargame or simply grand strategy game (GSG) is a wargame that places focus on grand strategy: military strategy at the level of movement and use of a nation state or empire's resources. It is a genre that has considerable overlap ...

series ''

Europa Universalis ''Europa Universalis'' is a grand strategy video game developed by Paradox Development Studio and published in 2000 by Strategy First. Development The game was originally based on a French board game of the same name by Philippe Thibaut that ...

'', '' Hearts of Iron'', ''

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

'', '' Crusader Kings'', '' Stellaris'', and '' Imperator''.

History

PDS is based on the heritage of the Swedish

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a co ...

company

Target Games Target Games was a Swedish publisher of role-playing games active from 1980 until the year 1999 when they went into bankruptcy proceedings. Until the mid-1990s they published their Swedish roleplaying games under the brand name Äventyrsspel (m ...

, and has been a game developer of PC-focused

grand strategy Grand strategy or high strategy is a state's strategy of how means can be used to advance and achieve national interests. Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of primary versus secondary theaters in war, distribution of resource ...

games since 1995, including the ''

'', '' Hearts of Iron'', ''

'', '' Crusader Kings'', '' Stellaris'', and '' Imperator'' series. The company continued to create PC games and in 1999, the company was divided into two separate entities:

, which focused on creating grand strategy games for PC, and

Paradox Entertainment Cabinet Entertainment, previously known as Paradox Entertainment, is a company dealing in intellectual properties and making motion pictures thereof. All business is conducted from the main office in Los Angeles, United States. The company was foun ...

, which focused on creating board and

role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ac ...

. In January 2012, the company divided yet again into two studios, becoming

and Paradox Development Studio. Paradox Interactive became the game publisher focused on PC games of various genres and Paradox Development Studio became the game development studio focused on grand strategy games. The game development studio was one of the first video game developers to create games in the grand strategy genre, and most of the games the studio has developed fall into that category. Grand strategy games are strategy games that usually cover the entire world map and include elements such as economy, diplomacy and warfare.

Studios

In 2021, Paradox Development Studio has reorganized and split into five internal development teams, with each one handling one of the Paradox's own IPs. While this left '' Imperator: Rome'' without a dedicated development team, PDS leads stated that they are figuring out how they will return to the series in time.

Game engines

To date, Paradox have engineered two main proprietary

game engines A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software ...

for their titles, Europa and Clausewitz. Both were also designed to be open to anyone who wishes to modify the original game files to create mods. As a result, games can be modded with as little as a

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...

, which has led to the development of strong modding communities for each of Paradox's games. Paradox developed its debut game ''

'' in 2000, and used large chunks of its code for its next games. Although this code overlap was subsequently referred to as the ''Europa Engine'', studio manager Johan Andersson clarified that the 'engine' had not been part of the initial designs of each of the company's first six games, and that it just resulted from copy-pasting large parts of code from one game to the next. In April 2008, Paradox allowed certain

indie game developer An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...

s to freely use the (by then) superseded engine as part of their Europa Engine Licensing Program. The move led to the development of games such as ''

For the Glory ''For the Glory'' is a grand strategy wargame that is based on ''Europa Universalis II'' and Paradox's Europa Engine. It was developed by Crystal Empire Games, a studio composed of members of the ''Europa Universalis II'' modification "Alternati ...

'', ''Arsenal of Democracy'', ''Darkest Hour'', and ''Iron Cross''. In 2007, the studio debuted a new game engine, called Clausewitz Engine in ''

Europa Universalis III ''Europa Universalis III'' is a grand strategy video game developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in January 2007, and was later ported to OS X by Virtual Progra ...

''. Named after the Prussian general

Carl von Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...

, the new engine provides a 3D view of part or the totality of the world map, depending on the played game. ''Sengoku'' (released 2011) was the first game utilizing the Clausewitz 2 engine. The studio's 17th game, '' Imperator: Rome'' (released 2019), was also built using Clausewitz, but with the addition of new 64-bit software known as "Jomini" (named after 19th century Swiss general

Antoine-Henri Jomini Antoine-Henri Jomini (; 6 March 177922 March 1869) was a Swiss military officer who served as a general in French and later in Russian service, and one of the most celebrated writers on the Napoleonic art of war. Jomini's ideas are a staple at m ...

) that allows for better 3D rendering and easier creation of mods. The newly improved engine now also features support for

DirectX 11 Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

List of games developed

List of games developed by Paradox Development Studios. Note that in addition to this list there are two other games developed in the early 2000s when the studio was part of

, '' Crown of the North'' and '' Two Thrones'', both part of the ''Svea Rike'' series.

Europa Engine

Clausewitz Engine

References

External links

Official website
{{Paradox development studio games Video game companies of Sweden Video game development companies Video game companies established in 1995 Companies based in Stockholm Swedish companies established in 1995 Paradox Interactive