Industry Video game industry Website website Founded 1995 | Area served Worldwide Number of employees 80 | |
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Paradox development studio the history of historical strategy
Paradox Development Studio is a Swedish video game developer founded in 1995. It is closely associated with its parent company and video game publisher, Paradox Interactive. It is best known for its grand strategy game series Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, Victoria and Stellaris.
Contents
- Paradox development studio the history of historical strategy
- History
- Clausewitz Engine
- List of games developed
- References
History
Paradox Development Studio is based on the heritage of the Swedish board game company Target Games, and has been a game developer of PC-focused grand strategy games since 1995, including the Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, and Victoria series. The company continued to create PC games and in 1999, the company was divided into two separate entities: Paradox Interactive, which focused on creating grand strategy games for PC, and Paradox Entertainment, which focused on creating board and role-playing games.
In January 2012, the company divided yet again into two companies, becoming Paradox Interactive 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 historical strategy games that usually cover the entire world map and include elements such as economy, diplomacy and warfare.
Clausewitz Engine
In 2007 the Paradox Development Studio debuted a proprietary game engine, titled Clausewitz (named after the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz), in Europa Universalis III which has been put to use in every game developed by PDS since. The engine provides a 3D view of part or the totality of the world map, depending on the played game. Sengoku was the first game utilizing the Clausewitz 2 engine.
The engine is designed to be open to anyone who wishes to modify the files to create "mods." This means only a text editor is required to mod the game, and has led to the development of strong modding communities for Paradox games.
List of games developed
List of games developed by Paradox Development Studio.
In addition to this list there are two other titles developed in the early 2000s when the studio was part of Paradox Entertainment, Crown of the North and Two Thrones, both part of the Svea Rike series.