Crusader Kings III is the kind of game that you could quite easily lose days, weeks, or even months to once you’ve wrapped your head around its many, many systems. It’s a ridiculously in-depth strategy title — the kind that you rarely see on consoles — but port studio Lab42 has done a solid job of making the whole thing manageable on PlayStation 5 with a controller in hand. Granted, some of the menus inside of menus inside of menus are a bit difficult to navigate, but generally speaking, this is a nicely designed console version.
Crusader Kings III tasks you with establishing, ruling over, and expanding your own kingdom. Gameplay takes place on a huge world map that more or less resembles our reality, split up into a massive number of Middle Age nations, each with their own laws, religious beliefs, and dreams of conquest. As far as dynamically generated game worlds go, this is a seriously impressive creation, capable of presenting hundreds of in-game years’ worth of storytelling opportunities.
A lot of this storytelling manifests through characters — kings, queens, dukes, clan chiefs, religious figureheads — and your chosen ruler will have to navigate a political minefield in the hopes of solidifying their country’s position. Alongside arranging marriages to ensure that your bloodline lives on, you’ll be forging alliances, waging war on (preferably) weaker nations, and perhaps carrying out more sinister plots — like assassinating dissenters or potential usurpers of your throne.
Crusader Kings III weaves an incredibly tangled web even during its dedicated tutorial campaign. The sheer amount of information that you’re saddled with from the word go can be completely overwhelming — but this is the wall that you’re going to have to scale if you want to get anything out of Crusader Kings III. It takes a lot of time and a lot of patience — but you’ll be rewarded with a truly engrossing experience.
It’s easy to see why Crusader Kings III is so revered on PC. It’s a brilliantly deep and dynamic strategy title that simply never stops giving — but you’ll need to commit to learning its near countless intricacies before diving in proper. A dangerously addictive game once you’re invested.
